Guest Writer, Matt Kennedy is an International Wedding Photographer and has been shooting weddings for 7 years throughout North America, Mexico and Italy. He is well known for his Sparkler Shots and Marketing techniques and is always willing to share and raise the bar for the industry.
If there’s one thing the average Facebook user doesn't seem to execute properly it’s cropping their images. Cropping is such an integral part to the composition of a finished image, and when so much time and consideration has gone in to a shot being polished and complete, it kills me to see images destroyed by poor cropping. We all know that Facebook can bring a lot of referrals in, so you want to make sure that your images are presented in the most attractive way possible.
Now it’s not just the innocent bystanders fault… it’s Facebook, it’s mobile devices, it’s web browser windows, and it’s a lot to think about! We’re not just dealing with prints and frames anymore, we’re dealing with various shapes and sizes of viewing windows and we want to maximize the compatibility of our images with these things so our images are seen in their best light.
First we need to understand our clients' process for choosing images to showcase in such coveted positions as the Facebook cover photo and profile photo. Usually it comes down to them getting amazing images of themselves (or their cats) and then they will click on the cover image of their profile page and select “Change Cover” and then “Upload Photo.” This is what they’re used to doing for the most part... and most people haven’t noticed the option of “Use as Profile Picture” or “Use as Cover Photo”. This means the client has to have the image on their computer or mobile device in order to upload it. Then when they upload it they are able to re-position the photo, but I’m not sure that they always do. This is why we need to prepare them some images that they will not have to crop. Also, images that you post to your business page cannot be used directly as cover images for some reason (thanks Facebook). The client has to download the image from there, or get it from the images you sent them, and upload it themselves.
Here’s where you come in as the professional and the curator of your work. It is your job to give your client the best service possible, and I believe that one facet of that is making their life easy when it comes to printing and sharing their photos. Remember that it is in your best interest to put in a little extra effort so that you see the referral return because your work is showcased for everyone to see. So here are my top 5 tips for the Facebook Cover image and profile picture.
Choose some photos that will look good as facebook cover images and crop them in the aspect ratio of 1700W x 630H and export at 72DPI.
Ensure that nothing important is in the lower left corner of the image because the profile picture window will interfere with it.
HINT: If the main focus of the shot is in the lower left, mirror the image so that it’s on the right. Clients most likely won’t know how to do this themselves, so you’re a hero!
Choose some close up shots that you think would make for a good profile picture and crop them to a square.
HINT: Usually close up shots work best for profile pictures as they are used as small thumbnails throughout Facebook and other websites that use Facebook login, so their faces will be recognizable even when small.
For weddings, choose at least 1 cover image of each of the following to maximize the chances of people using your photos as their cover image:
Bridesmaids with bride
Groomsmen with groom
Whole wedding party
Bride’s Immediate family
Groom’s Immediate family
Bride and groom together
Share the images with the couple in a separate collection (if using PASS) and let them know that you've chosen a few that you think would be great fits for them just to make their lives easier, but that they can use other images if they want as well. By you giving your input, you are now giving them service they didn't expect and putting the thought in their heads that this is what they should do with your photos anyways.
I have found great success with this system of sharing images, and many times have had the whole wedding party and many guests using my images the day after the wedding as their cover and profile photos. I hope this helps you get some more referrals and most of all helps your clients have a great experience with you as a photographer.
If you’d like more information about this or other topics, or if you just want to say Hi feel free to message me via Facebook or my website.
Talk to me when all your income comes out of photography! Until then we have nothing in common. Your ignorance on the matter is unbelievable. If anyone is on a high horse it is you who thinks that having a day job supporting your moonlighting as a photographer is the way to go! That is BS. Try supporting your photography out of your photography then talk, and tell US how to run our businesses. We don't have day jobs supporting us, nor trust funds, so it is quite insulting when you tell us how to ran our business and basically making us compete with IT professionals when we have nothing in common. I compete with other photographers who pay their mortgage out of photography and not someone with a 6 figure job! That is flat out insulting to this business more than you can imagine and shows complete lack of common sense towards your peers, or our business as a whole. Join ASMP, PPA then talk.
Your friend photog is probably also clueless on how to run a business properly.
Regarding Picasa? you're talking to me about the crappiest software out there? r u serious? I don't use Picasa ever, or iPhoto? these are for amateurs, it would be insulting my client for me as a business to hand over an unfinished file! I cannot charge someone money and deliver an unfinished product to them! This is why now I have to spend time educating my clients and showing them the difference between people like you and people like me, and what their money buys from me versus you. I offer many options too, don't worry about that, but I offer them all legally, and with proper terms. Why do you think Verizon has terms and conditions? why do you think ALL other companies have terms and conditions? why do you assume the photography business is any different? wait I know: you are NOT a business OWNER...You're someone's employee and have NO CLUE what it takes to run a business, create an image for your business, and CONTINUALLY provide clients with excellent service.
Talk to me when you're business owner, not a fake photographer giving us all a bad name, and propagating fake business practices.
I know what your next answer is going to be: "but I can't make enough out of photography to pay my mortgage out of it"! well you have to thank yourself for that as well, for offering it Unlicensed properly, and for jumping for joy at photo credit, and all these antics that gullible photographers fall for! STUDY the business side for a minute then talk.
How do you expect a photographer to compete with an IT? we don't offer the same services!
Those who don't license their work are leaving a ton of money on the table, and I find them to be NOT business savvy at all; not even a little bit. They are fooling themselves greatly and only contribute to the destruction of this field. See what happened to the Sun Times photographers.
You are posting examples of a photographer who doesn't care if his work is pirated? are you out of your mind!?? wow...OK! Conversation over. Your ignorance is mind blowing really.
I suggest you subscribe and watch this before telling us how to do our jobs! We don't tell you how to do yours do we????
http://kelbytraining.com/course/jack_ed_copyright_registration/
http://kelbytraining.com/course/twallace_business/
Then talk.
"That is BS. Try supporting your photography out of your photography then talk, and tell US how to run our businesses."
Answer me this one you ignoramus. where on this comment thread did you ever see me telling anybody how to run their business, where did you see me attacking anybody for the way they decided to conduct their Business?
Now go back and read your incoherent ramblings:
"Regarding Picasa? you're talking to me about the crappiest software out there? r u serious? I don't use Picasa ever, or iPhoto? these are for amateurs, it would be insulting my client for me as a business to hand over an unfinished file!"
Do you lack reading comprehension or are you just another victim of the failed education system? I never said I delivered anything PP'ed in iphoto or Picasa, that is what most people use to organize their photos.... they handle Raw files just fine. That was my point.
"Talk to me when you're business owner, not a fake photographer giving us all a bad name, and propagating fake business practices."
I never done such things neither do I need to. To the contrary people like you and what you are doing here in a public forum is what give Photographers a bad name. Think about it. =)
"Your friend photog is probably also clueless on how to run a business properly."
I don't think so she is very good at what she does. She knows what I want as a client and provide me with the value I need. in return I pay her for her work and continue to bring her my business.... whats so fail about that???
"I know what your next answer is going to be: "but I can't make enough out of photography to pay my mortgage out of it"! well you have to thank yourself for that as well, for offering it Unlicensed properly, and for jumping for joy at photo credit, and all these antics that gullible photographers fall for! STUDY the business side for a minute then talk."
Once again You are WRONG! You jump to conclusions. Guess how much money I made from photography this year, exactly 0 dollars. My side business (Data recovery) does fund my photography hobby, by that I would say that I am a successful business owner. Mather of fact this year business has been so good that in august I will be visiting Machu Picchu. All expenses payed out of recovering a failed Storage array..... that belonged to a Photography studio.........
"I suggest you subscribe and watch this before telling us how to do our jobs! We don't tell you how to do yours do we????"
I am one step ahead of you, I've been a NAPP member for two years now.
Ok with that said, @agphotography:disqus you might think that we have nothing in common, and to a certain degree you are correct, but I do see something in common, we are both passionate about what we do, you as a Pro Photographer and me as a hobbits (Or fake photog how ever you want to look at it). One thing I do know for sure, life is way to short to be making enemies, so Sir/Mam (Sorry i dont know what Gender you are) Im going to end this conversation here, if you feel like it look me up in google +, I wish you the best in your business and professional career. Take Care.
Last comment:
http://paidcontent.org/2013/06/18/photographer-sues-buzzfeed-for-3-6m-ov...
This is going to start happening so much more visual than it did so far, that eventually you will understand what I'm saying. If you have any doubt call Ed Greenberg and he will illuminate you regarding why it is important to license your photographs and not throw them away, or worst: allow the client, who is not educated in photography, temper with your work.
You do realize that there are people out there that do not work in IT, or photography, who buy a camera and do the same thing you do except with ever less knowledge on the matter. I will never agree that this is a "new way" of doing business, and will always believe is the fastest way to shot yourself in the foot.
By what standard? When you're in business, its the whole package, and not just the camera that matters. Why do you think its OK to lower people's standards? Digital cameras + software have taken us a LOT further than film ever did, why so quick to ruin it?
"I don't think so she is very good at what she does"
A.G. Photography I don't think you understand where i am coming from. I also think you are underestimating my knowledge about Copyright, I deal with this day in and day out, my employer has tasked our department in the past with tasks that include anything from providing evidence to back take down notices for digital work we have produced, to proactively going out and looking for violators using reverse image searches and other methods.
With that said you are passing judgement on a business model that somebody choose to follow with out you even knowing the details. You can provide value to your customers while still protecting you work.
Also I never claim to be in favor of the "Cheaper experience" remember you get what you pay for. If somebody is willing to go cheap on a photographer and they are whiling to take a lesser quality product in exchange then who am I or you to judge them for it. It is their decision.
The true problem here is that photographers are loosing profit to the non pro's, and trust me I get that! we have the same problem in the IT business, ever heard of the Geek-squad? I have seen these buffoons rip people off for a lot of money, meanwhile I offer a better product for a bit more. I'm not lowering peoples standards, they choose the inferior product that was their choice.
Here you are passing judgement on another photographer and you have not even seen her work yet! Yet you throw blind accusations of inferiors service and lack of knowledge about running business yes you don't even know the person let alone how good they are or not.
I asked by who's standards? Joe McNally's? or Joe from the grocery store? or the Geek squad! LOL (those are a freakin joke!) I've been building computers since 1998, I once overheard a conversation that made me cringe, but whatever! Best Buy its on its way out anyway.
My point, which is really hard to get across here, is that IF you have 10 people in one room and you present them all with non-pro work, "as" pro work because the person with the camera said so, not because there are any real credentials involved, how are these people going to know the difference? or be able to make an educated decision between "crap", "good enough" and "great"? The more these people propagate low quality work, the more new people/generations will not have access to great work anymore, because now real pro's will have increased their fees beyond normal to differentiate from the mass of pixels, and make it harder and harder for someone to just get some nice photos, and not have to settle for "good enough, meh". I don't agree with the Photo CD thing. However, I did offer a limited # of photos for WEB ONLY use (that included social media license of course and was specified NOT to alter my watermark or image in any way shape or form or there will be a damage fee to pay up) they were all watermarked clearly, not obnoxiously, and they were 5 total, and you know why? because part of my job as a pro is also "marketing", and an average person is NOT going to spend more that 2 minutes looking at your pictures. I discuss this aspect prior to the shoot and explain to them "why" I have the terms I do. Those who offer "all photos on disk" etc are just being wasteful, and not focused. Quantity does not overpower Quality. So I asked if she was good by what standards? good by average Instagram? is she someone who spends a great deal of time on one photo to make it perfect? is she the "in-camera" shooter>burn to dick>deliver>see ya never?...and so on...she should join PPA if didn't yet, and start studying the business side. We are not trying to be mean, or rip people off, we are simply doing business as any other business is done. We are not doing anything different than a shoe shop: we advertise, which costs us money, we register images, which costs us money, we have to pay for our cameras/software/computers/my desk chair, food etc and it all comes out of what we make our of photography and not some other job; read below. That guy is a much better writer than I am, and I also don't pretend to be a writer.
http://photoprofessionals.wordpress.com
This was just posted on PetalPixel:
http://petapixel.com/2012/02/20/training-a-newbie-in-one-week-to-fake-it...
Not a shot at you...I just saw it on Twitter...but the point is this: what do you think people who go to get a bachelors in photography learn in 4 years? its not just how to use the camera, you have the manual for that....it is so much more that needs to be studied, and applied before one can call him/herself a pro photographer. Just cause someone has the money to buy a DSLR does not make them a pro. Buy a Mamyia or a Hasselblad create some stunning imagery then talk.
This is what it really costs to be a wedding "professional" photographer:
http://www.petapixel.com/2012/01/26/why-wedding-photographers-prices-are...
None of that is paid from working at Walmart! or elsewhere.
Copyright, licensing, advertising, marketing (two different things), lots to consider when you become a pro photographer, it is no longer "point & shoot" but with a DSLR. People's memories are at stake here! A wedding will not repeat a second time so they get better photos, neither are baptisms, or other events people plan to have photographed. It is NOT OK to play photographer with people's memories. You get a hurricane/tornadoes/earthquakes whatever, and you see people run after are their PHOTOS in the debris piles!!!!!!!!!!!
If you love photography at all, next time you go out and shoot something think of the pro's a bit, and that we don't have the luxury to compete with people that make 6 figures a year! we have to eat too! and license your shots accordingly. Use FotoQuote if ever in doubt of what to charge.
You're kidding right? so you don't care about your image, and what propagates online of all places? Photography is licensed and not sold. By the way, if you go to Disney World, and a park photographer takes your photo, and you take your photo pass online and order the digital file there are two things that are going to happen:
1. You realize the photo quality is horrendous, not sharp at all, and not processed in any way. They don't post process anything, they are "pointing & shooting" with DSLR's, to show off. I received a refund twice already because of sharpening and because they got the Castle in focus and not us. So you find that the quality is horrible.
and...
2. When you download that file, it comes with a LICENSING Agreement, and IF you don't bring that to Walgreens say, Wallgreens will NOT give you your photos. So, the point is this: this is a multi-billion dollar company that is charging you money to take a crappy photo and they don't even FULLY sell it to you, and you want to tell me that as a private photographer/small business owner you don't care about your image? your brand? That to me shows you have no business skills, or understand that once you charge people money for photographs (or anything else), you are a business, and you have to consider registering your images, registering as a business, pay taxes, advertise properly etc. There is no such thing that a real professional photographer is ever going to stop carrying about their photos after they delivered them to their clients. People photographers (portraits, weddings, school etc) live thanks to word of mouth! If I allow a customer to trash my work online, that can do serious damage to my business.
a big part of my contract with my clients very clearly outlines what they can and cannot do with my photos.. adding filters from instagram and other services (picasa etc) are all mentioned.. and they actually have to seperatly sign that part, and they have to let me know that they understand that part of the contract.. I also outline cropping.. and that if they need a photo cropped differently for prints, to contact me, as I crop the photos a certain way, and that i don't want the photo proportions to change... again they have to sign and let me know that they understand this..
i end up friends with may of clients on facebook, or they like my photography page.. so I end up seeing if they have edited my photos pretty quickly.
Are they paying for the extra time spent on this? & if you're actually going to fall for this trap at least watermark the photo so once Facebook renames it, at least people can know WHO took that shot!!!!
Sorry if this question might not directly relate to this, but speaking of a lot of screen/devices that your photo is viewed on, I'm facing this problem most of the times where my final photo's colours look perfect on my mac's screen, but when I check it on my mobile (S3), the colours look totally different and terrible!!
So does anyone know a solution or something that they'll at least look similar?!
If they look kind of desaturated and green, you can do what I do and save separate versions of the files for web in the color space sRGB. Otherwise, you might try calibrating your screen! :)
I ended up doing the manual collaborating of the screen on my macbook pro! And I'll definitely keep that in mind, thank you!!
No problem! It took me forever to figure out why my photos look weird online... sRGB to the rescue!
Ill try to post and simplify this again since the last one dissappeared...
At what point does a client who pays you to do a job ever own the photo? If i tell a furniture maker to build something for me, is he going to come and sue me for modifying it and putting a different fabric cover on it? Is the whole uproar about this because people on the internets will see your picture that you didnt edit and it might hurt your ego?
Ill ask the question again, at what point does the client own the photo?
Unless they have the exclusive license, they don't.
It's more important than ego, you live or die by your reputation and if someone sees your pro photo in a mangled form, with credit to you, it is going to do bad things in their eyes to your reputation as a serious, talented professional photographer. You might even lose a potential client or several if they see one of your photos displayed poorly.
It's definitely not just a selfish ego thing, it's a self-preservation business thing.
I understand the self-preservation business thing, but isnt it their photo to begin with once theyve paid? If you are actually credited with it(you can always tell them not to give credit if further edits are made in your contract) and its on fb, cant you just link back to the original in the comments? If its on a website, cant you just ask for the credit to be taken down? Im sure if you do that, then maybe they will see how atrocious their edit is! haha Also, i find once they do their own edit to something, they usually dont give credit back... Im ok with not getting credit for work I didnt do, arent you?
Typically no. The most common photography business model is that you're paid to take photos and then paid again when you sell prints (This covers editing, preparing for print, as well as cost of printing and some kind of profit for yourself). If you give away the rights to the photo to your client then what's to stop them simply getting it printed (badly) themselves on Snapfish? Nothing.
Wouldn't you rather they paid you to do it so you could deliver a quality product from a reputable lab that they'll love and will last for 20-30 years to come? That's the photography business.
You may be a hobbyist, but if you are a pro I would strongly advise that you keep *all* the rights to your work reserved. Even if you're a hobbyist, still don't just *give* stuff away. If you give mediocre work away then you're sort of sabotaging the market for the working pros. Don't give people an inbuilt expectation that photographers will work for free!
Sorry for the screed, but it is important :)
Pro for 5 years here, have always included the rights to the photos they get. For an hour of my time, client gets 10 digital photos for $400. If they want more, they pay for more. They can do whatever the heck they want with it. My time and release is included with each hour so everything is built in. I figure its about $75-100 an hour of work. I also offer printing, they rarely ever use it. I advise against all non-pro labs.
I get offering prints as a business model, it works for a lot of people. It doesnt work for my clients as they are usually business that produce a product so they usually get theirs printed on their own. If you agree with my model, awesome, if not, well we just have a difference of opinion I guess.
geez dude, no one is suggesting that you as the photographer should go and sue someone for misrepresenting their photo. All that people are trying to do is make sure their work gets presented in the best light possible. Im sure the value of this is obvious to you. If anything the methods in this post are very voluntary. You are giving the client something extra, putting in a bit of extra effort and work to make a special side product for Facebook covers and profile pics, and the client gets a better quality cover pic. Its win win, but if they happen to decide that they want to use another image, or crop one themselves, nothing is stopping them. No ones going to get sued, and no one is disputing who owns the photo.
I thin you took my comment to be against Matt, the writer. This is all the result fo the comments, not the article. I actually praised matt in a comment above saying I liked his idea. all good, man.
they have paid for it.... they can do whatever they want.
i hate when some wannabe "artists" try to tell others what they can do and what not.
i pay for it i do whatever i like with it.. i may even burn it.
Back on topic: I am wondering as to your choice of the settings you used for the FB cover photo. Why use a jpeg quality of 85 instead of 100? And, is there a reason to not use the FB standard size of 851 x 315?
Great questions Tonyc0101! In my experience there is absolutely no visible difference in a 100% quality image online compared to an 85% image, and an 85% image is much smaller in file size...so I've decided to go with that. As for the pixel size I've chosen to go with...as you can see, my pixel size is roughly 2x the size of the dimensions you've mentioned because these photos are often viewed at full size on larger screens like the 27" iMac's out there, and a photo at 851x315 is quite small on their screens. When it's displayed in the facebook cover photo spot it looks fine, but if someone downloads the photo from my system and views it on their screens I want it to come up larger and not pixelated.
Thanks Matt!! I totally didn't think about using a larger size for big screen users....genius! lol