Dept. of Corrections

Monday, January 31, 2011

Good news everyone. You can now FTP your images to Dept. of Corrections! No more burning dvds, packing, and shipping. DofC will provide you with a password protected drop box, and log-in info for your favorite FTP software. This will ease your workflow even more! However, if you're sending an entire wedding to be culled and corrected, that's still best done by shipping a portable hard drive, or high capacity CF Cards.

Why Outsource?

Photographers achieve their highest earning power when they're behind the viewfinder, not in front of a computer. And busy photographers frequently have to deal with hundreds or even thousands of images from a single shoot, most of which won't make it to final prints. Thus, why have your most valuable staff member do a task that can be done by someone else for a lower cost? Free up the photographer to make images, and make the studio the most money.

You may say, "I'm giving up creative control over my images." Well, not really. People who provide image processing services are adjusting your files only enough to give you a solid base on which to express your art. Using Dept of Corrections isn't that much different than using a good pro film lab back in the old days. The photographer and the service work together to achieve the desired look. Only now we use computers and digital files instead of dip and dunk machines and clip tests.

Finally, the beauty of working with digital files is that nothing is set in stone. Not like chrome film where once it was run through the machine, it was done. I fully expect that a small percentage of the images I work on will at some point be re-processed. Not because of any defect, but simply because the end use might require a different look. With my own personal work I'll revisit a RAW file and try a new process just because I'm in a different mood, or I'm working on a series of prints and I want a consistent look throughout.