Thank you for all of the Polar Pearl Metallic orders this weekend. This paper will be a real hit thanks to all of our creative and talented customers who realize the joy of crafting and printing their own images.
Our UPS driver was particularly happy as we almost filled an entire truck on the first load!
Some images of today’s orders
Red River Paper Pro
Helene Glassman
The Photographer
Helene Glassman has been a professional award-winning photographer and teacher for more than 25 years and her company, Imagery Photography, is a renowned portrait-event and fine art studio. She is a PPA Certified Professional Photographer and holds the PPA Master Photographer degree as well as the PPA Craftsman Photographer degree. Helene conducts workshops on portraiture lighting and posing, and on the art of making and marketing custom designed greeting cards using Photoshop.
The Client
A greeting cards and wall decor self-assignment.
The Assignment
“Shooting scenics is not something I do as much as shooting flowers, table tops and human interest for my greeting cards. This image is out of the ordinary for me. I love trying to create images that are challenging and different from the portraits I photograph each day.”
The Execution
“This image was photographed from the 31st floor restaurant balcony of The Hotel in the complex at Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas. I was balancing my camera on a concrete post to stabilize it while watching a storm roll in over the mountains to the desert floor north of the city of Las Vegas. I bracketed my exposure to make the most of the beautiful dark clouds and sky against the night lights of the Las Vegas strip. It was shot with a Canon 5D using a 24mm-75mm f-2.8 lens. I usually am in manual mode controlling both shutter speed and f-stop myself.”
Post Production
“The image was processed in Photoshop and I used layers to lighten and darken certain areas to enhance it.”
The Output
“I printed this image on my Epson 3800 printer using Red River Ultra Pro Satin 13×19 paper and also printed greeting cards for sale on Premium Matt Red River card stock. For many years I used labs to
print my cards until I discovered Red River greeting card stock at a photographic convention I attended. I loved the quality of the paper as well as the many varieties that were available such as River Linen and Greenpix 100% Recycled Photo Matte, both of which I also use. “
Contact
Helene Glassman’s web site is at: www.imagerybyhelene.com. Her e- mail address is heleneglassman@me.com
Snow Leopard support for the Epson 2200 is at last available at Epson’s website.
The Epson 2200 dates from the middle of 2002, so needless to say it‘s what we call “ancient” technology. However, the printer has actually held up well over the years and many are still in service. Epson 2200 users will be happy to see than can continue using the printer with Snow Leopard.
The Image Permanence Institute is a university-based, nonprofit research laboratory devoted to scientific research in the preservation of visual and other forms of recorded information. We are the world’s largest independent laboratory with this specific scope.
Red River Paper has used IPI for all of our print life testing over the years.
This is from a series of short interviews with experts in photographic archiving.
Is it harmful to display my photos?
Content aware fill looks to good to be true. Check out the video and see for yourself!
A big thanks to Rick LePage, editor of Photoshop Elements Techniques magazine, who included Red River Paper in the PET email newsletter.
From the newsletter:
“We did a reader survey last year, and one of the surprising results that jumped out at me was the large percentage of readers who said that they had either bought a photo printer or were planning on buying one so that they could print their photos and pages at home. As a printer guy from way back, this obviously warms the cockles of my heart, and we’re looking at how to cover printing in a better way in the magazine and on the Web site.
For those of you who do print your photos at home, you know how expensive both the ink and the paper can be, and I wanted to turn you on to one of my favorite companies, Red River Paper Co. This company, based in Texas, sells a wide variety of photo and specialty papers that are reasonably priced. I have been printing birthday, thank you and greeting cards on Red River cards for years — I especially love their Pecos Gloss and Polar Matte card stock, which come in a number of sizes, and are pre-scored to make folding easy.
Red River just announced a new paper, Polar Pearl Metallic, that has me almost giddy with anticipation. It supposedly has a look and feel that is similar to Kodak’s Endura Metallic photo paper, which was used by traditional wedding and portrait photographers who wanted that special look. I haven’t had a chance to play with Red River’s version yet, so I’ll keep you posted, but I wanted to pass a link along to these guys. I’ve known them for more than a decade, and their stuff has always been both high-quality and economical. (If you want to know more about alternative papers for inkjet printing, check out this article I originally wrote for Macworld, and reprinted with permission on Printerville.)”
You can read the entire newsletter here – great content included:
http://bit.ly/d5Lpb2
If you use Photoshop Elements consider subscribing to the magazine:
http://bit.ly/c6w5ct
You can download a free issue here:
http://bit.ly/cLjxBW
Red River Pro
Bill Frakes
The Photographer
Bill Frakes is a Sports Illustrated staff photographer and has worked in more than 125 countries for a wide variety of editorial and advertising clients including Nike, Coca-Cola, Champion, Isleworth, Stryker, IBM, Nikon, Kodak and Reebok. Editorially his work has appeared in virtually every major general interest publication in the world and he has received hundreds of national and international awards for his work.
The Client
Personal work while on assignment for Sports Illustrated at the World Swimming Championships in Perth, Australia.
The Assignment
“I covered the competition which led up to the 2000 Summer Olympics. When not shooting the actual events for the magazine, I shot images, such as this one, for myself.”
The Execution
“I lay flat on the practice pool deck with a Nikkor 600 F/4.0 lens on a Nikon F5 with Fujichrome 100 loaded. The image was done in the extreme early morning while the light was low and perfect and the pool fairly empty. The light bounced off the lane markers making the red and dark blue color reflections. More swimmers would have disturbed the even surface and the image would not have worked. The new swim caps added a surreal feel to the swimmer as he bobbed up and down in the water.”
Post Production
As required.
The Output
With a shooting schedule of over 300 days a year I have to maximize my time no matter what the project. To achieve that objective when printing, I can count on two papers that I’ve found to give excellent results– Arctic Polar Luster, Polar Matte . The quality of these papers allows me to get consistent results. And when jobs call for other paper surfaces, Red River always has exactly the product I need to get the job done quickly and efficiently.
Contact
Bill Frakes’ web sites are at: www.billfrakes.com and www.strawhatvisuals.com
Paris 26 Gigapixels is a stitching of 2346 single photos showing a very high-resolution panoramic view of the French capital (354159×75570 px). Dive into the image and visit Paris like never before!
Red River Paper is proud to have sponsored the Faded & Blurred monthly photo challenge last month. The winners were recently announced and both received RRP gift certificates.
Check out the winners and the Faded and Blurred website
Red River Pro
NATALIE DYBISZ
The Photographer
Natalie Dybisz (aka Miss Aniela) is a young photographer from the UK who stunned the art world by using Flickr to showcase her imaginative, multiple-shot self-portraits, breaking with the tradition of spending years as struggling, unknown artist. In a short period of time, she has developed a huge following that has catapulted her to one-woman gallery shows and guest appearances at photographic venues throughout the world.
The Client
As with most of her images, Dybisz comes up with ideas and then executes them. This composite appeared on Flickr, in gallery shows, and in her new book, Miss Aniela: Self Gazing, available at blurb.com
The Assignment
Create an image that has the same look and feel as the picture on the wall, a reproduction of Fin de Souper (After Dinner), a 1913 work by French painter Jules-Alexandre Grün, showing people engaged in animated conversation around a table.
The Execution
“I used a Sony DSC-R1 on a tripod with the camera set to “Automatic” and the zoom lens pulled back to its widest focal length- 14.3mm (24mm equivalent for 35mm). All exposures were 1/25 sec at f/2.8 with an ISO of 400. In all, 25 captures were made from which I chose six.”
Post Production
“I placed two main clones in the foreground who were to be the main focus of attention, as if they were in conversation. The placement and expressions of the other ‘clones’ in the background were equally important as accessories to a tightly-composed image and contributing to the feeling of bustle in the scene.”
The Output
“Their Evening Banter is quite a dark image, resulting from the compositing and post-processing. It has heavy vignetting round the edges, with the shadow areas opening up to strong saturated orange tones by the candles in the centre of the image making it a challenge for any paper to reproduce faithfully, and producing varied results between different paper types.
“Using an HP Photosmart C4580 set to best photo quality, I chose Arctic Polar Luster as my paper choice because the paper’s surface shows the saturation of the image in full, without distorting the shadow areas, and without the hindrance of reflection. The paper is halfway between gloss and matt with the benefits of both.
“I often exhibit my images behind frame glass and want to ensure the surface will not be too shiny and Arctic Polar Luster makes the image look vivid but with less sheen- in fact, the paper is barely reflective even when held next to a bright window.”
Contact
Natalie Dybisz’s image collections may be viewed at www.flickr.com/photos/ndybisz/. To contact her regarding the purchase of limited editions of her work visit her web site: www.missaniela.com.