# Urgent Help Requested:Photos for my website



## yoldashh (Apr 23, 2013)

Hello all,and thanks for your time.i will be grateful if you help me with tis serious problem.
i have con 6 d and 17-40mm lens.
i take my carpets photos with this camera and happy with the results but only problem is the image size is too large like 10 mb in jpeg format.i always shoot jpeg and raw.
now 10 mb jpeg is too big for my website photos.my competitor www.carpetvista.com has almost same pixels but their size is maximum 400 kb .please vist that site and see it.
my questions are as follows,
1 what size should i put in my canon 6d .L M or S ?
what i think is that i can shoot L but later can reduce the size .am i right ?L size giving me jpeg size 10 mb maximum.
Please please help me sort out my problem as my job is at stake .
Many thanks in advance.
Kind regards


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## Mr Bean (Apr 24, 2013)

Personally, I'd only shoot RAW. Then use Lightroom to export the file as the size and quality you need for the web site. Lightroom has some neat ways to setup final export image sizes / JPEG quality, etc that are repeatable.

Note: I'm no expert in web site images / design, so, others may have far more practical approaches.


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## akraj (Apr 24, 2013)

I wouldn't change the setting in the Camera but as Mr Bean mentioned change the resolution to a much smaller one during export. What software do you use to copy/import the images from your camera/card ?


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 24, 2013)

If you do not use Photoshop, consider hiring someone to prepare them for you. 

Photoshop has a Save for web feature that lets you optimize a image and play with the parameters to see how you like the image as well as see the size.

You should not find it necessary to have over about 25-30 K image size.

Here is your competitors front page image reduced from 1.8MB to 36kb. He seems to be vastly overdoing it.


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## TrumpetPower! (Apr 24, 2013)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> If you do not use Photoshop, consider hiring someone to prepare them for you.



Amen.

All comercial photography, especially product photography, is going to need at least _some_ post-processing. Indeed, the post-processing is often more extensive than the actual shooting -- and the shooting itself can get pretty involved, what with all the lighting and other types of preparation.

The last step in any such work is optimizing the image for the final format where it'll be used. Different techniques are necessary for printing in a catalog, making a billboard, or posting on the Web. Even if you magically got the image perfect in the camera, you'd still have to perform this last step, especially for the Web.

Fortunately, there are tools to help make this easier, and Photoshop's "Save for Web" is one of the best.

But...you might also want to consider not only hiring somebody to prepare your photos for you, but to take them as well. Photography is a craft like any other. It's one that anybody with a modicum of time and dedication can learn and do at least reasonably well...but it _does_ take that investment of time and effort.

Somebody who's made that investment is going to do a much better job at presenting your products in the best possible light -- and, don't forget, if you're selling things on the Internet, those photos are the primary experience your customers have of your product before they buy. Your product photography is probably the single most important aspect of your advertising efforts. And, unless you've already got a well-established customer base and you aren't looking to expand, nothing is more important to Internet sales than advertising (which most emphatically does not mean merely purchasing banner advertisements).

If budget is a concern, contact the local college / university / art school and hire a student majoring in photography to do the work. They'll appreciate the chance to build their portfolios and gain work experience, and they'll also have passion and artistic experience (and hopefully talent) that you're not going to match yourself -- if for no other reason than that you _should_ be busy with all the other important stuff of running your business.

Cheers,

b&


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## BrettS (Apr 24, 2013)

TrumpetPower! said:


> Mt Spokane Photography said:
> 
> 
> > If you do not use Photoshop, consider hiring someone to prepare them for you.
> ...



+1


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## LewisShermer (Apr 24, 2013)

Is it acceptable to just "facepalm"?

If your "job" is at stake shouldn't you know how to do your actual job?

Take your images at whatever size you like. Large Raw will do...

open your image in photoshop, process the raw to your liking and then open it. post process anything that needs post processing. I usually find that the levels need a bit of play, maybe the curves if you're that way inclined and any airbrushing/sharpening/high-pass etc...

save the original, then image > image size > 72dpi and whatever physical size you want it to appear on your web page. measure it in pixels/cm/mm/picas... whatever then when you get the option in save as... save the quality as 10/11/12, it really doesn't matter after that.

Here I am, drunk on a tuesday night at 01:32am and I probably have to do that about 1000 times tomorrow... don't tell my boss.


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## cayenne (Apr 24, 2013)

With what the others have said...

What Post Processing tools do you have? DPP? Adobe (Photoshop and/or Lightroom), Aperture 3 (Mac)....?

What tools do you have at your disposal to use to process the images you've taken already?

As the others have mentioned, take your RAW images and work from there....

HTH,

cayenne


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## bseitz234 (Apr 24, 2013)

LewisShermer said:


> Here I am, drunk on a tuesday night ... don't tell my boss.



Amen to that. Except it's not that late here...


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## TrumpetPower! (Apr 24, 2013)

LewisShermer said:


> Is it acceptable to just "facepalm"?
> 
> If your "job" is at stake shouldn't you know how to do your actual job?



Thanks to an overwhelming number of very pervasive and persuasive marketing campaigns by all the camera manufacturers, a great many people think that there's no more to photography than pointing the camera in the right direction and pressing the button.

I'm guessing that yoldashh has just discovered that the advertisements might have exaggerating things just a wee bit.

We see the same thing everywhere. I still remember all the people who got a computer with WordPerfect on it and a laser printer who thought they could use it do to all their graphic design. I know accountants who still don't have an intuitive grasp on the limits of Microsoft Excel and why they need relational databases running on high-powered servers with lots of custom software, why they can't just do it all with some "simple" macros. And the number of people who yak on the phone (or text!) while driving shows how few understand just how much kinetic energy is in a two-ton vehicle moving at 100 kph / 65 mph -- about as much as a stick of dynamite, in fact.

Cheers,

b&


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## photo212 (Apr 24, 2013)

yoldashh said:


> Hello all,and thanks for your time.i will be grateful if you help me with tis serious problem.
> i have con 6 d and 17-40mm lens.
> i take my carpets photos with this camera and happy with the results but only problem is the image size is too large like 10 mb in jpeg format.i always shoot jpeg and raw.
> now 10 mb jpeg is too big for my website photos.my competitor www.carpetvista.com has almost same pixels but their size is maximum 400 kb .please vist that site and see it.
> ...


Adjust your image size in the camera for JPEG: probably S2 or S3
Save all the processing for when you need to do so on the RAW image.


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## yoldashh (Apr 24, 2013)

photo212 said:


> yoldashh said:
> 
> 
> > Hello all,and thanks for your time.i will be grateful if you help me with tis serious problem.
> ...


thanks very much for the info.
My images look great when i take photos in Raw in L size.My concern is if i take S size ,will my images show less detail even before post processing?
thanks


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## expatinasia (Apr 24, 2013)

I am not sure why some people are recommending Photoshop, that has quite a large learning curve and is overkill for what you need, plus extremely expensive.

DPP came with your camera, just use that to edit your pics a little bit and you can choose the size and everything from there. DPP is much easier to use than Photoshop and will save you a lot of time.


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## rambarra (Apr 24, 2013)

put the raw image on for dem pixelpeepers to check
r


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## photo212 (Apr 24, 2013)

yoldashh said:


> photo212 said:
> 
> 
> > yoldashh said:
> ...


If you allow the browser to scale the image to fit the window, you are losing detail. There is no magic solution. However, the smaller images will appear more in focus.

Take a set of images with RAW+S2 and compare them. There is no other way for you to decide. JPEGs are a lossy format. Each save means more loss of information. Minimizing the number of saves you need to perform is best. Straight from the camera is ideal. This is one reason Canon provides multiple sizes rather than force everyone to pop open PS to resize images. Some will still prefer to shoot exclusively RAW and make all edits in a lossless format, then make one save to JPEG. 

The only ones who will tell a difference are a few photographers, and I do not imagine they are visiting your website.


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## LewisShermer (Apr 24, 2013)

yoldashh said:


> photo212 said:
> 
> 
> > yoldashh said:
> ...



They will show a lot less detail even before post processing...

do your processing then resize the image to the size you require it. it could not be more simple. it's fine in large raw.


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## klickflip (Apr 24, 2013)

Just taking jpgs out of the camera will probably not give you optimum results. For doing ongoing product work you really want to work on a workflow that will suit your needs. 
Lighting should be your first concern, and then raw image processing (for colour & contrast & detail then a specific output setting that gets file to your desired kb size, px dimensions and quality) 

Do you know how to do all these? If not it would probably be best to go on some training to help you get started on these. 
Did I mention lighting already?  For product photography that is the most important thing and in my eyes the camera is the last and smallest link in the chain with processing being second. I would rather have decent studio flash and processing software & computer with calibrated monitor than a high end camera for this use.. 

Even contacting a professional photographer or training person and tell them what you are trying to achieve and they may want to set up a workflow for you that you can then replicate for yourself when needed,(obviously for a fair cost)

My colleague that specialises in training gets calls all the time from people that run businesses that want to do the product shots themselves (normally because they have recently indulged in a 5D or 7D because they have always fancied one or fancied themselves as a bit of a amateur photographer) 
Invariably they all give up the notion of this once the workflow is explained, there is sooo much more to it than what to set on the camera! (even a apparently plain simple product shot) 


Remember what a professional can do in a couple of hours for a scenario like this will save you days/ months scratching your head trying to sus/ learn software, lighting and camera settings. Someone with 10 years+ experience will be able to get brilliant results in a a couple of hours because they have the experience and knowledge. So 2 hours prof photography + 10 years experience = $$$$/perfect images for use. 
Or YOUR normal hourly rate in business x hours spent on this so far + 6D (£2000) + Lights + Software / Computer (£4000) + hourly rate x future hours to hone your skill = $$$$$+potentially sub par images or lots of stress taking you away from your main skill, running your specialist business. 

By all means do it yourself but you should be up to advanced amateur skill levels in many areas including lighting principals and post processing plus understanding proper jpgs outputting for web optimisation including colour profiles. 

Maybe Canon marketing work tho! 
Good luck


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## unfocused (Apr 24, 2013)

You do know that your competitor is using stock images supplied by the manufacturer or distributor, right? 

It's a web storefront. They don't have any carpets in stock, they just take orders and then drop ship them from the manufacturer's or distributor's warehouse. 

They are getting their pictures from a supplier that provides these images to similar companies all over the web and all over the world. The original images are shot by a commercial photographer employed by the manufacturer or a marketing firm for the manufacturer. Have you contacted your rug suppliers to see if they have similar pictures available? Most companies provide these images to the retailers. 

By the way, it's very obvious in one of those pictures that the carpet wasn't even on that floor. It's a composite image.


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## thedman (Apr 24, 2013)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> If you do not use Photoshop, consider hiring someone to prepare them for you.
> 
> Photoshop has a Save for web feature that lets you optimize a image and play with the parameters to see how you like the image as well as see the size.
> 
> ...




That looks way too compressed; the pillows on the couch are just blocks. 25-30k is too small for an image of that size and detail. Should probably be at least 60-80k to look nice.


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## thedman (Apr 24, 2013)

LewisShermer said:


> save the original, then image > image size > 72dpi



If you have to do this 1000 times, save yourself some time and skip this step!


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## tolusina (Apr 24, 2013)

unfocused said:


> .......By the way, it's very obvious in one of those pictures that the carpet wasn't even on that floor. It's a composite image.


Now that is cheating.
---
@yoldashh
How about a link to your website? 
You can't do anything about a competitor's content, only your own.

Think a minute about web marketing. It's no easy task to steer eyes to your web front, but once there, don't chase them away.
For me, and I suspect many others, if I do stumble on a site of interest to me and that page doesn't show me something right away, I'm gone right away. A site has to be exceptionally compelling to keep my attention in spite of overload, there's simply too much other stuff I could be doing, looking at. 
Sometimes, on a slow loading site, I'll select a brief term or description to google with, then I'm off to a competitor's site, you do not want that to happen with your site.

Be glad you can't upload 10MB images, they take WAY too long to load. 
If there are only a very few images on a page, images could (which doesn't mean should) be as large as 1MB. 
Lots of images, flash content and the like and/or large files, all increase page load times and we do not want long page load times.
If a smallish image, like a thumbnail, links off to a larger, hi resolution image, that hi-res image should indeed be large and detailed for high clarity. Once a site visitor's interest has gotten to that point, they will wait for beauty to unfold, at least I know I will.

As others have already posted, use DPP, Lightroon, Photoshop or whatever to downsize your edited raws when exporting.
Consider exporting in two sizes, one for 'thumbnails', the other for individual product pages.
By all means, do shoot in the largest raw format possible.


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