Presentation IS Everything!

Presentation IS Everything!

First off, a little something to think about ....I came upon 2 anonymous photography quotes that I thought I would share with you all before I five into this journal.

"When people ask what equipment I use - I tell them my eyes" - Anonymous

"The enemy of photography is the convention, the fixed rules of 'how to do'. The salvation of photography comes from the experiment" - Anonymous

Pretty awesome stuff, huh? Something to certainly think about without question.

Presentation IS Everything!--- Yes it really truly is, and no where else is this more important than on deviantART. As farcry77 recently blogged about over on the Photography-APN group "Are you here to showcase a watermark or a Photo?" which brings up some very good points and thoughts.

In my opinion there are essentially 2 things that can make or break a photograph on the presentation side of things;

1) A watermark that interferes with the image as a whole. Something that draws more attention to the watermark itself, than the actual photograph, pretty much fails in my opinion. A watermark should be something that works like a signature, in that it flows nicely with the image itself. It isn't something that takes away from the image but is rather part of it, and doesn't obstruct the very photo itself. It should blend in to the shot and work like camouflage, not drawing attention to it.

2) The image size itself. The fastest way to be anti-climatic on deviantART is to upload something that looks 100% killer in someones message center, then someone clicks to see it and BAM! What are they greeted with? Something so tiny that one can not even notice the details in it. Self defeating, to say the least.

There actually is a rule in place for image size minimums for user galleries n DA as well, that states any photography residing in users galleries must be at a very minimum 400px any side as per what the faq states in FAQ #3: Are there restrictions to comments?

Your work on DA should be the very best that it can be (at least that is what I have always thought) and impact on the viewer is essential. That doesn't mean uploading something that is 1500x900 either. It means knowing and staying within the realm of visual perfection.

So what is the rule of visual perfection kkart ? --- Basically what I have found is this. If you are uploading an image that is in portrait format, it shouldn't be larger than 760px on the longest side, otherwise you will cause people to scroll to see your whole image. (this brings back memories of the internet in it's earlier days where pages didn't fit and one had to scroll left, right, sideways all over to see everything) The last thing you want is to have the viewer to scroll anywhere.

Secondly if you are uploading an image that is in landscape format, the largest I would go (unless it is a pano) is probably 1090px on the longest side. Reason being, is what I wrote above about scrolling.

I see a lot of images on here that are like 600x400 that just kill it for me. You can't see anything within that shot, especially in this day and age when a LOT of people are on monitors that are between 20"-24" (like myself) 13 years ago, 600x400px would have been fine. This is 2010 however, and the resulting image looks almost like a Group stamp or something at that size.

Know your audience, and know that in the end, the size of what you upload has a great effect on your images, and who looks at them.

That is all folks!
---Johnny