Alexandru Vita can tell you a thing or two about designing a PhotoShelter website. An experienced web designer with a serious fervor for photography, Alex is one of PhotoShelter’s four “Certified Consultants” — a select group of PhotoShelter members who know PhotoShelter inside and out, and who can be hired to help you get your website launched, as well. We sat down with Alex recently to talk a little bit about his success as a Certified Consultant, what he feels are the biggest red flags for any photography website, and why he chose to work with PhotoShelter to truly hone his design skills.

“My passion for photography started it all,” Alex tells us. With a degree in computer science, Alex recalls spending many late nights studying things like lighting, composition, marketing, and of course, web design — anything to feed his combined passion for photography and design. He signed up for PhotoShelter in 2008 and hasn’t looked back since. “As a photographer you get the complete package with PhotoShelter: great image management, simple-to-use selling and pricing of images, and good customizable templates, just to name a few,” says Alex. But what really sold him on the service was PhotoShelter’s manual customization capabilities. “How a powerful structure can be modeled into specific designs… this is what really got me,” he says.

Since becoming a part of the Certified Consultant program, Alex has gathered experience working on over 100 unique projects, both small and large, solely dedicated to PhotoShelter members. But it’s his understanding that every project is distinct that has led him to treat his work with the keen eye and attention to detail his clients really want and need. “I’ve learned to not just create shiny websites to showcase images, but to make the needed compromises,” Alex tells us. “My experience has taught me to try to focus on the big picture — to solve any usability problems that may be stopping visitors in their tracks. That’s why collaboration has become such a huge part of how I work now, and I’ve gotten great results.” And with that in mind, Alex makes sure his clients come to him with their full vision, even if it may be accomplished in steps. “When my clients have very specific changes in mind, I recommend they take some time to gather a comprehensive list of everything they would like to see, and then send it over all at once. Batching always helps productivity and usually cuts down significantly on email time, as well as on time spent opening and closing files, software, connections, etc. to make minor changes.”

Alex helped portrait photographer Sven Doornkaat integrate his PhotoShelter portfolio with his WordPress blog in this striking example.

Given his experience as a consultant with PhotoShelter, Alex has also learned to quickly spot and diffuse some of the major photography website red flags he often encounters. It sounds simple, but one of the first things he looks at is whether or not the photographer’s contact information is available and easily accessible. “Making your contact info hard to find on the site, or missing altogether in rare cases, is a big one for me,” says Alex. “If the phone number and/or email address can be displayed on every page of the site, in the footer or sidebar, it makes it all the more easier to get contacted.” Another issue Alex will rush to correct is poor site navigation. Making sure visitors can easily find what they’re looking for is another seemingly simple tip, but one Alex finds many photographers overlook. This often comes up when a client is either stuck with an older design, or they’ve chosen a template that is too basic for their full body of work and what they want to do with their site. Again, what may seem like pretty elementary things to some — making sure customers can find what they need and that they know how and where to contact you — really can be the make or break for your site and your reputation.

For New Zealand based photographer Kelsi Doscher, Alex performed a full fleshed manual customization of the PhotoShelter template provided. He made sure her navigation was listed in both the header and the footer of the site, and her email address and location clearly listed in the footer, as well.

Today, Alex receives about 10-20 requests from potential, new, or current PhotoShelter members every month. Most of these are for full site designs from photographers looking for their first online “home”, or experienced users looking for a website overhaul — those who want to take advantage of new technologies and what PhotoShelter has to offer. But while Alex continues to excel at helping his clients cull that perfect look and feel out of a website, that’s not all they’ll get from him. Alex can be hired to help you with anything PhotoShelter — SEO, ecommerce, basic workflow, even recommendations on which specific PhotoShelter tool to rely on for your particular use-case. And an added perk to hiring Alex? The wisdom he has acquired as both a photographer and designer in his time studying, practicing, and working at both:

“You need a lot of passion to be in photography — it’s hard work! But I see many people very concerned about gear and technique, partly neglecting all the other required aspects: figuring out what their niche is, learning how to properly price, market and sell their images, etc.

This is a business, and I believe photographers need to treat it as such. Even if they’re not large agencies with huge marketing budgets, solo photographers should still learn basic business principles: planning, defining their unique selling proposition, market research, invoicing. This is really hard, too, and may be out of the comfort zone for many. It keeps photographers away from their cameras, but the benefits eventually outweigh the efforts. This is how they will get more and better opportunities to display their photography skills.”

Alex also makes sure to drive home just how important it is to get your site right when starting out. He says a lot of photographers feel like a flashy site with a lot of bells and whistles will help them succeed immediately and solve their problems, but that isn’t necessarily always (or even often) the case. “Photographers should always be armed with patience, of course,” says Alex. “But switching up the website to something that just looks ‘super cool’ isn’t always the right move. I feel minimalistic and clean really is the way to go, and it’s important to get a few things right as early on as you can: display only your best work, clearly explain what you do well, and make sure your contact information is front and center.”

Action Plus, a sporting images agency formed over 35 years ago, cultivates just the sort of sleek and straightforward design Alex recommends. They hired him to seamlessly integrate their PhotoShelter archive, client area, and ecommerce functionality into their existing site to achieve one single polished look and feel.

To see more examples of Alex’s amazing website overhauls and PhotoShelter integrations, or to hire him to help with your own unique project, check out the PhotoShelter Customizations page of his website. Alex does a stellar job of outlining his process and exactly what you can expect out of your time with him here.

David is a PhotoShelter Certified Consultant and also one of eight members of the Dream Team Advisory Board in our Jumpstart Your Photo Business Contest. One grand prize winner will receive one-on-one time with David and the other Dream Team members, as well as a Canon 6D and $2,000 in gear from Calumet.

“The goal is to empower photographers with a web presence that they can manage independently, rather than having to wait and pay for every little modification,” says David.

We asked David to comb through his past clients, and show us three examples of defunct photography websites turned great. His examples showcase excellent photographers who were limiting themselves with a sub-par site. David helped turned that around with his consultations – here’s how:

Example #1: Harold Feinstein

Famed photographer Harold Feinstein began his career in 1946 at age 15, and soon became a prominent figure in early New York city street photography.  His work has been exhibited in the permanent collections of major museums around the world.

Last year, Harold’s wife Judith contacted David to help them revamp their website completely. Harold’s long and rich career had gone somewhat dormant, but that was about to turn around – a new retrospective book was coming out and they had plans to get his work back out in front of fine art collectors.

Harold’s existing site did a decent job of showing his images, but the design looked a little handmade. They also couldn’t edit the content themselves and it didn’t have any blogging capability.

Harold Feinstein’s site before David helped revamp it.

Given the richness and variety of Harold’s work, the need to boost his visibility moving forward was pretty obvious. So David suggested a WordPress portfolio and blogging site with a content-text heavy homepage and seamlessly customized PhotoShelter archive.

Harold’s website after David’s redesign, which includes a WordPress portfolio site married with his PhotoShelter archive.

This setup works well for most photographers, but in Harold’s case it was particularly suited. Fortunately, Harold and his wife enjoy blogging and have a lot of material to write about. Doesn’t hurt that his images are terrific, too!

Example #2: David Paler

David Paler is one of the top real estate photographers in New York City. He spends his days photographing the most expensive apartments and offices in New York. Even with the big, beautiful splash image, his site looked dated. On top of that, SEO was (and still is!) crucial to David’s business, and his old site wasn’t built with SEO in mind.

David Paler’s old site featured on big splash image.

The way forward was obvious: a website that featured a content-rich homepage, powered by WordPress. The layout let’s David display a slideshow of images that represent his portfolios, so visitors can see his architecture, line and form, and interior work. His new site’s navigation bar is also much cleaner and more modern looking, and allows visitors to easily access his portfolios, client galleries, and blog.

Overall, David’s new site gives him the blogging and content creation capabilities that help his site rank in search engine results. The new site is more modern, and let’s David connect with both potential new clients as well as existing clients through his private galleries powered by PhotoShelter.

Example #3: Charlie Mahoney

Like David himself, Charlie Mahoney is an acclaimed freelance photojournalist who has worked on global issues ranging from climate change to political unrest. Charlie is also a founding member of Prime Collective.

Charlie had been looking at all the usual photo website options when he contacted David. He wanted to be able to blog, but wanted to work with a more sophisticated design. He also needed to blend his PhotoShelter website’s pages with his portfolio.

The “before” of Charlie Mahoney’s website.

After working with David, Charlie now has a portfolio site that showcases his images at their best. His new site is very effective as a promotional tool, and his archive is all bundled under a single brand. He also has the ability to edit his content independently.

The “after” and current version of Charlie’s site.

Charlie’s site works well because it has a rotating portfolio slideshow on the homepage that shows off his best work, as well as a side navigation bar that let’s clients easily access his most recent work, client galleries, and archive. He can also link out to blog posts on his homepage. Overall, it’s a very “hardworking” website.

David is one of eight members of the Dream Team Advisory Board in our Jumpstart Your Photo Business Contest. Enter to win consultation time with our Dream Team, as well as a Canon 6D and $2,000 in gear from Calument. 

Think of your homepage as the entry point to your entire website; it needs to grab your visitors and get them to click through to the “deeper” pages where they can either buy your images or contact you for a job.

What makes for an outstanding homepage? It’s more than just great images (although that’s a big part of it). Your homepage also needs to user-centered, meaning that it answers “yes” to the question, “I came here to do X. Can I accomplish it quickly without a ton of effort?”

The following checklist highlights 11 important elements of any great, hardworking homepage. Depending on your website’s overall design (is it a template or a custom design?), you might not be in control of everything. But the best photography website homepages get many of these right.

1. Tells visitors who you are and what you do, right off the bat. Chances are, visitors are coming to your site either because they searched for your specialty or they already knew something about you and came via a direct link. Either way, you want to confirm that they’ve come to the right place. Make sure your name (or business’ name) stands out and that your specialty is immediately obvious – either in your logo or homepage text. There should be no guesswork involved.

Izmostock‘s logo and on-page text clearly communicate that they’re a car stock agency. They even display a CTA (call-to-action) to entice visitors to “Learn More” about their services.

2. Speaks to and resonates with your target audience. Defining and understanding your target audience is crucial to shaping your business, and your website. The images on your homepage should be a direct reflection of the kind of work you want to get. That’s why smart photographers with multiple specialties choose to have separate websites. If you’re an editorial photographer who sometimes takes wedding gigs, you shouldn’t have photos of the bride and groom on your homepage. Make sure your site appeals to your target audience, and doesn’t confuse them.

Chip Litherland hosts two separate websites – one for his editorial work, and one for his wedding photography business Eleven Weddings. That way he can send potential clients to the site with portfolios that will appeal to them.

3. Puts your images front and center. Even if you’re using a template to build your website, your homepage should grab your visitors’ attention right off the bat with stunning imagery. Big, beautiful images will ideally compel visitors to click through to specific galleries, and then individual images. For example, PhotoShelter members can display one large image on their homepage, and thumbnails of other featured galleries to entice visitors. Whether you’re selling prints or licenses, or looking to get hired, strong and prominently displayed photography should convince clients to dig deeper or reach out.

Commercial photographer Alexa Miller displays a big, eye-catching photo on her homepage, showcasing her best work and shooting style. 

Alongside a large image, photojournalist Amy Toensing displays smaller gallery thumbnails toward the bottom of her homepage, so clients can see her breadth of work. 

4. Clearly communicates your brand’s personality, look and feel. One of your top priorities should be to create a brand that communicates your photographic style, your voice, and most importantly, the feeling that you leave clients with when they work with you. Once you figure out your brand, your website needs to revolve around it – from your logo, to your color scheme, to your photography.

St.Louis-based photographer Jonathan Gayman does an excellent job of using his brand’s look and feel – airy, colorful, and striking – throughout his homepage.

5. Loads quickly! In a survey of over 1,000 photo buyers, we learned that speed is the #1 important thing to clients in a photographer’s website. Forego the fancy introductions and music soundtracks, and get down to business.

6. Displays the right links to your website’s other pages. Your homepage should act like a door to the rest of your website. That means it’s important to have a clear and thoughtful navigation bar that lets visitors easily access your image galleries, about page, blog, and any other internal pages.

Chris Schmid‘s homepage has an easy-to-use top navigation bar that links to his portfolio, video work, bio, image archive, blog and more. 

7. Makes your contact info easy to find. It sounds obvious, but accessible contact information is key to facilitating sales, and is something that many photographers overlook. You should have your info included in an easy-to-find place on your website – whether that’s a standard contact form or your direct email. All PhotoShelter websites have a dedicated about page that you can customize with a contact form and your info. You can also opt to display a link to this page in the footer, so it appears on every page of your site.

Washington, D.C.-based photographer Andrew Propp has a “Contact” link in his website’s navigation, and also links directly to his email from the bottom of his homepage.

8. Keeps the important information above the fold. One hard and fast rule of website design is to keep the most important information about the fold, i.e. what you can see in your browser without scrolling down. That’s because visitors are more likely to click away from your site (or to another page on your site) than to scroll down. Abiding by this rule is another way to make sure you’re grabbing your visitors’ attention right away.

Mike Capson‘s homepage has one large image and three calls-to-action linking to other work, all above the fold.

9. Features a site-wide search bar (if applicable). Many photo buyers and potential clients want archive search functionality so they can find what they’re looking for – fast. Make sure your website provider or designer includes this feature so you don’t lose out on any sales opportunities – might we suggest PhotoShelter?

Michelle Furbacher of Foodograph.ca puts her site search bar front and center on her homepage. 

10. Plays “nice” with Google and is optimized for SEO. Do you know the #1 thing you can do that will prevent your site from ranking at the top of search engine results? Have a website that uses Flash! Flash is the equivalent of an invisible coat in the eyes of Google and other search engines – their robots can’t “crawl” Flash-based websites, and while they may look pretty, they’re thwarting your SEO efforts. Stick to CSS/HTML-based websites, and be sure there’s plenty of room for on-page text so you can include your keywords. (For more SEO best practices, check out our free guide SEO for Photographers.)

Fine art photographer Jeffrey Murray has a nice splash page that promotes his award without using Flash or getting too fancy.

11. Constantly updated with fresh content. New content is what keeps visitors returning to your site, and depending on your business, repeat visitors might make up a good chunk of your sales (whether it’s images or gigs). On top of that, Google loves fresh content – it keeps the search robots coming back to your site, which makes it more likely to rank in search engine results. So don’t forget to update your featured galleries or link to your latest blog post.

Jerry Monkman keeps his homepage “fresh” by featuring links to his Outdoor Photo Tips video series.  

Looking for more examples of great homepages? Check out PhotoShelter members’ pages for some inspiration! See more examples >> 

Today we’re featuring a one-of-a-kind, highly limited offer to join PhotoShelter. Maybe you’re considering stepping up to a completely new photography website, or maybe you just know you can generate more business with better SEO (search engine optimization, aka. how you tweak your website to attract more traffic from search engines).  If so, today would be a smart day to act.  We’re giving away half-hour personal SEO coaching sessions plus 30 days of free PhotoShelter to the first 50 photographers who sign up with the promo code CYBERMONDAY.

Each 30 minute SEO coaching session includes:

• One-on-one advice from a PhotoShelter SEO expert
• How to create your keyword hit list
• Personalized link building strategies
• How to use PhotoShelter to improve your SEO and more

Digital Photo Pro magazine has said this: “PhotoShelter’s advanced features and SEO settings are the best we’ve found.” And that’s an honor we don’t take lightly. We’ve packed PhotoShelter with tools and resources to help improve the way that search engines find your images. These include:

• Our free guide, The SEO Cookbook for Photographers
• Over 30 key SEO factors that you can control inside your PhotoShelter account
• Our exclusive SEO Grader, that scans your website and makes recommendations to improve your SEO
• Easy integration with Google Analytics to track your progress
• We submit your sitemap to Google automatically

You can learn more about the many ways PhotoShelter helps you display your photos and market yourself in our product tour. Get in on the Cyber Monday fun and make a smart choice for your photography business today. Here’s the signup link again.

This offer is limited to the first 50 photographers who join PhotoShelter today using the CYBERMONDAY promo code, and the offer closes at 11:59 PM ET today. We’ll contact you within 24 hours after the offer closes with details on scheduling your coaching session.

And, if you’re offering a Cyber Monday promotion of your own for your photography business, let us know so we can share it with the community too.

Photo by Visuals Unlimited

Times have changed significantly in the stock photo industry – even more so in just the last 5 years. And unfortunately for the producers of stock photography, it’s been a pretty rocky road. But, like all paradigm shifts, the most flexible members of a species figure out a way to evolve and survive. We set out to find photographers who fit this description and learn what they’re doing to generate income from stock photography today.

What resulted was a comprehensive 48-page guide, Selling Stock Photography, featuring insights from stock buyers and stock photographers themselves. In this guide, you’ll learn:

• The pros and cons of agency vs. independent stock licensing
• 15 things photo buyers love to see in an email
• Photography website do’s and don’ts for selling stock photos
• How to keyword your stock photos
• Top ways for photographers to get noticed by photo buyers

Selling Stock Photography is intended to be an educational resource for photographers just getting started with stock photo licensing as well as seasoned professionals looking for new ideas and ways to approach the market. Check it out here – and as always, it’s 100% free.

But as the social web evolved and people started passing around links to their friends or posting them on their Facebook or Twitter accounts, marketers wanted to understand reach. If I pass this link around, how can I tell how many people reposted it? Backlink analysis tools existed for years, but who the heck blogs any more, right?

bit.ly is a URL shortening service that you might already be familiar with. For many years, it was the default shortening mechanism for Twitter, although they recently came up with their own shortening service, t.co (Twitter wants that data! But they have no analytics yet). But what you might not know about bit.ly is that you can take any bit.ly URL and add a “+” to see the analytics for that link.

The time scale for the # of clicks changes over time. In the first hour, it’s reported in minutes, but later, it’s reported by days, etc. You can change the scale with the select list on the right. You’ll even notice the QR code in the corner for those of you with QR readers, but I’ve personally always found those scary. They just don’t look pretty.

By the way, this is what it looks like when Ashton Kutcher tweets to his 8 million+ followers.

Anyone can take any bit.ly link and see the analytics, so there’s no privacy around this data. This might give you pause, but I think that’s being overly paranoid.

Yesterday, we talked about using Google Analytics Real-Time to understand the social interaction of your marketing campaigns (e.g. tweeting a new gallery, emailing a monthly photography newsletter). The bit.ly analytics provide you with a similar way to see clicks over time.

How should photographers use bit.ly?

First, I prefer bit.ly over t.co or other shortening services because you can 1) see the analytics, and 2) customize the link (e.g. http://bit.ly/photobootcamp). So if you’re considering your social activity as a business marketing function, I think it pays to take a few seconds to use bit.ly instead of another shortening service.

One you are able to see the click analytics, I think you have another way to measure whether your social interactions have any legs. When you post a link, do people click on it? How quickly does that activity tail off? Can you experiment with different times of day to generate more user interaction?

We’ll continue to say it, but you need to understand why you’re looking at analytical data, and figure out how you can create better decisions for your business.

There’s a lot of opportunity for universities and colleges to take in additional revenue from these sales, and savvy schools are starting to understand how the photography departments (which have traditionally been cost centers), can become revenue generators for the school. Colleges, universities and even high schools are finding that the tools and features available on their PhotoShelter websites are making photo sales possible. Below are a handful of examples alongside some of our favorite college sports photos.

University of Michigan

Photo by Dave Ablauf

Notre Dame University

Photo by Matt Cashore

Purdue University

Photo by Mark Simons

Tufts University

Photo by Laurence Kelly

University of Texas

Photo by Jim Sigmon

Brigham Young University

Photo by BYU

University of Iowa

Photo by CMP Photo Service

Duke University

Photo by Jon Gardiner

University of Washington

Photo by Dan DeLong

Oklahoma State University

Photo by Photo by James Schammerhorn

Want to learn more about how your college can easily display and sell photos to students, alumni and other waiting customers? Check out the PhotoShelter Tour for more information.

We’re coming to the end of 2011 and now is the time to think about how you’re going to end your year strong and start 2012 with a bang.

• Do you need a better method to sell yourself, sell your photography and kickstart marketing for your photo business?
• Are you looking for proven tips on creating the best photography website?
• Do you need guidance on how to better manage your finances and plan for business growth?
• Are you ready to promote yourself to prospects, get more online exposure, and beef up the SEO for your photography website?

There’s a ton of information available on all the above and more, but it can be a lot to decipher. So we’ve taken the best of the best from all of our educational resources to create our first ever Photo Business Bootcamp. This comprehensive 5-week email series is designed to guide photographers who are ready to achieve greater success in their photography business.

We’ve curated content from some of our favorite interviews, blogposts, and webinars in order to share advice from over 40 successful photographers and industry experts – including some of the most respected photographers in the world. Photo Business Bootcamp participants will receive a weekly email over the course of five weeks on the following topics:

WEEK 1: Inspiration: The Secrets to Success

WEEK 2: Growing Your Photography Business

WEEK 3: Your Website: Your Most Important Business Tool

WEEK 4: Mastering Online Marketing

WEEK 5: Selling Your Services & Your Photos

And unlike other bootcamps, ours is free. Visit the Photo Business Bootcamp signup page to register for your weekly email series today.

]]> http://blog.photoshelter.com/2011/10/photo-business-bootcamp-power-your-photography-business/feed/ 4 http://blog.photoshelter.com/2011/08/5-simple-things-you-can-do-to-make-your-web-images/ http://blog.photoshelter.com/2011/08/5-simple-things-you-can-do-to-make-your-web-images/#comments Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:03:11 +0000 Grover Sanschagrin http://blog.photoshelter.com/2011/08/5-simple-things-you-can-do-to-make-your-web-images/ What’s the secret to making your website images look like visually vibrant eye-candy for your visitors? When preparing images for your online portfolio, it’s important to ensure that the images look their absolute best. Short of hiring a professional retouching expert, what can photographer do to improve the look of their images when they hit the web?

Kristina Sherk is a Washington DC-based image retoucher, photographer, photo assistant, production manager. She is an amazingly talented retoucher (just look at the before/after images on her image retouching website.)

She is also a model and a certified scuba diver – two things which came in handy recently when she found herself posing in a mermaid outfit for underwater photographer Chris Crumley. The images from that shoot, shot with the 60 megapixel Hasselblad H4D-60 camera, now appear on the Hasselblad USA website.

Not only did Kristina serve as the model, but she was also the retoucher assigned to make sure the images were absolutely perfect for their use in an international advertising campaign for the new camera.

I met up with her recently in DC, and I selfishly asked her to give me a few of her secrets. Using Adobe’s Photoshop and Lightroom application, she gave me 5 rather simple things I could do to improve the look of my images on the web.

(You can watch the full 13-minute interview below.)

Thanks Kristi!

And if you’re looking for even more expert advice from the pros, you can now get our FREE Photo Business Bootcamp covering everything from business strategy to website design to email marketing.

5 Simple Things You Can Do to Make Your Web Images Pop

1) Perform an overall sharpen just before you upload the image to your website.
After you’ve re-sized your image and it’s ready to be uploaded, Kristi says that you should perform an overall sharpen across the entire image. This is something I’ve been doing for years, but the numbers and settings of unsharp mask tool within Photoshop always confused me — I never knew if I was choosing the right numbers, or even what those numbers actually did.

Kristina says that for this level of sharpening, she doesn’t use unsharp mask at all. Instead, she just uses the regular “filter: sharpen”.

“Personally, for me I think it works fine,” she said. “You don’t run the risk of over-sharpening and having things look compressed on the website and get all of those weird jagged edges.”

2) Selectively sharpen areas of the image.
Areas of the image where you want the viewer’s eye to go first can be selectively sharpened using a mask layer and the brush tool in Photoshop.

“Eyelashes, eyes, lips, nose, or if there is a bride and she’s standing in the image and you really want her bouquet to pop out, it would be just sharpening that part,” she said.

“You can mask that in by doing a high-pass filter over the entire image, changing the blend mode to soft light (or hard light), and then just mask in the areas of the image that you want to pop out the most.”

(A demonstration of how this is done can be seen in the interview video.)

You would perform this action on the image at full size, before you re-sized it smaller for website use.

3) Toning your images properly.
Kristina says that it’s really important that your images are toned properly, and to make sure that the mid-tones have a nice crispness to them, and that they don’t get muddy.

“Make sure that the blacks aren’t clipped too high, and that you’ve still got detail in there,” she said. “Sometimes I’ll go through and duplicate a layer on screen mode and mask in some of the areas that are a little bit too dark.”

She also cautions photographers to make sure that skin tones in the image are exactly where they need to be. A lot of people will over-expose skin tones, making them look unrealistic.

She also cautions photographers about using the dodge and burn tool in Photoshop, especially if they are using CS4 or earlier.

“I would suggest staying away from the dodge and burn tool, and instead using a duplicated layer on blending mode multiply, or blending mode screen to lighten or darken the image,” she said.

4) Vignetting an image.
Adding a vignette to an image can be an effective and subtle way to guiding the viewer’s eye to the central part of the image. You are basically putting a dark “frame” around the edges of the image. (But be careful, you can overdo this, and ruin the effect. It works best when performed subtly.)

Kristina likes to use the graduated filter tool within Lightroom to create subtle vignettes. (A demonstration of this in action can be seen in the interview video.)

5) Converting an image to black and white (the right way.)
Before you convert the image to gray scale (and remove all of the color information), Kristina likes to prepare the colors beforehand so that the conversion looks its best.

“Sometimes when I turn an image to black and white, I’ll play around with the luminosity of some of the colors,” she said. “Most of the skin tones that are in an image are going to be within that orange and yellow spectrum. So, I’ll take the luminosity up on the orange and yellows to brighten the skin tone and create more contrast between the eyes and the lips and the shadows.”

She feels that retouching should ideally help guide the viewers eye to the most important part of the image. This can be difficult to determine if you’ve been looking at the image for a while.

“A way you can check to see if your eye does go to the most important part of the image is to safeguard yourself and take away all those preconceived notions about a person’s face that you have in your brain,” she said.

“If you turn the image upside down, and then you close your eyes, then open them back up, your eye should go to the lightest and sharpest part of the image. And if it does, by turning the image upside down, you’ve taken away all those preconceived notions of what a face looks like, and where the nose is and where the eyes are.”

Kristina offers retouching services to photographers and companies. Her retouching portfolio can be seen at sharkpixel.com.

We recently did a ground-up rebuild of the PhotoShelter shopping
cart, and a tremendous amount of user research went into it. So, what
are the most important user interface elements found within an effective
shopping cart when it comes to photographer websites?

The 7 Most Important Online Shopping Cart Features for Photographer Websites

1) Make it easy and obvious to start the buying process.
Not only should there be a “buy” button that’s easy to find, but there should be buttons in various places throughout the website. For example, putting buttons next to the image is a logical place, but you should also make it possible for people to add images to their cart at the thumbnail view too.

2) Require as little as possible from the user.
Don’t require a user to supply a ton of information just to buy something from you. They shouldn’t have to register for an account before they can buy something. Embrace “gradual engagement” as much as possible, don’t ask them anything unless you absolutely have to, and only when it’s necessary (and natural) in the process.

3) Provide constant feedback and status updates.
People like to know where they are in the checkout process, and how much time they have left until their order has been placed. They also like getting confirmation that they just completed an action, like “You just added 2 items to your shopping cart.”

4) Show the total as you go.
One big mistake is to hide the order total until the very end, when the user has decided to check out. This is the wrong time to spring a big price-tag on them because they might decide that it’s easier to just bail out rather than try to figure out how to get rid of some of the items.

Buyers like to know their total as early-on in the process as possible. This includes estimated shipping charges as well. By letting them know what they’ve spent early on, you’ll avoid giving them sticker shock at the end, and they’re more likely to finish the checkout process.

5) Cart contents should be obvious.
Your users shouldn’t have to wait until the “checkout” process before they can see what they’ve added to the cart. The shopping cart contents should be easy to view no matter where you are in the website. The user shouldn’t have to leave your images just to see what they’ve already selected.

People like “active carts” – meaning that the information displayed on the page that you’re on changes dynamically based on other shopping activity (i.e. having a smart navigation link that knows exactly how much is in their cart.)

6) Don’t require information to be entered twice.
Did you ever call the cable or phone company and have to enter your account number before they’ll connect you — and then when you are finally connected with a real person, they ask you the account number again? You hate that, right? So why would you require your customers to do this? Be mindful of these instances, and avoid them. (One simple place to start: shipping & billing information.)

7) Keep the checkout process as short as possible.
The shorter the process, the more people will complete the checkout process. This is a fact. Remove steps, and simplify everything wherever possible. One great way to shorten the process is to have a “Batch add to cart” feature, so your users can add many images to the cart at the same time.

The new PhotoShelter shopping cart addresses all 7 of these points head-on, creating a smoother, more effective, easier-to-use process for a customers. So, shopping cart user interfaces are one less detail you have to worry about.