Why do my photos look different on the web than on my screen? What is wrong with PhotoShelter???
The common gripe of photographer is that they spend time working on their images in their calibrated and profiled system, then when it's put up on the web, it looks like crap. You might be surprised to hear that PhotoShelter has nothing to do with it.

This happens for the simple reason that the vast majority of web browsers are not color managed -- meaning, all that nice profile information that gets embedded into the file gets ignored.

Common UNmanaged browsers include:
* Firefox
* Internet Explorer

Common Managed browsers include:
* Safari

So if you've shot in AdobeRGB, edit in your profiled computer, but then display it on the web in IE, you're likely viewing a washed out version because IE displays in sRGB, and ignores any ICC profile information.

Here are a couple of great resources that have more detailed information:

• Gary Ballard has a great explanation with visual examples
  
• Microsoft explains it to you
  

David Honl is a photojournalist based in Istanbul, Turkey. In January, the bird flu problem hit this part of the world - and it was all over the international media. It still is.

Shooting in "less than ideal conditions", David has been busy documenting the story since it first broke, using PhotoShelter to help him get his images to picture editors around the world, quickly and easily.

David, who maintains a blog of his own, recently described how he's using PhotoShelter, and how it has improved his workflow and efficiency.

http://davidhonl.blogspot.com/2006/02/boxfull-of-memories.html

"While I was writing this piece, I got an e-mail from a publisher," David writes. "They want to use a picture from my website for a Kurdish language booklet. Once we've agreed on a price, I'll create a 'Quick Hi-Res Download Link' for the client, and I'll have easily paid for a year of PhotoShelter service with this tiny sale."

A gallery of David's "Bird Flu / Turkey" images can be found here:

http://www.photoshelter.com/gallery-show/G000075z6dg3Rcew

David is one of several PhotoShelter users with an interesting tale to tell. In future entries to the PhotoShelter Blog, I'll be sharing more of them.

If you have an interesting story of your own, we'd like to hear from you, too.

Thanks for sharing your story, David.

How does searching for a photographer by Zip Code work?
The USPS introduced Zip Codes in 1963 as a way to expedite mail delivery. Every address was coded with a five-digit code, where the numbers themselves had geographic logic. If you've ever looked at overlays of Zip Codes, you'll realize that they don't correspond too any recognizable shape (with maybe the exception of Manhattan's rectangular grid). They are amorphously shaped based on parameters like demographics, country lines, etc.

This poses a slight challenge. When you search for photographers within 10 miles of 68046 (Omaha), what are you really doing? The USPS provides longitude and latitude coordinates for each Zip Code, which represents the center point of the Zip. Obviously, depending on the shape of the area which the Zip Code represents, the center point might be a bit ambiguous.

So when you try to find that photographer within a certain radius, we determine a "bounding box" of half the search distance in the upper left, and half the distance in the lower right. Still with me?

When you execute a search for a photographer within 10 miles of 68046 and include photographers willing to travel, we are plotting the union of two bounding boxes. The first is the bounding box that you define with the Zip Code. The second is the bounding box of all photographers and their travel radiuses. When we overlap these two boxes, the union represents the set of matching results, which we feed back to you.

Another problem is that we're dealing with non-Euclidean geometry. When we map things on a globe we get different results than if we plotted points on a flat piece of paper (i.e. parallel lines intersect). Why? Because longitudes are a function of cosine, and not absolute distances.

If you're experiencing bad flashbacks from high school geometry, it's ok. This description is merely illustrative of the fact that things that we take for granted as end users can often involve quite a bit of engineering.

Of course, none of this will work if photographers don't enter their zip code in the first place.

So why no international support for postal code based searching? Because many countries don't have structured data for their postal codes, or they don't have that data available for licensing.