With a bad economy making our clients nervous and budgets tighter, here are a few things we would like you to consider.

As we head into the second decade (for some of us) of digital image making, it's time to realize that "photography" no longer means just taking pictures. Commercial photographers now need to be proficient in all areas of image management including retouching, color correction, clipping paths, color management, etc. The days are over when clients should accept images from a commercial photographer who feels that it's someone else's job to make his or her pictures usable.

The line between photography and pre-press is getting harder to define and photographers should be expected to be responsible for providing an image that can be used as delivered without the need for countless hours of expensive pre-press. Also, the advantage of having one studio for both photography and retouching cannot be overstated. In the real world a product can change, the sample sent wasn't quite right or someone doesn't like one of the props. This happens all the time and if you know that this issue can be dealt with in one place, your job is that much easier and the result that much better. We know how we lit it, we still have the surface, we can style it, prop it, and do a miracle of retouching to make it look like it was shot that way in the first place.

Lastly, every studio should have the ability to provide a proof that you can rely on. Expensive Kodak prints from your pre-press house should be reserved for last round approvals. We use the Epson 3800 with ColorBurst RIP to assure that you're seeing an accurate representation of the final printed piece. What we're leading to is the fact that our (and your) success in these times requires a streamlined, efficient, cost effective method with no compromise in creativity or quality and that's exactly what we do!