Online Photo Printing Recommendation

If you are a little more serious about your photographic prints these days like I am, you will want a photo printing company that is a cut above the rest. "The Rest" is a crowded group - it seems that everyone is trying to get you to use them for your online prints: Shutterfly, Snapfish, Flickr, Kodak, Costco, Target...and the list goes on.

When it comes to printing my photos, the very first thing I look for is a print service that prints from tiff files. If you're a serious photographer you won't want to be printing from jpeg files as this is a compressed file format that discards a lot of your image information. Remember that the jpeg file format was devleoped for displaying images on the web in the days of 8kb dialup modem days. Sure, its fine for your 7x5 snapshots, but when you want to go to the next level in both image quality and size, you will not be printing from jpeg files. So if you're using a service that only accepts jpeg files, move on, I say.

The next thing I look for is a print service that provides a good selection of quality archival papers. You want to be able to choose a paper type that compliments the photo you are printing. If it's an artsy image with colors that are "grungy", then you will want to print on a paper that has some texture and isn't too shiny. But if you have a colorful image that you want to pop, then you'll probably want to print it on something that has good reflective qualities.

Next, you want an online photo print service who has a user-friendly website for uploading and ordering your prints. And since you will be printing from tiff files, you will want a site that offers a reasonable amount of free storage space, and that will accept quite large files.

And last, but by no means least, you want a print service that offers exceptional service. Timely turnaround, and packaging that gets the prints to you in great shape.

Over the years I have tried several online photo printing services, and I am happy that about a year ago I found the equivalent of "Nirvana" in online photographic printing. And that's New York City's Adorama photo lab known as AdoramaPix. I use them all the time for my printing now and they are just exceptional in all the qualities I listed above.

They use Kodak papers exclusively and I recommend that you try the Kodak "metallic" paper for any prints that are colorful and which you want to really jump off the paper. I have almost all my prints done on the metallic paper. You'll be astounded by its glass-like sheen.

Use this link to the AdoramaPix website and place just one order and I'm sure you'll be hooked too. From time to time they have excellent sales too. And while you're there, be sure to check out all the great camera stuff at Adorama.com too.

Anza-Borrego Spring Wildflowers and Desertscapes

Hi There,

It's been a few days since you heard from me, but I have been busy developing more photos from my visit at the end of March to the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in San Diego County. I have placed them all in a separate photo gallery now devoted to this one field trip. And there are not just spring wildflowers anymore; there's a grasshopper too and a shot of the long shadows of the setting sun on the hillside to the west of Plum Canyon where I spent most of the day.

Follow this link to see a slideshow of the flowers and desert landscapes of Anza-Borrego. Note that if you press the F11 key on your keyboard which hides your browser toolbars, the sideshow will also automatically resize the images to even larger photos.

If you are "bandwidth-challenged" you might prefer this static gallery of photos from Anza-Borrego.

Western Rueppell's Vulture

I'm starting to worry here at the moment that you might be getting sick of photos of flowers, so I thought I'd shock you out of your "flower-daze" with this photo of a vulture. Yes, a vulture! This handsome guy is a Western Rueppell's Vulture, which I know for a fact because I had the good sense to also take a photo of the sign in front of his enclosure at the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park. These guys come from the northern two-thirds of Africa...so the sign says. (I'm not an ornithologist yet.)

If you're wondering how I got this photo looking like this, after adjusting for white balance and color in Photoshop, I then created some layers to help me darken the background, and I finished up by putting some "omni" lights in a couple of places that I wanted lightened up. Had to do all of this because the zoo wouldn't let me take him to the studio for a photo shoot.

See this Western Rueppell's Vulture in all his glory in the Birds Photo Gallery.

Emory Rock Daisy

Going out on a limb here today and making a bold claim that this is an Emory's Rock Daisy [Perityle emoryi] (See Emory Rock Daisy at Calflor.org).

The impression I have gotten several times when looking at these photos of tiny flowers against a background of small rocks is that I'm looking into an aqarium. The only thing missing is the water and some fish.

If you look carefully at these photos you will notice that once you get past the sunny yellow face in the center of the white petals you will notice how many other plants there are around the daisys. I cropped this photo in two different ways. In the first there are some tiny pink flowers to the lower left, and in the second one, there is some grass sticking up in the upper right corner. Unless you pay attention in the desert you miss a lot of stuff like this since it is all on a very small scale.

See the full-sized versions of these photos of Emory's Rock Daisy in the Desert Flower Photo Gallery.

Purple Wildfowers and Log

A dry log of wood provided an interesting backdrop for this composition of purple wildflowers. I took this series of photos in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park situated in San Diego county on March 22nd. The actual location is Plum Canyon. From the typical photos you see of spring wildflowers I went with the false impression of vast expanses of flowers, but most of the flowers are scattered and very tiny. These were probably mid-sized. I probably was confusing photos from coastal areas or vernal pools where there is more water. It is just a miracle how anything can grow in this environment and put on such a show albeit in miniature.

See the full-sized photo in the Desert Flowers slideshow.

Red and Yellow Desert Wildflower Colorburst

Here's a great burst of yellow and red from Anza-Borrego this past spring. Anyone who knows what these flowers are, I would appreciate it if you could please post a comment.

I recommend viewing the full-size photo in the Desert Flowers Gallery, but if you have a slow internet connection, I have posted this smaller image of this yellow and red wildflower colorburst in Anza-Borrego Desert.

Dormant Shrub in Anza Borrego Desert

Here are a couple of versions of a dormant shrub in Plum Canyon at Anza-Borrego State Park. Dead and dormant desert plants can make pretty interesting subjects for photos because of things like their starkness, their shapes, and the fact that the elements often exposes a lot of the grain in the wood.

This spindly shrub caught my attention among the wildflowers. I developed a couple of versions of the photo: one accentuates the yellows in the wood, while in the other I worked to develop a warm gray. I wonder which one you prefer?

View and compare them in the Plant Photo Gallery

(Dial-up optimized Plant Photo Gallery)

Grand Canyon - Remake of an Earlier Photo

This is a remake of a photo I took from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon which I have previously posted (Grand Canyon from the South Rim #1).

Taken back in May 2005 with my old Nikon Coolpix E8700 digital (not an SLR and shot as jpeg) I just spent some time developing the photo again from scratch in preparation for printing it for some friends who saw the previous version and liked it.

Actually, the previous photo does print up very nicely on Kodak metallic paper, but I'm pretty sure this one is going to look even better. I think this latest version is a good illustration of what I've learned over the last couple of years of intensive study of Photoshop. Now there's just a millioin more things to learn. You could even compare Photoshop to the Grand Canyon; it's deep and wide and you can spend a lifetime with it. But it's fun and when you get to see improvement like I feel I can see between this photo and the previous version you get to understand that it was worthwhile.

One scary thing, however, is that when I look back at how I developed photos a year or so ago I want to redo them all again, just like this one!

Compare the photos in my U.S. Landscapes Photo Gallery (Got a slow internet connection? Then use this dial-up optimized U.S. Lanscapes gallery).

Other posts featuring photos of the Grand Canyon National Park

Dry Yucca Flowerhead

I think the yucca and agave flower in May or June, but many of last years flower stalks still stand sentry in Anza-Borrego Desert. Although the blooms on this stalk are long gone, I really found them beautiful nonetheless.

See it in the Desert Flower Gallery (Dial-up desert flower gallery for slow internet connections)

Cholla Cactus - Anza-Borrego Desert

This very sculptural-looking cactus is alluringly beautiful and drops the ends of its branches onto the ground like little balls. But woe to anyone or anything that merely brushes even gently against it as its thorns are incredibly sharp and barbed. A gentle touch with the tip of the rubber toe on my shoe and the spines were a half-inch into the rubber and impossible to pull back out! Beware of these beauties if you visit Anza-Borrego desert.

This cactus plant is actually a Cholla Cactus. There are several varieties, but this one is Cylindropuntia bigelovii or the "Teddy Bear Cholla", so named because of it's fuzzy appearance. That cute fuzziness, however, is the mass of spines covering the plant. One of my friends knows this cactus as "the widowmaker"! You can read about this and other Cholla cacti at Wikipedia: Teddy-Bear Cholla. Or additionally at this Living Desert posting which describes clearly the perils of encountering this deceptively-looking teddy-bear.

Full-sized photos of this cactus can be seen in the Plants Photo Gallery (Dial-up Plants Photo Gallery)

Book Recommendation for Digital SLR Cameras

An interesting coincidence happened this weekend: two friends recently upgraded to digital SLR cameras, and both of them asked for recommendations on resources or books for learning how to use the features of their new cameras.

My friend Chantal emailed me saying:

I wanted to ask you about photography... How did you learn? Do you have a good book to recommend? I'm reading through the camera's manual and while it tells me how to use the camera, I need to learn about all the technical terms and how to actually make the best use of my camera. I went to the lake by my house last weekend and took amazing pictures using the portrait, macro, landscape, etc. pre-setting, but didn't adjust anything manually. Check out the green on the duck picture I've attached!

Let me know... thanks! Chantal

With my other friend, Karen, we had been talking about photography classes online. They are out there, but they tend to be expensive. So when I got Chantal's email this morning it made me think back over the books I have bought the last few years, and which ones have helped me most. So here is the one book from which I learned the most about using a digital SLR camera: The Better Photo Guide to Digital Photography by Jim Miotke.

Obviously, I haven't read every book out there on digital SLR photogrpahy, so there may be others that are just as good or even better, but of all the books I have read, this one by far taught me the most about using the manual settings on a digital SLR camera: how to use aperture settings, how to get depth-of-field in photos, good advice on composition and light. So that's my recommendation, and since two people came up with the same question within a matter of days of each other, I thought I'd share it with everyone.

Good luck Karen and Chantal, and be warned: photography can become a horrible addiction best pursued by people willing to cut off all social ties with friends, family, and society! Just kidding...I think.

Yucca in Bloom at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

The yucca were starting to bloom on my visit to Anza-Borrego Desert. This flower head was heavy with creamy-colored blooms. It struck me how the flowers cymbidian orchid in a way. The bees were going crazy over these flowers.

This photo is viewable in the Desert Flowers Gallery (For slow internet connections visit the Dial-Up Gallery)

Anza-Borrego Wildflowers

This cluster of tiny wildflowers is typical of the flowers in Plum Canyon in Anza-Borrego Desert this spring. Because of the dry and harsh environment, most of the flowers are tiny like the three in this photo. But what they lack in size, they make up for in color.

It's pretty difficult to try and identify all these flowers, but I'm pretty sure the white one is Desert Pincushion and the tiny lavender-colored flower is Gilia. There are so many flowers that the yellow ones could be that I don't want to hazard a guess. Help out if you can. I've been using the CalFlora.org website to try and identify the flowers in this series.

This photo is viewable in the Desert Flowers Gallery (Dial-Up Gallery)

Photo Restoration Job - Hot Air Balloon Series

Here are some photos I just restored for a friend of mine. She took these photos of a hot air balloon many years ago and told me she was thinking of scanning the old photos and printing them to hang on her stairs. I volunteered to try my hand at restoring them for her. Since this was a volunteer effort, I felt free about taking a little artistic licence, and added some clouds to the background on several of the photos to add some "depth-of-field" and visual interest.

Like all old photos, there were many spots and scratches and after scanning them the color was dull. It was apparently a sunny day that Karen took these photos, and like any photo of a high contrast background like blue sky that is not taken using a UV filter, the sky is grey and washed out. To handle this problem, I used blue skies from my own photos for the backgrounds.

You can view the before and after photos for this photo restoration job in either of two galleries depending on your internet speed:

Photo Restoration - Hot Air Balloon - Broadband Gallery

Photo Restoration - Hot Air Balloon - Dial-Up Gallery

Anza-Borrego Desert Pink Wildflower

Well, I spent a lot of time searching through the Calflora database in an effort to identify this pink flower from Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, but didn't see a photo of anything that looked like it. It actually reminds me of a crocus flower. If you know what this flower is, please identify it with a comment below. Thanks!

This photo can be viewed either in the desert wildflower gallery, or the dial-up optimized desert wildflower gallery.

If you are interested in prints available in a range of sizes and quality papers or in licensing any of my photos, please send me an email.

Desert Chicory

I'm hoping I correctly identified this white daisy-like flower in this photo from Anza-Borrego desert; I believe it is desert chicory (rafinesquia neomexicana), but if I'm wrong, please let me know in a comment below.

Anyhow, these beauties really stood out because not many of the wildflowers were white.

View full-sized images in the desert flower gallery or the dial-up optimized desert flower gallery.