Digital Boudoir Photography : A Step-by-step Guide to ... - Ken Gilbert

68 Digital Boudoir Photography
Step 16: Viewing the Images
Viewing the images means sharing them with your model or client. There are a number
of ways that you can do this. You could order “proof” prints of all of the edited,
selected images. You would do this by preparing 4 × 6 images and ordering them from
your lab or printing them yourself. (See Step 17.) Depending on how many images
you created, this could get expensive. This is often how it was done in the film days,
but now we have digital techniques. You can view the images on your monitor by
using the same software that you used to edit your images. Usually you will want to
show the model or client the largest images you can, up to full monitor size if possible.
Photographers have used contact sheets for many, many years. Contact sheets got their
name because negatives were laid on a sheet of photo paper (thus “contact”) with a
sheet of glass over the top to hold it all flat. The resulting images were exactly the same
size as the negatives. Digital contact sheets are actually sheets of small, thumbnail
images. Software such as Photoshop allows you to set the size of the images to be
whatever you like. You can even format it as five rows of four images each, or whatever
pattern you would like. Then, you print it out to show your client. This is handy to
keep track of all of the images, but it is not as useful as the digital tools we have. If you
are not used to them, the small images on the sheets are hard to read. Most of time,
photographers use some electronic means to show the images on the monitor (or even
a projector if you want to get really fancy). This is generally faster and less expensive
than any other method.
Some software will allow you to make a little slideshow and play it back. If this is the
case, always start with your favorite, the strongest image. End it with another strong
image, probably your second favorite. Sometimes this slideshow can be saved in a
movie format such as QuickTime, which will allow you to share it and play it on any
computer.
Joanna looks at a photo on the computer monitor. Here is a digital contact sheet produced by Photoshop.