What Do They Mean By Photo Safe?

Posted on May 8, 2007
Filed Under Tools of the Trade | 15 Comments

Many photographic products today are labeled “photo safe” but what does photo safe mean? Does that mean the product is archival quality? Are photo safe products acid free?

The terrible truth is that photo safe doesn’t actually mean anything specific. It is a term that was developed to serve a marketing purpose. Something labeled photo safe could be acid free, archival or near acid free or just won’t stain your photograph when you use it. The words “photo safe” are only as good as the company you buy them from.

Does this mean that a company that uses the term photo safe to describe their products is unscrupulous or misleading? Not at all.

Plenty of very reputable companies use this term to describe their products. Photo safe just happens to be a more self explanatory phrase that makes more sense to customers than the more accurate acid free or archival quality. When a company says their products are photo safe, you know immediately what they mean.

If you are working with a company that has a good reputation, you can trust the photo safe label.

If you have any doubts as to what a company means when they say “photo safe”, your best course of action is to just ask them what they mean by that. If they are a good company, they should have no problem explaining what their company’s definition of photo safe is.

You might even want to think about using this tactic with your own clients. While your clients, who are not photo savvy people, may be intimidated by phrases like acid free and archival quality, they will have no problem understanding you if you tell them that your products are photo safe.

What Do They Mean By Archival Quality?

Posted on May 4, 2007
Filed Under Tools of the Trade | 13 Comments

One photo mount says that it is acid free. Another one says that it is archival quality. Are they the same thing? Can acid free be considered archival and are all archival quality products the same thing?

First, let’s clarify what archival quality means. Archival quality means that it meets the standards used by curators and librarians when they are handling old or rare items. In order for a product to do that, it must be chemically inert, so as not to affect the item in any way, and it must be reversible, meaning that it can not permanently change or affect the item.

Acid free, as we learned in the previous article, means that the paper has a pH higher than 7. This means that the acid free paper can have a pH from 7 to 14 (14 being the highest number on the pH scale). Archival quality paper on the other hand must have a pH between 7 and 8.5. This is considered to be pH neutral and will have no chemical interaction with the paper or objects touching the paper. This means that while all archival quality papers are acid free papers, not all acid free papers are archival quality.

The next question is should you invest in purchasing archival quality photo paper and photo packaging over acid free paper and photo packaging?

While archival quality paper products may sound better, in the end you may be only throwing away your money by paying more for these products. This is because chances are your clients will not properly store and handle their photographs in an appropriately archival fashion.

Archival products only work to help preserve items when they are used with archival techniques, which include temperature controlled environments, controlled light levels, gloved handling and many other things that the average household simply does not have the ability to do.

That being said, if your client is willing to pay the extra costs involved with having their product printed and packaged with archival quality products, then there is nothing to stop you from selling that feature to your clients.

Archival quality products are one of those things that sound nice in thought but in practice will not help your photographs last longer than acid free products.

What Do They Mean By Acid Free?

Posted on May 2, 2007
Filed Under Tools of the Trade | 11 Comments

Acid free is a term that you may hear tossed around quite a bit with regards to photographs and photo packaging. Generally this term is used when someone is referring to paper and paper products.

In order for a paper to be considered acid free, it needs to have a pH balance of 7 or higher. The higher the pH number, the less acid the paper contains.

So why is acid free considered to be so important to people when it comes to photographs? The short answer is because people want to protect and preserve their photographs.

The long (and much more technical answer) is that paper is normally made up of several highly acidic products such as bleach, wood pulp, chlorine and alum. When moisture and air are introduced to these high acid items, they create acidic compounds that literally start to eat away at the fibers in the paper. The shorter the fibers get, the more brittle the paper gets. Over time, these acidic compounds will turn the paper to dust. This is fine if you are talking about an old newspaper. This is not so good if you are talking about a treasured photograph of Great-Grandma.

For this reason, it is best to use acid free paper with your client’s photographs. For everything from printing the photographs to the selection of storage and presentation products for the photographs.

Does using acid free paper guarantee that your client’s photos will last forever? Unfortunately, while acid free paper will help to keep a photograph looking good longer, it does not mean that the photograph is safe from harm. Paper will absorb moisture and acid from the air around it, which will eventually eat away at both the packaging and the photograph. In light of this, you may want to give your client a few lessons in how to properly handle and store their images so that they will last as long as possible.

When you purchase your photo packaging, it is always a good idea to be aware of the properties of the materials that are used. Proper presentation and storage will ensure that your photography and your client’s memories will be around a good long time.

How to Tie a Simple (& Straight) Bow

Posted on March 6, 2007
Filed Under Tools of the Trade | 36 Comments

Tying a bow is one of the those things that we learn how to do as small children. “The bunny runs around the tree” and all that jazz. The problem is that the bow we learn to tie our shoes does not really translate well to a bow used to tie on gifts and… well photo packaging. If you are tying bows on your packaging like you do your shoes, the bow comes out crooked.

So today, we are going to go over a tutorial on how to tie a bow that is simple and will be straight.

Step 1
Place the ribbon under the package, making sure that the ribbon is flat and that there is an equal amount of ribbon on each side of the package.

Step 2
Next, cross the ribbons. The ribbon in your LEFT hand goes over the ribbon in your RIGHT hand. This is important. When the ribbons are crossed, the top ribbon will be in your right hand and the bottom ribbon will be in your left hand.

Step 3
Bring the top ribbon over and then under the bottom ribbon.

Step 4
Pull the ribbons tight.

Step 5
Take each ribbon end and make a loop of them, one for each hand.

Step 6
Cross the RIGHT loop over the LEFT loop. Again, this is important.

Step 7
Pull the right loop over and then under the left loop.

Step 8
Pull both loops to tighten the bow.

Step 9
Straighten the loops and ribbon ends.

Step 10
You are DONE! You now have a straight and client presentation worthy bow.

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DVD Holders - The Next Generation Wedding Album

Posted on March 2, 2007
Filed Under Tools of the Trade | 36 Comments

There is no question that the digital era has affected the world of professional wedding photography.

Where once a bride’s only option to get professional quality images to share with her family was to work through her wedding photographer, these days it is simply a matter of running to the nearest computer scanner to end up with an image whose quality is nearly the same as the original.

Because of this, many photographers are opting to skip the entire process of helping the client get their prints. These days it is not uncommon for a professional photographer to charge only for their time when creating the image and then handing the client a CD or DVD of the images taken during that time.

Even if the client still does want prints or an album, chances are that they will also want a digital copy of all of their images.

The question becomes, “How are you packaging your CDs or DVDs?”

The least expensive way would be to run down to your nearest computer store and buy a 10 pack of the cheap, flimsy plastic CD jewel cases that they sell there. This is effective but it lacks a certain panache. Actually, it lacks any kind of panache what so ever. It is cheap, so it looks cheap and it does nothing for your image as a photographer.

There are other options and these options are much more in line with what a bride expects from anything that has to do with her wedding.

One of my favorite options is a padded and embossed DVD album. Many of the manufactures of wedding albums now make this option. These cases tend to be reminiscent of wedding albums and are a product that can be displayed in the client’s home much like a print wedding album. The option is the most expensive, but I like it best because it is an option that any bride, after spending several hundred dollars, would expect to receive.

Another option is a CD or DVD folio. A DVD folio will allow you to put both a disc and an image into the case. The folios tend not to be as fancy as the DVD albums, but they are nice in that an image from the package can also be displayed.

There is also plastic DVD cases. DVD cases are really just one step up from a plastic jewel case. The main difference is that a DVD case is the standard size of the cases that movie and game DVDs come in, so chances are your client already has a space where something this size can be stored. Beyond this, DVD cases normally have a clear plastic pocket where you can slip a personalized cover onto the case making it a better option than the jewel case.

If you find a that you have a DVD or CD that needs to be included with another product, like a wedding album, a self-adhesive plastic DVD holder or a paper DVD sleeve can be affixed to the inside of the album and the DVD or CD can be slipped into it, keeping both the album and the disc together.

On the very lowest end, there is just a plain paper DVD or CD envelope, but if you must take this option (which is almost as bad as the plastic jewel case), make sure that you follow the “everything leaves with your name” rule and have your name, phone number and your web address imprinted on good quality paper envelopes.

You have many options with digital discs. Take a good look at what you are presenting to your client. Remember that several hundred dollars worth of your work are sitting on a disc that costs less than a dollar. In light of this, don’t you think that the packaging for that disc should reflect the quality of what is contained on the disc, rather than what it cost to manufacture the disc itself?

Talking about Tissue Paper

Posted on February 6, 2007
Filed Under Tools of the Trade | 39 Comments

Tissue Paper = Money Can we talk a little about tissue paper?

I know it is not something that you would normally give much thought to but today we are going to take a look at what tissue paper can do for you.

Have you ever noticed that expensive men’s dress socks have a piece of tissue paper tucked inside one? If you haven’t, pay close attention the next time you need to buy men’s dress socks. I promise it will be there. As a matter of fact, lots of high end pieces of clothing will have a sheet of tissue paper tucked inside or around them in the box.

So what purpose does that sheet of tissue paper serve? It’s not to protect the clothing or make it fold easier. That tissue paper is there for one reason and that is to add an auditory element to the experience of buying the piece of clothing.

We humans are sensory creatures. We love to smell, taste, touch, see and hear the world around us. Good marketers have discovered that the more of these senses they stimulate during the purchasing process, the more indulged a person feels and thus the more value the person perceives in whatever they are buying.

Back to the socks. Normally socks are not the most vocal of clothing pieces. The dress sock manufactures tuck that piece of tissue inside so that when you are looking for a new pair of dress socks, you pick it up and it crinkles. They have added an extra layer of interaction with the socks and this sound, combined with the fine quality of the cloth and the rich color of the thread used to make the cloth, sends a signal that these socks are the best darn socks that money can buy.

So what do socks have to do with photo packaging? It is all about that tissue paper. Once the garment industry started to add tissue paper to the inside of items to make them seem more luxurious, a strange thing happened. That tissue paper itself, not just the sound of tissue paper, became subconsciously linked to the idea of luxury and quality. These days, it seems like everything is wrapped in tissue paper. No one gives a gift bag that isn’t overflowing with voluminous peaks of tissue paper. Every gift shop on the planet will take extra time and cost to make sure whatever you are buying is neatly wrapped in a piece of tissue paper. They may claim it is to protect the item, but how much protection can a flimsy piece of tissue paper really give?

Whatever the claimed reason for this explosion in tissue paper use, the result is that the public is now fully conditioned to understand that when something is wrapped in tissue paper, it is something special and valuable.

The question now becomes are you using tissue paper with your photographs? This small, inexpensive step can help add the feel of luxury and quality.

In other words, are you handing your clients pictures that are shoved in a plastic bag like trash or are you handing them pictures that have been wrapped in soft, crinkly tissue paper like the treasures that they are?

Information about the tissue paper in socks and clothing was found in the book “Why do Pirates Love Parrots?” from the Imponderables Series by David Feldman

Pieces and Parts of Presentation Photo Packaging

Posted on January 2, 2007
Filed Under Tools of the Trade | 39 Comments

Recently, I talked about how Photo Packaging could be broken up into two different aspects, Presentation and Sales/Marketing. Today, I want to talk about what makes up the “Presentation” aspect of photo packaging.

Here is a list of what I think goes into it: Puzzle Peices

Frame - to separate and display
Light - to draw attention
Caption - to define and clarify
Protect - to secure and preserve
Combine - to tell a complete story (multiple-image collages, folios and albums)
Promote - to spread the word

Over the next few weeks, I am going to go over each one of these aspects and talk about what they mean to the professional photographer on a deeper level.

I will also be sharing some tips and tricks on how to make the best use of the pieces and parts of packaging.