Here is your chance to receive a FREE copy of The Easy Accounting Solution for the Photographer!!!

Photographers love the creative side of what they do.  They don’t however usually like the “business side” of their business.  Photographers often comment that they wish there was a way to make it easier for them to take care of their accounting.  Keeping track of how much your company makes (income from customers) is not the only thing you must keep track of. You must keep detailed records of your expenses too; this is especially important come tax time.  If you have kept detailed records all year, tax-time is SO much less stressful! However, it can be difficult to know what to keep track of, and how to categorize it.

The Easy Accounting Solution for the Photographer has come up with the solution!  The Easy Accounting Solution for the Photographer is an easy-to-use Excel spreadsheet that was designed specifically for photographers.  There is no prior bookkeeping or Excel knowledge needed.  You get not only the Excel spreadsheet, but also a detailed Word write-up which not only tells you how to use the spreadsheet, but what items to track and how to track them.

The Easy Accounting Solution for the Photographer is not only an accounting tool.  It also allows you to keep a customer database (good for marketing) and a job tracking tab.  One product to keep track of customers, jobs, invoicing, income, expenses, tax deductions, and more!

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::: 3 WAYS TO ENTER TO WIN :::

1.      Go to The Easy Accounting Solution for the Photographer Facebook page and click “Like” at the top of the page. Then leave a comment HERE letting us know you “Like” them.

the Easy Accounting Solution for the Photographer

2.      Leave a comment below letting us know why you think this would be a great product for you and your business.

3.      Spread the love! Blog, tweet or FB about this great giveaway. Come back HERE and leave a comment linking us where you posted the shout out. (Please be honest and really post if you say you did.)

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• • A winner will be chosen at random on Sunday, August 8th at 8PM MDT.

• • All others may use discount code MKP15 to purchase a copy of The Easy Accounting Solution for the Photographer at a 15% discount.  The discount code expires 8/12/10.

The 3rd image was done with my signature editing that I demonstrate in my photo editing mentoring sessions and required no actions at all. As you can see, a sky was added for drama… and photos like this with wide open blank skies are best for this process. The colors were taken in a more dramatic, rich direction and the overall feel is completely different than the original or even the 2nd image.

There’s great fun in experimenting and trying new things by opening ones self up to new possibilities. Knowing the ins and outs of Photoshop and what can be done by hand, opens up the door of editing possibilities!

SOOC :: EXIF: 85mm 1.8 lens • 1/320 • f/2.2 • ISO 50

EXIF: 50mm 1.2 lens • 1/200 • f/4.5 • ISO 400

SOOC Image

The second image shows just the darkening of the background blanket as described above, plus fixes to the skin and luminosity changes with curves. 

Going a step further, I added a funky texture to the background to create an artistic feel and add more of a surreal look. Play around with the blending modes when adding textures, as you never know what you’ll get with a lesser used blending mode. One of the very best places I’ve discovered for FREE textures that ROCK is Shadowhouse Creations. Jerry Jones is the incredibly talented and generous creator behind a slew of awesome textures. You must check out his site and if you do download his textures, LEAVE HIM A COMMENT thanking him. Generous souls like him are few and far between and he deserves to be thanked. Hope you’ve enjoyed this before and after. Cheers!

These beauties simply blew me away. Sweet, cute, silly, fun loving and oh so easy to photograph. Traveling all the way from Washington, we had one shot at this session. The skies were a dark grey and foreboding as we drove to our location. We said we would do the best we could given the horrible light and impending thunderstorm. As I drove, I prayed the entire way for the skies to open up and the sweet evening light to shine through. And you know what? Prayers were answered as the intense dark clouds miraculously lifted and the warm setting sun shone its glorious rays upon us. It’s moments like that, when my heart is filled with gratitude and I can’t thank God enough for His provision. On top of that, I had been incredibly sick the night before and even that entire day of the shoot. Come session time, all ill feelings were gone and I was ready to rock and roll, crawling around in the grass and playing with these darling sisters, capturing some of my favorite images to date. Thank you Maci for driving out of your way for a stop in Sheridan and a photo session with me. My hope is that you love the preview. And stay tuned, as this just might be my next featured session with all the images posted in a slideshow. Here’s to answered prayers and beautiful girls.

By the way, THIS is a perfect example of what to wear for a photo session…. colorful and perfectly coordinated (never matchy matchy)!!!

I’m a sucker for weird, random junk. Crazy? Maybe, but this sort of stuff speaks to me as an artist. When I do a shoot, whether it is a session for a client or just shooting for art images, I’ve always got in the back of my mind what I can do with the image in post processing. This location spoke to me as a possible backdrop because of the colorful, dark, highly textured wall. Plus, all the junk strewn about added texture and interest. Doing a deep, rich, moody edit really requires the image to have color and depth to begin with, that can later be intensified and brought out in editing. Same is true of the clothes clients wear. Textured, colorful, layered clothes add visual interest and give the image a starting point for vivid, rich editing. Also, even if there is a hint of color in an image, but I don’t necessarily like the color, it’s certainly changeable in post. I’ll demonstrate this concept in the next before and after.

EXIF: SOOC  ::  50mm 1.2 lens • 1/400 • f/5.6 • ISO 320 • spot metering (not great settings, but it is what it is!)

2nd image is after tweaks in just Lightroom. Exposure down to -1.5, recovery up all the way to 100, fill light up to 65, blacks up to 72, brightness up to 59 from 50, contrast maxed out at 100, basic S curve in tone curve and clarity maxed at 100, vibrance and saturation both brought down a bit, split toning added with a slight yellowish/mustard hue.

3rd image after editing in Photoshop. The details of this edit are too numerous to list, but in general, include tweaks to blending modes, dodging and burning, shadow and highlight tweaks, selective color replacement and massive sharpening.

And voila, it goes from random car window crap shot, to 16×20 canvas hanging on my living room wall.