MomShots

Do you know what DPI stands for?

In the photographic and printing world it stands for Dots Per Inch.  

You may have heard that term before - especially when you tried to print out an image using any online printing company like Snapfish, Costco, Shutterfly, Walmart, etc.

When you are working with photos and other types of images, you are dealing with dots per inch.  This is a way to measure how many little bits of color can be squeezed into one inch.  This is not to be confused with pixels per inch because each pixel holds three dots of color - red, blue and green.  There are actually three times more dots per inch than pixels per inch according to this Wikipedia article.  

When you are printing a photo you usually want it to have a high DPI of around 300.  That’s kind of the standard.  This will make your photo look better.  It will have more depth, richer colors and usually have smoother skin tones.  You can have a higher DPI than that but it usually isn’t necessary and it also depends on what kind of printer will be used.  Different printers have different DPI capabilities.  

When you are posting photos online, it doesn’t need to be very high.  A DPI of 72 works just fine.  The reason for this is that the standard for monitors is 72 DPI.  Basically, most monitors won’t show you any detail higher than 72 DPI.

So for you bloggers out there,  uploading your photos at 72 DPI is a really good idea.  This will make it possible for you to upload more photos and take up more space with all the good stuff you want to share because you aren’t filling up all your space with giant photos.

This is actually something that I was not doing before.  I just realized that I wasn’t paying any attention to that kind of thing and so I have been wasting my hosting space because of that.  Now I am going to upload every photo at 72 DPI and save myself some room.  Yay me!  :)  

Can you see a difference in these photos and any photos in previous posts?  I venture to say that you can’t.  In fact, check out the two versions of the Chicken photo below.  One is 72 DPI and the other is 300 DPI.  The only difference is that the 72 DPI version is only 228 kb and the 300 DPI is 1.2 mb.  That’s a big size difference.  I could put nearly 5 times the photos in the same space as the 1.2 mb photo.  

 Gar & the Rooster at 72dpiGar & the Rooster at 300dpi  

So the Momshot Tip for today is to lower your resolution to 72 DPI before uploading your photos online.  This will save you space and not compromise the integrity of your photos to those viewing them on a computer monitor.                               

To all the people who are working so hard to improve our world and keep us safe.  In honor of those who died and those who took a stand fighting for our freedom, I say thank you.  I don’t take your sacrifices lightly.

The current weekly assignment at Digital Photography School is called Contre-Jour.  That is a term I had not previously heard.  Wikipedia says it is French for “Against the light”.  I take this to mean that the subject in a photo is backlit.  This means that the subject is lit from behind or the light source is in the background, not the foreground.  This offers a contrast between the subject and the light.  It can be a dramatic contrast or a more subtle contrast.

I am not sure how well the above photo of Gar’s curly head fits that description.  I think it does to an extent, but maybe if there was a greater contrast between Gar and the background it would be better.  Anyway, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and enter this into the weekly assignment.

I think these two above fit the description of Contre-Jour as well.  The fish tank one is open to interpretation as there is obvious light in the foreground, lighting Gar’s shirt, but I think the main light is coming from the fish tank and you can really see the contrast between the light (fish tank) and the subject (Gar).

The other one, the sunset on the road is definitely Contre-Jour but it’s not as fun as a photo that has a kid in it.  I just wanted to show another example and this is the next best one I had.

Have you stepped out of your photographic comfort zone lately?  

I challenge you to experiment with taking a Contre-Jour shot.  You might have a lot of fun playing with the light and the foreground.  Let me know what you find.

So how are you?  

Autumn is in the air here in Utah.  I went away for two weeks and came back to dramatically colder weather.  When we left the temperature was in the high 90’s and now it is about 15 degrees cooler.  I am a bit shocked by that sudden change!  I also noticed that at the very top of the mountains some of the trees are starting to put on their fall colors.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not freezing here or anything; far from it.  I guess after living in San Diego for 11 years I am still surprised by the changing seasons of Utah.  Strange since I didn’t grow up in a seasonless climate.  I guess we learn to acclimate to where ever we are.

The kids in my neighborhood have all gone back to school and the street is so much quieter in the day.  We are the noisy house on the street now.  We’re a noisy family anyway so that’s no surprise!  We have also started homeschooling preschool this year.  We are having a blast.  My son, Ulysses is always asking me if we can have school at random times in the day.  It’s so cute.  He is such a sponge; he just wants to learn and learn and learn.

Let’s see.  What else?  Oh, I got such a great complement from Tanya today.  Thanks.  You made my afternoon!  She left a comment and said that she was looking at older photos of her son and thought to herself that they weren’t very good “Momshots”.  She wished that she had gotten down to his level to take the photo.  Yaya, Tanya!!!  I love that you were thinking that.  I think if I had to pick one Momshot Tip it would be to get down on their level.  Over and Over and Over and Over I have to remind myself of that.

This week we have a cool Tip of the Week.  Tye tells us how to add SPOT COLOR to a photograph.  It is a great technique to draw the eye of the viewer into your focal point.  It is also just a really fun thing to do!  You an show off your babies big brown/blue/green, etc. eyes or that fiery red hair or a beautiful pink bow.  Thy sky is the limit!  It’s a lot of fun.  Try it out and see what you come up with.  Post it on Flickr and let us know where it is.  We would all LOVE to see it.

Here’s my attempt at Spot Color.  In Palm Springs we took the boys to play at a water fountain one afternoon.  It was a blast.  I love going to new places to photograph my kids.  Seriously, I get pretty bored of photographing them in my backyard…  :)

We got home from our 3000 mile road trip yesterday.  It was a long time driving but really, being stuck in the car with my all time favorite people is one of my all time favorite things to do.  On our trip I took a ton of photos.  I took photos of things on the side of the road, mountains, volcanos, trees, signs, people.  It was really fun.  We stopped a few times and took photos of things we saw on the side of the road but mostly I had to snap my photos through the bug smeared windshield.  It was a blast!

Here are a few shots from the trip.

We pulled over outside of Palmdale, CA for an emergency pee break.  This Scoop - Thank Bob The Builder for the name - was on the side of the road and we let Garland and Ulysses climb all over it.  They had a blast.  Gar cried for about 15 minutes after we forced them back into the car to resume our cross country trek.

Magnus in his car seat.  He gets pretty tired of his seat but he’s a trooper.  If his brothers are sitting next to him he has much more fun.

Ben, Ulysses and Garland standing outside of the closed down post office and general store in Kelso, California.  This is one of the two remaining buildings in that little dead town.  Quite a bit worse than Radiator Springs.

Here is a little montage of inanimate objects we saw.  This is Mt. Shasta through my bug smeared windshield, a few Joshua trees, a tree in the Middle of Nowhere in California heavily laden with shoes, and a bit of Route 66 nostalgic glory. 

We have been on a whirlwind trip - a giant road trip loop.  We started in Utah and drove up to Bellingham, Washington and then drove down to Palm Springs, California.  Today we are going to complete the loop and make our way home to Springville.  

I have had many photo opportunities with new scenery and family members.  I am excited to get back on track with posting and playing with my Momshots.  I have been remiss in that I haven’t posted this week’s Tip of the Week.  Tye typed it up for me but I haven’t posted it yet.  I’m just going to say that I am on vacation and will post it next week.  It’s a good one about using spot color so that will be fun!

In the spirit of Momshots, I am posting a photo of my adorable sister in law.  She is 8 1/2 months pregnant and this photo shows her sisters’ hands on her baby belly.