![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
From the field...
Dec. 7th, 2006 10:24 pmTips to making a better photo calendar (and rants from one who has to make them):
1. Use as many landscape pictures as possible. As the calendar is printed in landscape format, a landscape picture will fill up more of the space, and you don't get the dreaded white bars on the sides. If you must use a portrait picture, find another one to pair with it; it fills the space better and just looks nicer.
2. Anything taken by a professional photographer is copyrighted and requires a release. This includes school pictures, WalMart/K-Mart/Olan Mills portraits, and anything where the print says "DO NOT COPY" on the back. Scanning said photo and reprinting it, cutting off the corner with the foil imprint, or taking a picture of the picture does NOT mean the copyright is gone. We the calendar creators are smart. We know what we can and can't copy. We can spot professional pictures, even if you scanned it and reprinted it. If you submit a copyrighted photo to us, we will send it right back with a big red sticker on the envelope that says COPYRIGHT ISSUES.
3. Realize that if you have a picture of just a living room, in the middle of the calendar full of pictures of people, we will ask "WTF?" If it is a calendar completely of rooms, we will assume you are an interior decorator. Just one, though, and we think you're weird.
4. If you must make MANY copies of calendars featuring nothing but pictures of your pets, put a little effort into it, and at least try to theme the pictures, or even vary them. Three pictures of your cat sleeping on the toilet, the same cat, the same toilet, and we will think you are insane. Seriously.
5. Babies are cute. We like pictures of babies. Kids with red-eye so fierce, they look possessed, on the other hand....
6. Realize that the teeny-tiny 1"x1" black and white photo of your grandfather as a baby might not enlarge well. We can only enlarge up to 400%.
7. I've said it before, and it bears repeating: if you absolutly MUST make an erotic/naughty calendar for your significant other, $10 calendar creation software exists. We don't want to see the 250-pound middle-aged woman in a thong and strategically placed hat. (She's much braver than I am) Yet, if you submit such pictures to be made, realize that about ten people will see them, at least, because we WILL point it out to everyone working that day.
1. Use as many landscape pictures as possible. As the calendar is printed in landscape format, a landscape picture will fill up more of the space, and you don't get the dreaded white bars on the sides. If you must use a portrait picture, find another one to pair with it; it fills the space better and just looks nicer.
2. Anything taken by a professional photographer is copyrighted and requires a release. This includes school pictures, WalMart/K-Mart/Olan Mills portraits, and anything where the print says "DO NOT COPY" on the back. Scanning said photo and reprinting it, cutting off the corner with the foil imprint, or taking a picture of the picture does NOT mean the copyright is gone. We the calendar creators are smart. We know what we can and can't copy. We can spot professional pictures, even if you scanned it and reprinted it. If you submit a copyrighted photo to us, we will send it right back with a big red sticker on the envelope that says COPYRIGHT ISSUES.
3. Realize that if you have a picture of just a living room, in the middle of the calendar full of pictures of people, we will ask "WTF?" If it is a calendar completely of rooms, we will assume you are an interior decorator. Just one, though, and we think you're weird.
4. If you must make MANY copies of calendars featuring nothing but pictures of your pets, put a little effort into it, and at least try to theme the pictures, or even vary them. Three pictures of your cat sleeping on the toilet, the same cat, the same toilet, and we will think you are insane. Seriously.
5. Babies are cute. We like pictures of babies. Kids with red-eye so fierce, they look possessed, on the other hand....
6. Realize that the teeny-tiny 1"x1" black and white photo of your grandfather as a baby might not enlarge well. We can only enlarge up to 400%.
7. I've said it before, and it bears repeating: if you absolutly MUST make an erotic/naughty calendar for your significant other, $10 calendar creation software exists. We don't want to see the 250-pound middle-aged woman in a thong and strategically placed hat. (She's much braver than I am) Yet, if you submit such pictures to be made, realize that about ten people will see them, at least, because we WILL point it out to everyone working that day.
