Windows Image Preview Program

[Kent Frost]

Well, my brother and I learned a valuable lesson recently. One of his clients (a big client, at that) hired my brother to take portraits. Fine, no problem. Nothing new. He sent me the resulting images for post processing, and then I burned the images to disc and sent the disc to the client, which was the only thing that was out of the norm. All the previous clients either got prints, or an online proof page to choose the prints from. Well, when the client received the disc, they contacted my brother and informed him that the images were horrible. They were graining, looked like powder had been put on the subject's head. My brother was livid, thinking I had over edited some of the photos. But when he confronted me, I couldn't find anything in the photos that fit the description! So I re-edited and sent another disc, knowing good and well nothing was wrong with the images I sent them. Finally, last night (which comes to over a month after the portait session), my brother called me from his home in Colorado. He and I sat and compared the photos, and then he finally told me what program he was using to view the images, which was the standard program for previewing images in Windows. Well, suddenly it started making sense, so I opened up one of the images he pointed out as having the most problems. Oh my freaking God, man. I have never seen a photo more distorted! It literally made the subject look as if glitter had been thrown in her face. So we learned that the key thing when selling the disc itself to the client: Never let them view it on anything but a program made for displaying images at the proper magnification, otherwise they'll see an ugly moire pattern covering the entire image.

 

[Rob]

Even PS can get horrible at funny percentages! That's a good tip though, it's worth bearing in mind when people are only looking on the web.

Rob

 

[Unimaxium]

Holy crap that is horrible! Yet another reason why I use a mac

 

[Polygon]

Holy crap that is horrible! Yet another reason why I use a mac

The correlation between one faulty program and the choise of a hardware platform is totally beyond my grasp ;-).

 

[Wally]

One idea for your is to include a copy of the freeware program ifranview on the CDs you give out. It does a great job of viewing images, and can even view RAW and PSD files

 

[ajmall]

One idea for your is to include a copy of the freeware program ifranview on the CDs you give out. It does a great job of viewing images, and can even view RAW and PSD files

i'll remember that one.

i've never had problems using windows image preview. they look just the same as in photoshop?

are you using XP?

 

[Kent Frost]

i've never had problems using windows image preview. they look just the same as in photoshop?

are you using XP?

Well, the photos being viewed on the Windows Image Preview can be distorted if the photo is larger than the screen itself, then the program auto-resizes the image. If your image looks the same as in photoshop, perhaps you're not trying to view a larger image?? And I don't think it matters what platform. My brother uses Win98, I WAS using WinME, and I have no idea what the client was using, but all three of us were able to see the distortion. Not only that, it doesn't matter what platform I am using personally, because there's no guarantee that the client is using the same one. As far as including the Irfanview program; it sounds good in theory, but for someone who may not be very computer literate who simply wants a photo service, I could see it not making a bit of difference. Many people won't know any better. In fact, I've shot for several people who don't even own computers.

The two best solutions I've found to choose from depending on the situation:

1. Include a proofbook (they're less than $20 from www.mpix.com).
OR
2. If the person DOES have internet access and if the photographer has a website, then create an private online proof gallery.