01. _SHMO ACCOUNT
Register a new _shmo account
It's easy to register a new _shmo account: input your email and desired password and you will receive an email requiring you to activate the account. After that, all the _shmo infrastructure is there to fulfill your needs! During registration, you can also use a promotional code and subscribe to our news mailing list. We will not abuse your time and will send only useful information for you!
Reset your password
If you forget your password, easily set a new one by filling your email address on the password reset page. Check your email, click the link and enter the new password for your account! As easy as saying #dotheshmo!
Set your account preferences
- Preferences page is where lots of things happen. Pay attention to each section, as decisions here affect other areas of the _shmo application.
- Section 1 is about your contact details. You cannot change the email address yourself, you will have to send us an email and require your email address to be changed. Phone number is useful if we feel the need to call you and sort things out about your orders. And, of course, we need your name :)
- Section 2 requires you to fill in your subdomain name, in order to have your galleries and slideshows available at the address: yoursubdomain.shmo.photos. There are some general rules about what you can or cannot enter into this field. Also, we perform a background check to see if there is another subdomain with the same name as yours.
- Section 3 asks you about your brand name. This will be displayed next to your galleries and slideshows.
- If you use Google Analytics, in section 4 you add your Google Analytics account number and we will push events to your analytics account. This is how you will measure your page views on _shmo galleries and slideshows.
- Section 5 allows you to add links to your website, Facebook page, Instagram or Pinterest account. Add as many links as you desire. These will also be displayed next to your work published on _shmo!
- In order to automatically issue invoices on your payments, we need details like company name, fiscal code, registration number and company address. Use section 6 for all these!
- There is a general 'what _shmo is allowed to do' setting in section 7 including cropping, rotation and black/white conversion. If you want us to perform or not certain operations during editing, set those here and each new order will borrow these settings. Of course, you can override the settings whenever you feel appropriate, both on each new order or here, in preferences.
- You can choose your prefered colour and/or black/white presets in section 8 to be used on your images during raw editing. Keep in mind that all presets are available for Adobe Lightroom but not all for Capture One (they are marked accordingly). If you have your own presets, add those in section 9. Use different lrtemplate files for black/white and colour. Our presets are described on their producer Mastin Labs page.
- Also on preferences page you can add general notes about image editing and/or album design so that we will have those handy available during our work on your photos. To inform us about your desired outcome, please add several edited demo images in section 11 too. There is a limit of maximum 10 images and maximum 1MB size each.
To send us your lightroom presets, please open Preferences in Lightroom, go to Presets tab, click Show Lightroom Presets Folder and there you will find the lrtemplate files. Choose the one you would like us to use and add them in your _shmo preferences account.
Capture One styles can be found in ~/Library/Application Support/Capture One/Styles on Mac OSX and in C:\Users\username\ AppData\Local\CaptureOne\ on Windows. Copy the appropriate style folder, zip it and add it to your preferences account.
02. RAW EDITING
On your _shmo account page, choose NEW ORDER then RAW EDIT. Placing an editing order is made out of several easy steps. Before describing each, read the following general _shmo editing philosophy.
- All our editing has the following purpose: images should look good, natural, cropped and/or rotated to bring key elements into viewers' attention. Main subjects (skin) must look their best, regardless of the light colours in each image. Details should be preserved when dynamic range allows for it. Images should be consistent, at least those shot in the same location and conditions. Our 22 years long experience as both photographers and speakers at various conferences, as well as being judges in a large number of photography contests, gave us a solid understanding of what is a good image.
- White balance: our 30" full Adobe RGB BENQ SW320 monitors are calibrated monthly using SpyderX PRO colourimeter. We use neutral areas to zone in the white balance, then fine adjustments until images look fine. Keep in mind that white balance and other parameters are both objectively and subjectively chosen. If you would like your images to be on the warm / cold side, specify this on your preferences page or on order notes.
- Exposure: we are controlling the adjustment using specific tools: exposure, brightness, levels. We will touch highlight and shadow recovery if needed, without ruining the photo and driving it to some 'cartoonish', HDR aspect.
- Contrast: this is an area where too much or too little hurts. We intend to use contrast to allow details in brightest or darkest areas to be perceived.
- Crop / rotation: we will perform cropping where needed. If elements are close to image margins and don't add to the image, we will crop. If image is slightly skewed, we will rotate. When cropping, we take into account rule of thirds if necessary.
- Saturation: if you need it, we will boost saturation to your desired levels. Other than that, we will slightly adjust it if existing colours are too intense or too faded.
- Sharpness: all images will be sharpened moderately, according to current practices. Also, the exported web-sized images will benefit from specific display sharpening, 2048px wide edge, 85% compression.
- Local adjustments: we will not perform local adjustments unless it's critical for a specific image. Either gradients to darken an area or lighten others. Or clone to remove a skin spot if close to the camera.
- Metadata: we will add metadata specific to your brand so that images in galleries and slideshows will have copyright headers included: brand, website.
- You can specify your needs for every above adjustment with guidelines mentioned in preferences or during each order.
Prepare your images
- _shmo allows you to send files in different formats: Lightroom catalog, Capture One catalog or directly the raw files.
- In order to be efficient, please send us only your final selection of photos. Depending on your current used software, you can import all images from a job in a Lightroom or Capture One catalog, generating smart previews. Make your selection (using prefered/rejected, stars or notes). Display only the selected photos and export your catalog with previews.
- Some Lightroom guides to select and export catalog with previews: How to export your LR smart Preview Catalog, The ultimate guide to using smart previews in Lightroom Classic.
- Capture One guides to select and export catalog with previews: PhaseOne.
- If you don't have Adobe Lightroom or Capture One available, you can select your final images in PhotoMechanic or other image viewer. It doesn't matter how you do it. In the end you want a folder with only those raws to be edited by _shmo.
Fill out order details
- Specify if we're allowed to crop, rotate and convert photos to black / white
- Choose the presets to be used for colour and black / white
- Name your order
- Add some notes to your order
- Upload your files (see bellow)
Upload your catalog or raws
- We prefer you to send us the Lightroom or Capture One catalog. It's much smaller than raw files and your upload will be faster. But it's your choice, after all.
- Input your settings in all four sections. Choose your presets (in the selection box you will find your presets too if you added them in preferences). Name your order with something to be remembered. This name will also be displayed on order gallery and slideshow.
- Write down your notes for this order, anything you would like us to know about it.
- Click UPLOAD YOUR PHOTOS. Choose the folder that contains your Lightroom catalog or your Capture One catalog or directly the selected raw files.
- After uploading all images to our server (it can take a while), you will see an order summary, including computed order price! You can still make changes to order name, presets and other characteristics. When you're finished, click PLACE ORDER.
- You will be redirected to a PROFORMA INVOICE page where you can pay for your order ONLINE. If paying by bank transfer, use the details on the proforma. We will not begin editing if order is not paid for.
- You can check the status of your orders on corresponding page in your _shmo panel.
Download editing results
- When your order is paid and processed, you will get an email and you will see your order details in the _shmo order page All you need to do is click DOWNLOAD RESULTS.
- An archive containing the Lightroom catalog, Capture One catalog or full res jpegs (if you send us the raw files) will be downloaded. The archive will also include a folder of 2048px jpegs. These will be also kept on _shmo server to be used for galleries and slideshows.
Edit your gallery and slideshow
If you are subscribed to _shmo services (paying a monthly fee of 35EUR) you can edit and publish a photo gallery and slideshow for each editing order you place.
If you stop paying your subscription, your older galleries and slideshows (from orders while you were subscribed) will continue to work and you can still edit them.
- Fill out the entire gallery / slideshow form! Each section is important.
- You can control if gallery and/or slideshow are visible on your subdomain.shmo.photos page.
- If you set a password, then visitors must know this password before seing the gallery and/or slideshow.
- Slideshow can be faster or slower. When chosing your music you can listen to each available track. As soon as you add a song to the slideshow, you are shown how many slots you have available for photos, depending on faster / slower setting.
- Slideshow is automatically syncronized with music. This feature is now in beta-testing and we will continue to improve it.
- There is a theme selection for gallery and slideshows: whiteish or blackish.
- You can also set a description for gallery and slideshow in order for visitors to read your words and better understand the photographic content.
- All music is free, choose whatever you like.
- Each image has several selectors when you hover over them: active / inactive toggler for gallery, selected for slideshow and set as featured image.
Entire gallery / slideshow app is designed to be as simple as possible, with minimal but powerfull features. Your public _shmo page will present the visitor with a list of all your work. See bellow the examples or checkout the demo!
03. ALBUM DESIGN
Ordering your album design follows the same path as editing orders.
- Prepare your files to be uploaded: select your jpegs to be used in the album. Pay attention to the colour space of the files (minilabs use sRGB, inkjet may use a broader space). Checkout this article about colour space and printing.
- Place the files in a folder, ready to be uploaded.
Fill-in order details
- Specify spread width and height
- Enter the maximum spread number (1 spread = 2 facing pages)
- Name your order so that you can recognize it further
- Write your notes / observations if needed
Upload the photos
Upload the folder you prepared with all jpegs to be used in the album.
Download results
When we finish the album design, you will automatically receive an email. You will find the Download button in your order details.
You can make 5 additional changes to your album - send changes by email at lets@shmo.photos. Describe each change so that we can understand what you need. After changes are made, you will receive another mail and you can download the results.
Album design results are jpeg files at 0% compression. In our experience, there is no noticeable difference between using jpeg or tiff files, other than huge file sizes of tiff. Trust us, on paper nobody will see the difference. Tiffs are better when you edit them in Photoshop and modify dynamic contrasts.
05. PRICES
All prices are tailored so that you can externalize your editing and album design activities. Not one penny more. See for yourself!
Editing prices
If you work with us occasionally, we edit your images at 0.11 EUR / image. There is a minimum fee of 60EUR per job <=500 images. If you upload 501 images, then price will be 501 x 0.11 EUR.
As soon as you subscribe to _shmo, we understand that you are serious about photography and reserve manpower for you. Price per image will be 0.09 EUR, no matter the order size. Plus you get galleries and slideshows for each order you send.
Album design prices
Each album design order is 24 EUR. Maximum 45 spreads.
Branding prices
It's difficult to quote prices on branding services as your needs may range from designing one logo to an entire website. Let's talk about this and we will definitely reach an agreement.
Subscription price
One month of subscription is just 35 EUR. This allows you to enjoy free galleries and slideshows for your brand. Also, editing prices drop from 0.11 EUR / image to 0.09 EUR. Usually, on your second editing order you already save money from the price diference. Not counting gallery and slideshow.
