Japanese Garden

Susannah : 15th Aug 2006 - 01:02 GMT

Very beautiful and peaceful-
Do you find that your prints come out as nicely as they appear on screen - I find the colors in my prints are nowhere near as rich and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Is there anything I can fix or improve?

aer suzuki: 15th Aug 2006 - 10:32 GMT

Susannah : the first thing you should do is make sure your monitor is calibrated. i think you can find software that will do this for you, if not search the web and you should be able to find sites that will give you instructions and color charts to calibrate it yourself. If your monitor's not set right, what you see on the screen and what prints may be different.

If it's a color problem the simplest thing I can think of is to increase the saturation of your pictures in a graphics or photo-processing program, that might compensate for whatever your printer's not doing- or you can increase the saturation in whatever program you use to print the pictures...I'm assuming you were talking about prints from a digital camera? Just don't get carried away with the saturation, too many people do that.

As for your question, yes and no. I can get prints I'm pretty satisfied with even on my own home printer, but they never look exactly as good as what I see on the computer. I think most visuals produced digitally just tend to look better on a glowing screen. There's something about luminescence that can't be printed.

Susannah : 15th Aug 2006 - 23:03 GMT

Thanks Aer - I'm pretty sure my monitor has been calibrated recently (I remember doing something like that the last time our hard drive crashed). But often I email my photos to a commercial processor and those are pretty disappointing. I'd love to just find a reliable commercial processor.

aer suzuki: 15th Aug 2006 - 23:22 GMT

Thanks, Susannah, I neglected to thank you before for the compliment, I really do appreciate it.

Susannah : 26th Aug 2006 - 23:06 GMT

I intend to revisit these shots anytime I need to "just BREATHE..."

aer suzuki: 27th Aug 2006 - 01:50 GMT

Susannah : at the risk of seeming too self-promotional there are a few more garden shots on my photoblog:

aersuzuki.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_aersuzuki_archive.html

Do you have a similar place you can go to in your own city?

jack : I have an idea, you should come to Seattle and try to march into this place with a fishing pole and a basket, wear your fishing hat. I'll be right behind you with my camera to document it all for Citynoise. Of course, depending on how things go, I may claim not to know you once we get inside...but hey, it'll be good for a laugh!

Susannah : 28th Aug 2006 - 02:51 GMT

Aer - I appreciate the blog spot. I don't have a place to go to like this, I wish I did. I love where I live but its a pretty densely populated, suburban town with sort of a new england feel to it (very sort of). Fall is pretty awesome here, I'll post some foliage shots when the colors change. I want to go to Seattle after seeing your photos - I think Tyfoid Kid had some interesting photos from Washington too. Do not know when I'll get a chance to make a trip like that! Any advice on best time of year and what places I have to go to would be appreciated. Tell Jack not to forget his speedos!

aer suzuki: 28th Aug 2006 - 09:52 GMT

for the time of year it depends on what kind of weather you like. if you like having a huge grey smear hanging above your head for a sky (which i do, mostly, perversely) and you like having a constant thin drizzle pelting your face i'd say come anytime between september and may. if you like the sun and big puffy white clouds, come in june, july, or august, and june's no gaurantee. fall is pretty cool around here for leaves changing, not the best place in the world maybe, but pretty cool and it doesn't get seriously cold until october, usually. spring's nice for the most part, but a bit rainy.

places to go....hmmmm...hit gasworks park, volunteer park, or golden gardens (i like parks) go to alki beach, and definately drive out to mt. rainier if you can. for hip nightlife go to capitol hill. for culture go to the seattle art museum, benaroya hall is the classical music venue, and ballet happens somewhere in the seattle center (i forget the name of the building). there are theaters (meaning for plays) everywhere, but not as many as there used to be...that's all i can think of for now, hope that helps. oh, if you want to avoid tourists, stay away from pioneer square and the waterfront.

aer suzuki: 28th Aug 2006 - 09:56 GMT

...forgot to mention that fuzzytank also took a bunch of seattle photos : www.citynoise.org/author/fuzzytank