I have been asked to phtograph a range of school meals for our local auhtority. What is required is a photo of several main courses, already plated up, and several puddings plated up. I think each dish will be an indiviual photo. They want to use them in the school to promote their food and as a guide to what students get on their plate. I did some trial shots just using the ambient light from the window and standing over them shooting vertically, I also tried some with in built flash. They came out pretty good but now I am actually doing the project I would like some advice on how best to undertake this. I am not trying for arty food photgraphy as that is not what is required but thought perhaps an external light of some sort may improve the images. I will be using a K200d with a 16-45mm lens.

Ok. So I am trying to get my head round why I would shoot at the best quality on my camera and then make it smaller to print. Would I not be loosing resolution by resizing? Also when I choose to print A4 using my editing software (HP IMage zone) would it not rezize it automatically? What I could do with is a tutorial on the basics of compression, resolution, dpi etc, cropping and rezizing. Thanks for all the suggestions.

There is another conudrum I am trying to get my head round and that is cropping & resising before printing. I take my images at max qulaity and they are areoung 3800 pixels by 2600 pixels and I usualyy crop bits off. Now what I then usually do is perhaps enhance the image and print out to A4 size. However, reading various books on digital it seems to suggest that I should rezize my images before printing to A4. Can anyone tell me why I should need to do this and if so rezize to what dimensions? Also any suggestions on where I can read about the effects of cropping and rezising images as I dont really understand what effect it all has on my images.

I dont seem to be able to change brightness. But can change Spray & volume but not sure what these would do.

Also I am finding when printing to A4 I am loosing parts of the photo that appear on the screen? About and inch all round

HP premium plus and Vivera inks. To me the prints look abou 1.5 stops under exposed compared to waht I se on the screen.

Windows XP

sRGB
Printer was set on best quality printing


Location Inverness

I have printed out an image I took recently of a snow scene taken in to the light. On my monitor the snow looks a good white but on print it does have a grey/bluish tinge

Thanks

Hi

Iam trying to print A4 prints from my lap top to my HP photosmart 8250. My prints are rather dissapointing ( look flat with no punch) compared to what I have on my screen, I am usng a HP Pavillion zd 8000 lap top so big screen etc.. I am using HP top quality paper and the images ere taken with a Pentax 200D at the best quality and are JPEGS. I am using HP's own editing software. I am told that I need to calibrate my monitor to my printer but this means nothing to me. Can anyonye suggest how to improve the quality of my prints please.

I have purchased a new 16 - 45m Pentax lens and was wondering about which polarizer to buy as there seems a big difference in prices from various sources. Proffesional polarizers are muh more expensive but are they worth the extra cost? What about Murimba, may have the name wrong, but they are cheaper. Does anyone use them and if so are they a good buy? Also loking to buy a ND filter and a graduated filter can you get screw on versions of these or would I need to buy something akin to the cokin system.

Great, thanks guys. I think I will def get a polarizer and a grad ND. Any suggestions for what type and where to purchase?