TWiP #217 – Big Things in Small Packages

This week on TWiP: Wait, now they're saying size DOES matter? An Israeli company develops a smaller Jpeg, Flickr lets you put up a digital fence around your photos, Urban Outfitters & their photographer face a lawsuit from parents of a model he photographed in a, let's say, ‘adult' manner. Plus a special interview with Jack Reznicki.

Hosts: Frederick Van Johnson, Sara France, Ron Brinkmann, Alex Lindsay

NEWS & DISCUSSION

JPEGMini Promises Smarter File Compression
From DPReview.com: Israeli technology company ICVT has developed an method to optimize JPEG compression. The company's JPEGMini system analyses each image to assess the maximum compression that can be applied to an image without loss of perceptible quality. The company says you can expect a 50-80% reduction in file size over a JPEG that hasn't been intelligently optimized. At present the system can only be used via the company's online service. Meanwhile, the news has prompted blog PetaPixel to reiterate the little-known quirk of Photoshop's JPEG quality slider that means your images may be better saved at quality 6 than 7. Ron tested their system and did notice a degradation in the image quality.

Flickr Adds New Privacy Settings – Geofences
From Steve's Digicams: Earlier this week, the poplar photo sharing site Flickr adding a new privacy setting which allows users to setup a Geofence around an area where they do not wish the location of their photographs to be publicized. This setting will allow users to define a geographic perimeter where the location of any photos taken within this perimeter will not be shared. Over on the PetaPixel blog, they link to a discovery by Thomas Hawk that this setting still has a loophole in that it doesn't remove the Geotag from the EXIF data so if someone can download your image they can still find out where it was taken. Ron really appreciates this feature particularly when it comes to photos that he's taken inside his home. Alex would love to find a tool that would automatically strip out the EXIF data in his images. Sara would also appreciates this privacy feature and would like other companies to follow suit.

Urban Outfitters & Photographer Sued over Racy Photo
From Silber Studios.tv: Urban Outfitters and photographer Jason Lee Parry are the focus of a new lawsuit brought about by the parents of an under-aged girl who was photographed in a sexually suggestive pose with her legs spread apart. But now Parry is defending the photo, saying the model, a then-15 year old Hailey Clausen, knew what was happening and that her parents approved it. Alex is not a fan of this type of advertising and actually will avoid shopping in stores that exploit models in this way.

INTERVIEW WITH JACK REZNICKI

Jack Reznicki is a world-renowned and respected commercial photographer based in New York City. Jacks client roster consists of a laundry list of fortune 500 companies… he has been president of the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) and is well respected in the photographic community as both an accomplished photographer,as well as a talented educator. In this interview Jack and Frederick discuss copyright (or copywrong) as it applies and relates to photographers everywhere.

LISTENER QUESTIONS

Question 1: From the forums, Ronderick asks: I will be photographing different high school football teams in my city. Do I have to obtain signed model releases to sell the action photos of the players on my website? Alex thinks that if you can't recognize the person then you might be okay but since he's not a lawyer he doesn't really know the answer. Ron suggests checking out LawPivot.com where you can post questions to lawyers.

Question 2: Wayne Smith wants to know if the hosts are aware of any problems with Aperture running on Lion.  Wayne says his is running at a snail's pace since upgrading to Lion. Sara did experience a few issues once they upgraded so they reinstalled the OS again and the issues seemed to be solved. Hold down CMD+R when you restart your computer to reinstall the Lion OS. Ron did some searches online and found that many people are having issues with a variety of programs on Lion. He suggests bringing up the activity monitor to see what programs might be chewing up processes.

PICKS OF THE WEEK

Sara – Couture Book

Ron – Search by Image for Tin Eye Image Search for Google Chrome

Alex – Fostex

Frederick – The Photographers Survival Manual – a legal guide for artists in the digital age

WRAP UP

Follow us on twitter.com/ThisWeekInPhoto. Join the Flickr critique group. You can also join our Facebook group.

Sara France – http://www.sarafrance.com or http://www.facebook.com/sarafrancephotography or shop.sarafrance.com

Ron Brinkmann – www.digitalcomposting.com or www.twitter.com/ronbrinkmann

Alex Lindsay – www.pixelcorps.tv or www.twitter.com/alexlindsay

Frederick Van Johnson – www.frederickvan.com or www.twitter.com/frederickvan or Google Plus

CREDITS