Why Professional Photo Editing Services Are an Absolute Necessity for Businesses

By Kathy Butters

Photography and image manipulation has always served as a turn-to asset for businesses when it comes to wooing customers. The testament to this is the use of images and graphics in advertising be it offline or online. One would rarely come across an ad campaign that doesn’t utilize images, visuals or illustrations in some form. Reports have suggested that ” the human brain is capable of processing images up to 60,000 times faster than words ” thus further emphasizing the importance of images.

But as far use the of images in business practices goes, it can be both effective as well as ineffective depending upon the quality and context.

Images utilized for any business activity have to be refined and polished to make them fit for use. If any essential aspect of an image remains untouched, it might hamper the overall quality of the image and also possibly diminish what one may want to highlight. Such instances might harm the reputation of a business.

It is now understood that without using the most systematic and refined ways, mere images won’t be of much help. Professional image editing is required in order to make images fit the context of the business purpose they are assigned to.

The irregularities and clutter of photographs

There are several imperfections in photographs, many due to lack of proper lighting and placement and also other external variables. Sometimes, even under the most professional setup and lighting, photos don’t always come out perfect, they still need some amount of attention and care. In certain cases, the color of an object doesn’t match with its picture while in other cases images fail to capture more details like textures. These things can be fixed by means of photo retouching services, as it may not be easy to get rid of these defects during the production phase itself.

Image augmentation and enhancement through professional photo editing services

Some pictures may be without irregularities but may contain unnecessary details or objects like props, furniture or an intrusive background, taking away the focus of the viewer from the main highlight of the image. Professional photo editing services help to enhance the vigor of such images, through retouching practices like masking, background replacement, filtering and hue adjustment.

In this manner, an image can achieve the final polished look it needs to have in order to be further used.

Also for the purpose of making images look more attractive to viewers, photo retouching services can take care of all kinds of requirements be it industrial, fashion or eCommerce. Besides the nature of editing does change with each particular industry, for instance, filters would be widely used in the fashion segment while masking and hue adjustment would find its application in eCommerce, businesses need to find out which particular practice would be best suited to their projects.

Considering how diverse and detailed the process of using images is, anyone looking to utilize imagery in their marketing, business, and advertising activity need to have the assistance of experts so that they can truly derive benefits for their efforts.

#Photography

Looking To Start A Working From Home Job

By Josue Cineus

Digital technology-email and smartphones most of all-have vastly improved workers’ capacity to be productive outside of a traditional office. Even so, most white-collar work still happens in an office. In practice, modern communications technology is used just as much to link physical workplaces together-as at Slate, which maintains two offices, one in New York and one in D.C.-as to disperse them. One reason is that, according to a new survey of office workers conducted by Wakefield Research for the IT consulting company Citrix, most bosses are dubious about the telecommuting. Half of workers say their boss disapproves of remote working, and only 35 percent say it’s tolerated.

Skeptical bosses will likely have their doubts re-enforced by the same survey, which shows that 43 percent of workers say they’ve watched TV or a movie while “working” remotely, while 35 percent have done household chores, and 28 percent have cooked dinner.

Physical proximity might not be necessary for much work, but it does remain a hard-to-replace deterrent against The Price Is Right while on the clock.

My experience working primarily from home for an extended period several years back was that it’s a surprisingly efficient way to drive yourself insane. The need to make petty decisions-where to work, which chair to sit in, should I even bother to get out of bed, do I need to be wearing shoes right now-became overwhelming. I’d spend completely unreasonable amounts of time wondering what to do for lunch, and while working on a book dedicated a surprising amount of energy to meeting my self-imposed daily word quota in time to catch movie matinees.

But there is also a compelling case to make that working at home makes people much more efficient, because it allows workers to take care of annoying little chores while still getting their jobs done. Remote working-at least occasional remote working-can be great precisely because of the opportunity it affords to get a certain amount of non-work stuff done. It’s much faster to shop for groceries at a quarter to three than to stand in line during the after-work rush. Far too many people work similar schedules and want to eat dinner at dinnertime. My neighborhood supermarket turns into a nightmare from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday late afternoon, another popular shopping time, is even worse, with the aisles often featuring Soviet-style shortages of key commodities. If you just start working a bit earlier (no commute, after all) and pop by the store during a lull when lines are short, you can get both more work and more shopping done in a fixed amount of time. Even better, if more people did that, then shift workers with genuinely inflexible schedules might also be spared some line pain.

And telecommuting allows you to tackle household tasks that take up a lot of time but don’t actually involve much work. Watching laundry spin in your washer or dryer is perfectly compatible with productive work. But between the washing step and the drying step comes a time-sensitive “put the wet clothing in the drier” phase. Taking just a few minutes off from work to do the swap lets you get the chore done efficiently, and leaves your actual leisure time free for exciting activities like leaving the house. Many recipes, similarly, involve considerable periods of simmering or roasting during which it’s good to be around the house but you don’t actually have to do anything. In a “work-then-shop-then-cook-then-eat” paradigm, it’s challenging to eat anything that can’t be made quickly. But if you can simmer while you work, then a lot of household labor can be accomplished with minimal reduction in professional output.

The fact that such practices remain officially taboo reflects how far we haven’t come as a society from the days when we expected every full-time professional to be backstopped by a full-time homemaker.

More broadly the Wakefield survey suggests that employers may be missing a low-cost way to give workers something of value. Sixty-four percent of survey respondents who haven’t worked remotely “identify at least one extremely popular perk or pleasure they’d be willing to give up in order to work from home just one day a week.” The fundamental fact of the modern economy is that no matter how much technology advances or society’s wealth improves, we don’t add more hours to the day and we still need to sleep. Under the circumstances, tactics that help people save time are not only valuable but increasingly so with every passing year. Smart firms need to find ways to acknowledge that and let their employees have enough flexibility to manage their time effectively.

#BusinessSolutions

Is Art Necessary?

By Vijaya Koteeswaran

I am an artist at heart and an accountant by profession. I make paper collage paintings and also enjoy painting with acrylic on canvas. I particularly like learning new techniques and styles of painting.

However for some time now I have been plagued by the question “Is art necessary?” I have felt perhaps I ought to put my time to better use. Do something really productive and worthwhile. Do something that would improve the world, something really useful and perhaps to make a difference. And also find my purpose.

Yes the perennial question – is this all there is? Suddenly making art started to feel like a kind of selfish indulgence. Like I should have utilised my time to do something more important. So I started to think if any art was necessary at all.

Every single day I read the morning paper. I read to keep myself informed of the news. The news is of crimes committed. Of horrible crimes against women and little children. Of the destruction wrought by natural calamities. Of people suffering from lack of water or too much of it. Of the air being polluted and of climate change.

Of plastic destroying marine life while uncaring governments ruin the environment. Of the corrupt politicians destroying the social fabric for personal gain. Off Ill-informed people running the economy to the ground. Wrong people at the helm of affairs suppressing and destroying the good. Makes me wonder if anything will ever help stop the rot. Hardly gives me any reason to smile at all. Save for the little cartoon on the back page, Calvin and Hobbes.

So while I have largely felt like Nero fiddling when Rome was burning, I suddenly caught myself on the last line there. The little cartoon Calvin and Hobbes seemed to be the only thing relieving me from the relentless depression of the morning paper. The little stuffed tiger and the very cute expressions. The cleverly drawn cartoon with barely 3 or 4 panels conveying an idea usually a witty one.

Drawing the reader into the life of a little kid sometimes making the reader wonder where the story goes next. I am always compelled to read this cartoon. Even on mornings when I am running late I have a quick look at the cartoon. On holidays I take the time to sit and marvel at the talent of the cartoonist. How the stuffed tiger looks so alive in one panel and like a toy in the next. Thank you Bill Watterson.

So what is this cartoon if not art I asked myself? It provides me a momentary respite from the depressing news and tediousness of the daily newspaper. In a way it enriches me by giving me a glimpse of something fantastic. So isn’t this all that art is meant to do?

In a world plagued with sadness perhaps art is like the clouds parting and letting in a ray of sunshine. Is that not important? There will always be death and destruction and blood and tears. There will always be bad news and people in need of help. But then art must exist too. Art provides a kind of relief to the dreariness of one’s life.

Perhaps this could be also why they made so much art in the past centuries when daily life was a grind and there was so much sickness and suffering from plagues and wars. And today when we look art works from the past we are uplifted and filled with a sense of awe, of the greatness of their vision, of the enormity of their talent and of the permanence of their works.

This is why art is necessary. Though not all art can be compared to the great masters, in its own way every artwork speaks to someone. It does provide that glimmer of light in a cloudy day. It elevates the soul of its maker and makes the viewer consider if only for a moment a glimpse into a different world. And if it is really good art, it makes the viewer pause and perhaps smile or be awed.

So art is necessary. All art is necessary. I arrived at the conclusion that it was important for me to continue to make art for myself and for the benefit of others.

The next question I am considering now is how much time should I spend on my art. Perhaps I shall refer again to a quote by little Calvin, “God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die.”

#Art