Here's some shots of stationary that i'm doing for someone. advice would be appreciated. the goal is to show the quality of the card material, which i'm doing by shining light from the side of the cards. i'm using lightroom 2 for post-processing. just looking for general thoughts.

thanks!

I think you succeeded. The texture, thickness and quality of the paper and of the embossing is apparent in all the photos. stylistically, the second and third are more interesting than the first and last.

thanks jer - what about the brightness/exposure? i felt they were a little on the dark side but didn't want to wash out the texture too much. any ideas on how to keep the detail while brightening it up a bit?

Perfect! If they were any brighter I think you would lose the texture and tint of the stock. Great work by the way, didn't know you did letterpress.

imo, if your focus is the texture of the paper, then expose in whatever way best shows it. you can try lightening them a half stop or more, but if you lose the texture you lose your goal.

thanks fab



true - the biz owner liked these prints, so if she's happy, then i'm happy. i tend to get really nitpicky when i do post-processing and find myself spending way too much time than is worth it to fix things like brightness.

meh, you'll learn that as long as the person paying is happy, it really doesn't matter if you are or not, lol. I mean, of course have pride in your work, but with me for instance, none of my photographs are completely satisfying, especially portraits. I have regrets about all of them. But if the customer is happy with them, who am I to argue?