First of all a bit about me...

My name is Matthew Giandonato and I have been in the graphics industry for 13 years and have a strong background in color, photo retouching and special effects. I also keep herps as a hobby. Currently breeding a couple different morphs of Ball Pythons. I have been following this forum for years now and have found very good advice here.

Thanks to all for past and future advice, suggestions, and personal experiences shared!

OK, now for the reason of this post.

I have been seeing more and more ads with pictures that are obviously modified to look more yellow, red, darker, lighter, etc... I have been in the graphics industry for many years now and know what can be done with Adobe PhotoShop or similar software and know what to look for in pictures.

When you see an ad that reads " Super Duper Yellow" and the background, housing, and bedding are also extremely yellow in the picture... Enhanced... Yep, really, Enhanced!

I have also seen ads in the recent past that read "black and white... no other color in this animal" and in the picture... Yep, background, housing, bedding also have no color... Hmmm... Gee... let me think... Ya, Modified (desaturated)

In my industry when making color proofs for clients to OK/approve color prior to printing large amounts of the brochure, book, poster, or whatever it may be... we commonly use a color strip on the proof to confirm that the exposures are all good and that the artwork will print in the colors it is supposed to. We also use color strips when shooting some of our digital photography to see that the color is true to the subject matter. In this case the animals.

What I am getting at here is I am considering taking the time to create a color strip that could be used when photographing animals for sale or documentation in the reptile industry. I know that sometimes a photo does not do an animal justice but neither does enhancing the picture... Most people already know that picture do no justice and just need to take that into consideration when making a mail order purchase.... The strip I am talking about would be placed right next to the animal when taking the picture this way there could be some sort of standard across the board.

WYSIWYG = "What You See Is What You Get"... I am a big fan of that statement!

I would appreciate any input from big breeders, small breeders... all herpers!

Thanks for your time,

Matthew J Giandonato
Visivo Marketing Solutions

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