Reptile & Amphibian Forums

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

I have been ripped off becuase of photo enhancement. I saw an ad for, what I thought, was an awesome very bright yellow almost pastel looking ball. When I received it, DARK BROWN. It was the same animal..I compared markings, but they used photoshop to enhance the color, but when I tried to get my cash back they were no where to be found. Its getting to the point where NO ONE will buy reptiles off the internet in fear of being ripped off either by not getting the animal or some kind of false advertisement of the animal. Just my 2 cents!

The same thing happened to me too. The individual advertised the animal as "pastel like". It was an awesome looking animal (in the picture). I paid $165 for this baby, probably WC animal. When i opened the box, I had to compare the markings to the photo and it was the same animal! It's really a POS animal. I wanted the high yellow to put into my pastel project. The individual has a pic of it posted on the photo gallery. Is anyone out there having success in capturing true colors for your adds? If so, what kind of lighting are you using. I have been unable to capture the true color of my "Arctic/IMG" type ball. She is mostly black, white and grey with butter yellow highlights. She is awe inspiring in person but I have been unable to capture her true colors in a photo. Thanks for your help. Bill

Bill,

Have you tried using a remote flash or a lighting source other than the flash on the camera?

Sometimes I will set up several lamps around the animal I am shooting so that there is a nice contrast of light and the colors are all showing nice and bright. I will then turn off the internal flash and snap away. I am using a digital camera when I say snap away. Otherwise it would cost a fortune to develope all the pics I take.

Hope this helps,

Matt Giandonato

like that one!
Link

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Greg
www.imageevent.com/gmherps

Greg,

I just happen to be selling the camera that I took that picture with Sony CD1000

I don't want to turn this into a sales ad so email me direct if interested. mattg@e-visivo.com

Matt Giandonato

what would be a good digital camera? im looking for one in the 200-400$ range right now. i was thinking nikons and fuji's...right now i have a Fuji FinePix S5000 3.1-Megapixel Super CCD HR Digital Camera picked out for 400$. do you think this is good for point and shoot application for taking pics of snakes, family, etc..

Don't get caught up in the pixel thing. If you aren't going to enlarge pictures more than 8x10 a 2.0 or 2.2 will do you. If you're new at this get yourself a kodak point and shoot and it will work fine. When you get up into the 3meg or better you're not going to get any better quality to post here with. You will enjoy a point and shoot and you will save some money.
jgriff

remember Bill that same thing happened to me when I bought those females for you thought they looked different then when i got them total suprise!!!

Why don't you tell the rest of the story? That you bought 165 -200gram rat feeding females for $33 each, not $165 each and still complained! Then wanted me to pay shipping back when I told you I would gladly refund your money but you pay shipping back if you were unhappy with them. Can't wait to see what you put the person through when you fork out a couple of grand for an animal!

np

for info i was not complaining i was just saying you act like you the only one i bought balls from and for you info i do have snake worth a couple grand i was just saying it happened to me that's why i replyed so fast cause what i saw but you know what you live and learn have a good night bill =)

Funny you say that 33 bucks for a female thats cheap no matter what it looks like there normal GET OVER IT.

I know bill he is honest and ive sold him expensive snakes and traded without a problem.

And you don't know what happened if you seen an albino and for it you would want what you paid for i don't care if it's worth $1 the moral to the story is you don't always what you pay for BTW you have a goodnight also =)

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

And we'll be doing some more dealings in the spring! You've got some smokin projects going on! Bill

.

how can I take pics that look exactly like the ones you took, is it your lighting, camera or what,,,filters??? just want to take more pics like the ones you took

You should never believe anything in the Internet, when it comes to photos. They're often about as real as those on the cover of a tabloid newspaper! In fact, though, you should believe this pic I took of giant bullfrogs in Buffalo, NY. Scary! And I promise, no photoshop was used in the making of this pic!
Well, almost no Photoshop. Well, OK, more than a little.. lol!

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*~Ginevive~*

A few things to remember. A good photoshopper will be able to change the color of just the snake and not the whole picture. So dont think if the background color is not changed that the snake isnt too. The only thing I can reccomend if you want to buy from someone on the internet that you dont know as being reputible is to ask for more pics. Granted they can change these too, but it will be a little difficult to change the color to match the other pics. You also might want to dnl the pic and increase the size greatly to investigate it. Look for "drawing outside the line" of the snake.
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

in the Bearded forum some loopy-loop is always advertising for "green" or "blue" Beardeds that are ovbiously oversaturated and enhanced. i have never seen so many blue and green newspapers, paper towels, or other "should be white" surfaces in my life : )

oh well, at least they are dumb enough to leave clues that give it away, aside from the obviously fake colored animal : )

and then sadly, obviously there are enough suckers buying the fakeness...
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

When purchasing animals where the color of the animal is particularly important, we ask for pictures of the animal next to a dollar bill.

The sellers usually think that the dollar bill is for "size reference". Although it does allow us to judge the size of the animal, the primary reason for the dollar bill is to allow us to judge the colors of the animal. Everyone has access to a dollar bill in their pocket. Everyone can compare the dollar bill they have to the one in the picture in order to judge the accuracy of the colors.

Remember...we're not just trying to allow for the scammers who deliberately "fudge the photo". We're also trying to allow for differences in color, contrast and brightness between the seller's monitor and our monitor. An honest seller could send us a picture that appears 100% correct (colorwise) on their monitor, but when viewed on our monitor makes the animal look much brighter than it really is.

Bear in mind that parts of the picture can be modified independently of the whole picture. If you produce the color strip that you are discussing (something along the lines of a Pantone color strip), what is to stop a determined scammer from modifying the whole picture to make the snake appear better looking...and to modify the color strip in the picture to match the exact "standard" colors of your color strip.

The idea of applying Pantone color strips to morph colors is not a bad idea...just impractical. When used between honest individuals, it would work great; when used by a scammer, it would be basically useless.

Our "dollar bill" method is no more secure. We're still relying on the seller to be honest. What we hope to account for with our method is basically the differences between the calibration of the seller's monitor and our monitor.

Very good idea but are there not different type of dollar bills that are deep and rich in color and some faded away from their original shape? Perhaps using the current Reptile Magazine cover or other another new magazine that are in both house holds.
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RicK Denmon

Ball Boutique,Inc.

That's what should be done and it could have been my monitor compared to his monitor who knows but you live and you learn Thanks Nigel