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Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in News & Trends
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LexJet Sunset Award: Enter to Win a $200 Gift Certificate and More at PhotoPro Expo

Win awards and prizes at the PhotoPro Expo 2012Billed as the Super Bowl of Photography, the PhotoPro Expo takes place on Super Bowl Weekend, Feb. 2-5 at the Marriott River Center in Covington, Ky., just across the river from Cincinnati. As part of the educational weekend, which features an all-star lineup of speakers, there’s also a Print Competition and Exhibition.

The Print Competition features more than $5,000 in awards and prizes, including the coveted LexJet Sunset Award. The winner of the LexJet Sunset Award and the handsome trophy will also receive a $200 gift certificate toward the purchase of any of the fine art and photo papers and canvases in LexJet’s Sunset portfolio of inkjet media for professional photographic and fine art printing.

To qualify for the LexJet Sunset Award, the entries must be printed on any LexJet photo or fine art paper and meet PhotoPro Expo’s print competition submission requirements.

All registrations must be completed at printcompetition.com before shipping or hand delivering your entries. Shipped cases must be received by Jan. 30 and hand-delivered submissions by 3 p.m., Feb. 1. Click here for all the Print Competition details and rules.

Divisions include Portrait, Wedding, Gallery, Digital Artistry, Rising Star, Albums and Specialists. The winner of each Category within those Divisions – the Portrait Division, for instance, includes General, Children, Senior, Fashion and Best Categories – will be chosen by judges during the Expo and recognized at the awards ceremony. In addition, Top Honors will be given to the PhotoPro Network Photographer of the Year (plus a $200 cash prize), Best of Show ($150 cash prize), People’s Choice Award ($100 cash prize), Best Black & White Award ($100 cash prize) and PhotoPro Network TOP 10 Awards ($50 gift certificates).

Speakers include Photoshop guru Scott Kelby, the legendary Jerry Ghionis, Skip Cohen of Skip’s Summer School, top portrait photographer Kirk Volklain, NYC fashion photographer Lindsay Adler, best-selling Speed Lighting author Syl Arena, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Vincent Laforet, branding expert Sarah Petty, Smithsonian American History museum featured artist Joel Grimes, and retouch and image enhancement authority Janice Wendt.

For more information and to register for the show go to http://photopronetwork.com/ or call PhotoPro Network HQ at 606-928-5333. And, for more information about the LexJet Sunset Award, contact Tom Gruss at 800-453-9538 or email tom.gruss@lexjet.com. 

Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in Case Studies & Profiles
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Blue Ribbon Printing with Sunset Photo Metallic Paper

It was Rodney Clark’s first experiment with LexJet Sunset Photo Metallic Paper and the results were award-winning. Clark won a first place and three blue ribbons this past October at the Professional Photographers Association of Pennsylvania (PPA of PA) competition held in State College, Pa.

“I’m one of those photographers who’s used to working with high-gloss lacquered prints on f-surface paper for competitions. With the Sunset Metallic it’s that way out of the box. Even if you do laminate, it still shows the same principles and properties that make a metallic paper so nice,” says Clark.

The three blue-ribbon prints – images taken of Main Street in Shepherdstown, W.V. – were photographed in HDR. Clark says Sunset Metallic was the perfect fit for the extreme saturation produced by HDR. The judges agreed.

The other image won first place in the commercial category and was also printed on Sunset Metallic. The metallic inkjet paper, designed to replicate the same look as the old Kodak metallic used in the darkroom, brought a pearlescent shine to the image that helped catch the judges’ eyes.

“The image you see is basically au naturel, other than taking out a couple of dust spots and pulling the density down for competition-quality printing,” explains Clark. “It’s a bridal dress showing the designer’s ribbon and wedding rings shot at a 45-degree angle. Sand, water and sky in the background account for the gradient you see from beige to dark blue. I used a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens on a Canon 1D Mark III to capture it.”

Clark says he’s hopeful that his success locally will translate to more regional and national competition recognition, all that are within grasp thanks to his ability to print his own work with the addition of the new paper and a Canon iPF6100 inkjet printer he bought about four months ago.

“Pretty much right out of the box it was as accurate as you could get. The only thing I had to do was add the 10 points of brightness through my Photoshop plug-in for the Canon, which I use instead of the print driver. What I get out of it is absolutely phenomenal,” says Clark. “With some help from Kelly [Price, LexJet account specialist] and the gang at LexJet, I have the profiles I need to print accurately every time.”

Rodney Clark, M. Photog., Cr., CPP, owns Clark Photography in Waynesboro, Pa. Photos courtesy Rodney Clark.

Posted on by Justin Lehman Posted in Marketing & Sales
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The Right Fit: Now That’s Customer Service!

I recently performed the one and only task my future wife delegated to me for my upcoming wedding: Find something for the groomsmen and me to wear. That’s right – no flower shopping, centerpieces or invitations to deal with, just the suits.*

Thanks for everything, Men's Wearhouse.

After going to a few different stores without any luck, I made my way to the local Men’s Wearhouse in Sarasota. The second I walked in the door I was approached by a friendly Wardrobe Consultant named Terry, asking what he could do to help me.

I let him know what I was interested in, he took my measurements, and we started browsing the store. I ended up finding a suit I liked, and it happened to be on sale. They had my size, I was ready to buy it, but of course there was a catch.

Terry let me know that it was the end of season, which is why it was on sale, and it would be tough to find six of them in the sizes we needed for the groomsmen. We could come back in the spring and definitely get what we wanted, but we’d be paying full price.

Sure enough he checked, and they didn’t have the sizes available in his store. He called around to a few other stores for me, and didn’t have any luck there either. Then he said, “Here’s the part number. Why don’t you go online and see if you can find them somewhere else. In the meantime, I’ll call our corporate office, which has access to every store’s inventory. If we can find them for you, we’ll give you a call and let you know.”

Now I’m sure Terry makes commission, yet for the sake of the customer he was willing to lose the sale and the commission so I could get what I wanted. I went home, checked online, and wasn’t able to find anything.

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