I’ve had trouble getting a 24” borderless print on my Epson 9890. No matter what I did, it was off by at least an eighth of an inch, (and often more) cause me to lose details on the edge, not to mention ending up with a print that was less than 24” wide.  In many cases, […]

“Up-Rez” – “Extrapolation” or just “enlarge”…   (UPDATE:  May 12, 2021. As technology advances, things change. Today, you will get the best extrapolation from Topaz Gigapixel AI, or Photoshop’s Enhance/Super resolution. The latter will only double the dimensions, while Gigapixel will let you choose the size. Both of these will take  some time to complete, […]

  Minutiae “…the shapes nearest shapelessness awe us most, suggest the god.” (A. R. Ammons) “Beauty is the Universal seen.” (Alfred Stieglitz)* I’ve been working on this for several months now, and as far as I know, it’s an original idea: make extremely tiny works which are designed to become “art” only after they are […]

The old “turn it on, and yank the power cord” is hardly the safest way to release the print head on an extremely expensive printer. Here’s the correct way to do it (no dangerous moves required) :   Start in service mode* select self-testing -> met Adjustment -> PG Adj Press OK while Un Cap is displayed. That […]

Most of you know that it’s not any longer conveniently possible to print a file with absolutely NO color management tweaking the colors. Between Apple, Adobe and Epson, there just isn’t a simple and obvious way to print out a sample target for reading with your ColorMunki or i1 Photo Pro. There are three, in […]

Entering photography contests is fun, but the first few times it can be a bit daunting. The contest always specifies what format an image file must be, in order to be accepted. And besides that, it limits the size… and besides -that- you want them to see it with the same colors as you see […]

There are 7.2 billion people in the world, and 7 billion cell phone accounts. Cellphones now reach over 96% of the people, and over half of them are in the Asia-Pacific region. The penetration is 90% in developing countries. 40% of the world’s population is on the internet. Every day over a billion photographs are uploaded to […]

A couple of days ago, I was in a face-off with the postmaster in my community. I was in the post office, taking shots that appealed to me. He stepped in front of the camera, and told me I could not photograph there. Thing ended amicably, and I continued shooting, but that did inspire this […]

Screenwriter and author Christina Hamlett interviewed me recently, asking basic questions about the world of photography. It’s here: Tracy Valleau Fine Art Photography

(This talk was delivered a few times to fellow photographers, in late 2013. It proposes a definition for  “fine art photography” based on that which “the fine arts” as a group, have in common, and thus distinguishes between “fine art” and “high-concept art.”)   A Talk: “On Photography and Fine Art.”© 2013 Tracy Valleau Hello […]