This month we had a unique opportunity to host a remarkable event in catalog production. One of our clients came to us and asked for help with their rather formidable, but not unusual challenge in producing their quarterly catalog.

They produce a very high quality, and high volume catalog. Their color matching is absolutely critical. The effectiveness of the catalog in producing sales is totally dependent on the products having accurate and attractive color and features. Sound familiar?

Their volume is astounding:for one catalog production round they faced over 600 hours of Photoshop retouching and color matching time. There are two major issues they came to us to solve. First, they need to standardize their file delivery from photographers. Second, they need all the files to represent color in the same way. The catch is, they use 7 different studios, and they all use different cameras.

The result was a "Photography Summit", held right here in our meeting room. We got 20 people together from all over the country, sat them down in the same room and hashed out a set of photography guidelines that allowed the photographers to shoot with confidence, and allowed the production team to save time and effort getting the files to a common point of color, contrast and resolution.

To achieve this, we started with going through the display types, display calibration, color management policies and file preparation standards. Because of our unique experience in digital photography systems, we analyzed all the various makes and types of camera files for differences in color and contrast, and using our experience and training in each of the camera systems we developed processing settings for each specific camera: Leaf, Sinar, Hasselblad, Phase One, Nikon and Canon.

Using these settings as they capture and process the files, the photographers are able to produce files that, in spite of the big differences in chips and systems, look essentially the same.

The all came together because of a number of factors... primarily the client's demand for standardization, but also the willingness and desire for everyone on the team to work towards the common goal of consistency and quality, and a willingness to get together to do what we all do best: communicate! Because of that commitment, we at Tech Superpowers were able to be a part of a little bit of catalog production history.

If these problems sound all too familiar, and a "summit" sounds like something that could help our your production team, let's get together and see what we can do. Contact us at ted@techsuperpowers.com and lets see what we can put together!