Would this technique help sales? Sports?
Ham1
Registered Users Posts: 303 Major grins
So I have been talking to Gavin Phillips and I am going to get him to post here some examples, but I am wondering if his actions would help your sales?
Possibly show your clients something different with the hopes of increasing sales. He offers a Photoshop 3D Photo FX 'actions' and movie tutorials.
He claims to teach how to create this effect quickly in Photoshop.
He did set up a sweet exclusive 61% discount for SmugMuggers. Use coupon code: smug61 :clap:clap
Click below to see more examples and watch the demo movie,
http://www.photoeffects.biz/smugmug.html
Let me know what you guys think?
Markham
Possibly show your clients something different with the hopes of increasing sales. He offers a Photoshop 3D Photo FX 'actions' and movie tutorials.
He claims to teach how to create this effect quickly in Photoshop.
He did set up a sweet exclusive 61% discount for SmugMuggers. Use coupon code: smug61 :clap:clap
Click below to see more examples and watch the demo movie,
http://www.photoeffects.biz/smugmug.html
Let me know what you guys think?
Markham
Markham Bennett
www.twitter.com/markhambennett
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You want honesty? The guy is trying to take your money by charging almost $100 (without the smugmug discount) to show you how to create out of bound images (OOB) and there are already OOB images in the sports forum (along with tutorial links)
From what I can tell this guy is selling a video of the OOB flow and some actions (basic stuff like funky paint saturated, vintage, etc)
If you want to learn how to create OOB images, here are some tutorials on the web:
Tutorial 1
Tutorial 2
Tutorial 3
Tutorial 4
Tutorial 5
And there are many, many more.
If you are the type that learns better by watching a video, then I think product is geared towards you and might help you. This product might also be for you if you have never used the various selections tools in photoshop. The key to this technique is extraction of people and objects in photoshop and it's usefully for collages and not use OOB images. I didn't buy the package, but I think he might try to give better tips on how to use the various masks features on photoshop.
And yes, photoshop work like this does help differentiate a pro from an average shooter and may increase profits.
Personally, I think your money is better off spent on a month of training on Kelby training or Lydia.com for photoshop/photography video lessons (like extraction, masks, layers, etc), but that's me.
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Glad you didn't hold back
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Given this reply i'm not sure if you were looking for honest opinion or just gratitous oohs and ahh's but i'm afraid I'm far from impressed as well.
In reply to your question, Would this technique help ( sports) sales?
No, not in a pink fit for the stuff i do most weekends.
Furthermore, my 15 yo son who does all my graphic work looked this technique up about 6 months ago on some photoshop site and used it for the slick we present our Cd's in. I watched him do it and it took him very little time just doing it manually. I'm sure he could create a set of actions himself if we wanted to offer it.
It works well for the application we use it but It wouldn't sell for clients.
There is a lot of stuff I wouldn't think to offer my clients that sells in the US because in Oz there is a lot of stuff that would be seen as terribly cheezy that seems to get eaten up in America.
Joi Cohen-Haroun
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Don't worry. I can fix you in photoshop.
Agree. Those are really bad. Especially the twisty turny corners of them.
Would love to see some of your examples of stuff that sold. Thanks!
A former sports shooter
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goto: www.schsprep.com and then select Lacrosse, look at the last two games
www.dormancavaliers.com when I put the first pic up, I put it in the Lacrosse section. I got a number of emails inquiring on everything from "how did you do that" to "can you do that on one of my images"?
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu
Sounds like Gavin is selling something that can also be found free in a lot of places. Some people don't know where to look or what to look for so it could be useful to them.
Thanks for the feedback.
Hey I actually think this pic looks pretty good!
http://www.schsprep.com/2010-11photos/jallcrovshs/slides/15g.html
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I've seen tutorials for this several years back myself. It looks hokey to me, but bottom line is the bottom dollar. If it sells...
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu
You will understand if i think your very well written "testimonial" here sounds like an advertising pitch for the product through having all the hallmarks of a marketing piece.
While it's nice that it's initially working for you, that Pic linked above makes my eyes hurt and initially feel off balance.
In any case, the fact remains the technique is neither difficult nor particularly time consuming to do manually.
If a person did want to offer it, the smart business move would be to offer it and then see the response before paying out for a tool hey may never get to use.
Of course once a person did do it manually, I doubt they would bother buying an action to produce it.
Congrats on the Inquiries! As Glort said, Americans eat this stuff up! So, feed 'em!:D
My issue is that it's easy to do without paying a lot of money. But if there are people that want to use it and there are people that want to buy it....BRAVO. Just not my style.
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GLort........sorry my pic threw you off balance and you now have a case of hurting eyes. You might try taking the blinders off, a lot of my purist friends have done that and low and behold, "ching ching!"
The more someone trys to convince me to buy something on a forum, the more suspect I become of it.
As for taking the the blinkers off, I took your advise.
To avoid any bias, I went to my son and said " I found this great new set of actions i'm going to get, check this out. "
I said it with enthuasiam so as the only way he could be biased was towards it. I'm always more than happy to be proven wrong when it's to my financial benifit.
I showed him the links and the demo.
His Comments, "That's a complete waste of time Dad, what a load of S**t."
Not to be put off, I said dont you think this would be something different they would go for? He said no. I asked why not, no one offers this.
His exact words, " Its way too cheesy".
He then said, " the 3d thing is the only thing that might be worthwhile but I have that tutorial on the effect and it's what I did for the Dvd covers. We could do a sample and put it up but I can tell you no one will want it and if they do, I can do it myself. The rest of the actions are a waste of time and no one is ever going to buy them".
Now he could be wrong, no question, but the bottom line is I trust his judgement especially when it gells perfectly with my own opinion.
He has pushed me to offer a few different products I thought would never fly and they are our best sellers and he's also warned me against things I was dead sure of and proved he was right. Given he is at least 20 years closer to the average age of our clients than I am, I have no doubt he is more in touch with them than i am.
As such, all i can say is his track record with what sells for us has proven on the money and as such I trust his opinion.
It would have been much easier for him to go with me rather than against me so at the end of the day with little confidence in sales and the ability to produce the only possibly worthwhile effect easily and for free anyway.
If it's working for you, that's great and I wish you all the best with it.
Glort, where are your pics, I would love to see your work!.....and your sons'.
Well said sir, well said.
The excessive amount of time trying to convince us of the usefulness of this is just sad and further proving that it's suspicious.
Also I'd like to add that while my primary market is weddings, I do shoot sports on occasion too... and part of my sports shooting where I might one day consider using something like this (ONLY if it was actually done proper and looked nothing like these examples) would be for my martial arts portraits I do for the students every year, I think some of the younger kids would get a huge kick out of it. But again, if it looks like the examples posted for sale here, I'd stay far away from it.
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This product works for you. Great. Everyone else here is just giving their opinions since they were asked for them. Because most opinions here differ from yours you seem to be taking it personally. Respect other people's opinions as you would have them respect yours.
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I have seen a phenonomena on a number of forums before where a discussion takes place, ( always about a product or service) a new member of that forum appears, argues vigarously in support of the product and trys to convince everyone it works, is a miracle etc, posts ONLY on that single thread or topic and then dissappears as fast as they appeared never to be heard from again once they fail to convert the opinion of the respondents to their way of thinking.
It seems a pretty well worn and now Transparent dodgy marketing tactic.
Given this experience and the similarities I am detecting here, my suspicions about certain posters comments are certainly raised. Time may tell if my concersn are justified.
I have an interest in an alternative fuel i have been running my car on for 5 years with great success. If someone tells me that it dosen't work or it will destroy my engine, etc, I don't go into rants about why they should use it with veiled insults and innuendo or try to tell them they are wrong for not using it.
It really dosen't matter a damn to me if they use it or not or if they think i'm a lunatic. If people are ignorant or biased or afraid or whatever, so be it.
I have nothing to gain ( or loose) if they try it or not so there is no incentive for me to try to change peoples mind, PARTICULARLY when getting a whole load of people onto the idea may in fact prove a disadvantage to myself.
Now if someone asks about it, sure I'll tell them what they want to know but I tell them the facts and not try to convince them that they should be doing it.
Another of my behaviours is that when i find something that I think or proves to be a marketing advantage over my competitors and will give me an edge over them, i'm kinda cagey who I tell and the last thing i try to do is convince all and sundry on a public forum that they should be doing it too. it's hard to get ahead in a competitive and oversaturated market so just like in any avenue of business, when you think you have got a an edge over the competition, the last thing you want to do is loose your advantage by putting them onto it.
Of course if I was trying to market something and getting as many people to buy it as possible was the aim, then I would certainly have a different approach.
And one final thought comes to my always suspicious mind that relates to when I did some researching on lying once.
One key thing they say about spotting an untruth or a biased witness is to assess if the person is merely trying to relay facts or experiences or going to pains and effort to convince you of them and make you believe what they are saying.
I have found that a very useful test of information to keep in mind.
For those hoping I will disappear.....that's gonna happen. It's spring break here and we are headed for Boston tomorrow morning then up the coast to Ogunquit Maine, we plan on taking a lot of pics.....will return on the 20th to face a few scheduled weddings, I so don't look forward to them.
Cheers!
I responded because I thought you were on the right track. Some folks DO eat up Cheesey stuff. And Some folks need to be there to collect the money when they want to buy it. it's not my gig, but I dig it when somebody else does it! Someone's got to feed the Cheese eaters~ Some folks call colorized Cheesey, and others call purists cheesey. I wouldn't get too attached to the label. The Color is: Green.