VIEWING ADVICE

 

For starters, maximize your browser window size and close the "Favorites" or "Bookmarks" window (or other side windows) in your browser. The pages on this site are large -- they are meant to be viewed on a 15" monitor or larger. Smaller monitors, like those on compact laptops, will not be able to display the entire page without scrolling.

 

ABOUT THE INFORMATION INCLUDED WITH EACH THUMBNAIL

© Joseph W. Dougherty Asset: 1999_01_08_01_09.TIF Species: Hopkinsia rosacea Macfarland 1905 Common: Hopkin's rose nudibranch Syn.: n/a Range: Eastern Pacific [Monterey Bay, CA.] Tax.: Goniodorididae > Nudibranchia > Mollusca Note: F. Lves and feeds on a similarly colored species of bryozoan, Eurystomella. It grows to about 20mm and has been found from Oregon to Baja California. KW: marine invertebrates, tidepool animals, temperate Pacific sea slugs

The thumbnails on the gallery pages have data provided with each one (though not every field is populated, since they are not all applicable to every image). Here is a quick key to the data fields:

• © <photographer's name>: Most of the images on this site are mine, but there are a few taken by friends and colleagues hosted here as well. All rights are reserved; no image in this site is in the public domain.
• Asset: the unique tracking number I use to identify each image
• Species: the binomial scientific name (when available the species author is also listed)
• Common: the vernacular name(s) commonly used outside the scientific community
• Syn.: Synonyms. Alternate taxa this organism has been known by in the past. Usually I only list Latin names here, but occasionally I'll use this spot for other notes about the name.
• Range: The natural range of the species illustrated [often with the actual location where the photo was made listed inside brackets].
• Tax: taxonomic classification; usually FAMILY > Order > Class

• Note: This is a "lump all" field of general information. In my offline personal database this often contains pages of data about the species illustrated, but online I only post the first couple lines from this field. It starts with an image grade designator (see below); after the image grade, any other information that seems interesting or relevant is placed in the notes field:

  Grade: My subjective opinion about the quality of the image is denoted by a single letter (S, G, F, E) at the very beginning of the "note" below each thumbnail. These letter designations mean the following:

  • S = SPECIES (or SENTIMENTAL). These can be used to ID a species, but are otherwise not very good. There are serious mistakes in the picture, i.e. a bit out of focus, under/over-exposed, reflections obscure subject, unintentionally blurred (not all images with blurring have that effect on accident). I keep these slides for something like sentimental reasons (travel memories), or because it is the only picture of this species that I have and it is sufficient to still serve as an ID image of the species.
  • G = GOOD: Snapshot quality. There may be a flaw in focus, exposure, illumination, or most commonly the composition is not that great.
  • F = FINE: Average quality, technically and photographically: In focus, balanced illumination, reasonable composition. The majority of my images are graded F or F+. I'm intentionally stingy about higher ratings.
  • E = EXCELLENT: A very nice image. Exposure, composition, focus, content are all as good as they could be for this type of subject matter. This image can easily reproduce as the cover of a magazine or (depending on format of original medium) as a fine art print. Technically perfect image.

Intermediate steps (F+, F-, etc.) are occasionally used.

• KW: Key Words. Categories and topics applicable to the image.

GET THE BEST POSSIBLE DISPLAY ON YOUR MONITOR

This website is optimized for display with monitor resolutions of 1024x768 or larger. Scrolling will be necessary to view the pages if your display is set below this resolution or you have a small laptop screen.

In order to view my photographs with the contrast and brightness I have intended for them, adjust your monitor's contrast to 100% and then adjust the brightness until you can see each individual section of the gamma bar below (including the darkest zones on the left and the brightest zones on the right). Doing so should allow you to view my photographs with optimal contrast and brightness. Be aware that some monitors (especially laptops) may simply not be capable of displaying the entire range.

 

Provided you have a current computer system and monitor, you should be viewing fairly color correct photographs. However, actual prints may vary from what you see on your display due to variations in brightness, contrast, and color.

It is important to note that Macs and PC's operate in entirely different "gamma" ranges. Images that look right on a normal Mac (1.8 gamma) will look dark on a PC (2.2+ gamma). A photograph balanced for a PC will look washed out on a Mac.

Outrigger at sunset (Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia).

My photographs are adjusted in a PC environment, and this website is built in the same. Some people think this doesn't matter, but I assure you that it does. If you're viewing this site with a Mac, the images will not look the same as they do on a PC.

In addition, monitor displays are severely affected by ambient light (the brightness of the room the monitor is in) with images appearing lighter as the room becomes darker. Furthermore, CRT monitors have a warm-up period (up to a half hour) in which the screen (hence the images) steadily becomes lighter.

Despite all the display improvement techniques listed above, web display of images is always sub-optimal, especially those from transperancies (which are most suited to projection or viewing on a light table).

Lastly, this site is built with high-bandwidth access in mind, since dial-up internet access is barely feasible even under the most mundane of circumstances, let alone for browsing large quantities of images.

Thank you for viewing my work.

EEcology Photographic Home | About | Galleries | Articles | Copyright | Image Usage | Purchasing | Viewing Tips | Search

 

All images © Joseph W. Dougherty/ECOLOGY PHOTOGRAPHIC™ unless noted otherwise.

The shark and dolphin globe logo, ecophotog, ecology.org, and e-POW are trademarks of ECOLOGY PHOTOGRAPHIC™
No use, reuse, copying or reproduction of any image in this site is allowed without specific written permission.