Austin Newborn Photographer | Emma Stasko Photography | Babies | Maternity | Birth » Emma Stasko Photography specializes in newborn, baby, maternity, birth, child and family photography in Austin, Texas and surrounding areas including but not limited to Cedar Park and Round Rock.

Saving images for Facebook, a common question in the world of photography. I am not here to tell you how you need to save your images for Facebook, I am here to tell you how I save mine, I am sure there are many ways. I have spent a lot of time with trial and error to find the best way to save my images for social media and blogging. There is nothing more frustrating than being excited about a beautiful image, you load it to Facebook and it looks terrible.

There are a few important things to go over before I go into the how to. First thing and one of the most important is your image size. When you load a full size image to Facebook, Facebook automatically compresses it, and not in a good way. So how do you avoid that? Well here is what I found out! Facebook only recognizes certain size images without compressing them, anything other than those sizes and it will automatically compress the image. Those sizes are 960px, 1024px, or 2048px on the LONGEST side of the image. Saving as one of those sizes will guarantee Facebook not to touch your image quality. Another common mistake I see is not converting the image to sRGB color space. This is a must and I do it for all of my images, whether they will be posted online or not.

I edit in both Lightroom and Photoshop, I do my basic adjustments in LR and then bring my images to PS to finish them. I have my settings in LR to automatically convert my images to sRGB when they are opened into PS. You can see instructions on how to do that HERE. This way, you don’t have to worry about remembering to do it, it will do it for you automatically.

So what size is best out of the three? Well I guess that really depends on personal preference, but for Facebook I like mine at 2048px. Now if you are saving images for a blog or website, you generally do not want them that large. For my blog and website I save at 960, why? Well when you have a website with a lot of images, you want them to load fast so your potential clients don’t have to sit there and stare at a frustratingly long load time. If you are anything like me, if a website takes too long to load, I just move on. So saving your images at a smaller size will keep the speed up while still having great looking images.

Now that I have covered the settings, what is next? The actual saving. Normally when you save an image, you go to file-save or save as. You do not want to save this way for online. Here are the steps…

File-Save for web: You will get a very confusing pop up box, but don’t worry, we aren’t going to change much. In the top right you will see a drop down box under where it says presets, when you click on it, it says GIF, JPEG, PNG etc. You want to select PNG-24. If you have not converted your image to sRGB yet, you can do this by checking the convert to sRGB box on the right. You can also resize you image at the bottom but I don’t like to do it this way because it takes longer for it to load up my “save for web” tab with a full size image. All that is left is to save your image and load it online! It really is that easy! If you are reading this thinking, what the heck are all these crazy terms? Well your answer is a google search away! I hope this helps everyone as I see the question floating around constantly and I know how confusing it is to figure it all out. Like I said, I am sure there are many other ways of doing this, this is just what works for me and it has yet to fail me. Happy shooting everyone!

Emma Stasko Photography specializes in newborn, baby, maternity, birth, child and family photography in Austin, Texas and surrounding areas including but not limited to Cedar Park and Round Rock.

Austin Photographer | Emma Stasko PhotographyP I NI M A G E

Photo by Emma Stasko Photography

Memorial Day, the start of Summer, the weekend for BBQ’s, outdoor fun, and 3 days off. That is what most people with think about as this weekend approaches. But what about the REAL meaning of Memorial Day? It is so easy these days to get lost in our own world and activities that we often forget to take a moment to stop and thank those who make your 3 day weekend possible. Memorial Day is a day to thank those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, those who fought and lost their lives so that we can continue to live ours in freedom. I CHALLENGE you to this, when you are gathered with your friends this Memorial Day, having a great time, have everyone stop, even just for a minute, take a moment of silence to thank those that gave that sacrifice for their country. If you know someone who has lost a Son, Daughter, Wife, Mother, Sister, Brother, take a moment to thank them as well. Show your pride, share your patriotic photos this weekend and hashtag #therealmeaning2015

I have gathered together some beautiful patriotic photos from photographers across the country.

Austin Photographer | Emma Stasko PhotographyP I NI M A G E

“Memorial Day is about honoring those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Our service members are courageous, respectful, honorable, and selfless. So many have given their lives to serve and protect this country and though they are always in our thoughts, this holiday is a day of remembrance for our heroes who have fallen.”

Photo by Jessica Souza Photography

Austin Photographer | Emma Stasko PhotographyP I NI M A G E

“I want to say Thank you to all of you who have served our country. As Memorial day weekend approaches let’s remember the real reason why we celebrate, and honor those who have served and given up their lives in defense of our nation and values.”

Photo by Maribella Photography

Austin Photographer | Emma Stasko PhotographyP I NI M A G E

Photo by Maribella Photography

Austin Photographer | Emma Stasko PhotographyP I NI M A G E

“I put a lot into this photo and I know that everyone will not agree with it, but my intentions were pure. This photo can represent disrespect or ill will. To my eyes it was a sign of courage, protection and safety from this great country and the soldiers who give their lives. As someone who has been hit personally with loss of life over seas, I find solace in knowing that some are still willing to die so that i can post this on my facebook page. It’s a freedom that I have because of those who made the ultimate sacrifice to give it to me.”

Photo by KCC Photography

Austin Photographer | Emma Stasko Photography

Emma Stasko Photography specializes in newborn, baby, maternity, birth, child and family photography in Austin, Texas and surrounding areas including but not limited to Cedar Park and Round Rock.
  • Jessica Souza - Thank you so much for this challenge <3 Austin, TX is so luck to have you as a photographer!ReplyCancel

    • e.stasko@gmail.com - Thank you Jessica, right back at you friend!ReplyCancel

Cutest Kid Contest!

In celebration of reaching 2k followers on Facebook, I have decided to do another contest! I planned on doing a mini session giveaway at 2k, but decided to do something a little more fun and interactive! E-mail one photo of your child (or children) to emmastaskophotography@gmail.com This does not have to be a professional photo. Once I receive a minimun of 10 entries I will start adding them to the album.

Simply have your friends and family like YOUR image, comment win and share the album. By the end of the contest, whichever image has the most likes will be the winner. The sooner you get those image subitted, the better! One entry per person. Winner must be willing to travel to the Austin area for their shoot.

Austin Photographer | Emma Stasko PhotographyP I NI M A G E

Emma Stasko Photography specializes in newborn, baby, maternity, birth, child and family photography in Austin, Texas and surrounding areas including but not limited to Cedar Park and Round Rock.

Austin Photographer | Emma Stasko PhotographyP I NI M A G E

Austin Photographer | Emma Stasko Photography

It is that time of the year in Texas, the beautiful bluebonnets are in bloom and popping up all over! I would just like to take a moment to educate everyone because sometimes we just forget. Everyone loves getting bluebonnet photos with their kids every year, it is a tradition with a lot of families in Texas. It is important to remember that while we only have bluebonnets around for a short time, please respect them. There are 1000’s of families with kids that will be coming to take pictures in the bluebonnets. Please be careful when you are taking photos that you do not trample them. Find an area that has a thin patch surrounded but heavier patches so you have the illusion of them being in a thick patch of flowers. When everyone comes through and tramples them, it doesn’t leave a lot beauty for everyone else to enjoy, not to mention they produce seeds for the following year, so the more you trample them, they less seeds we will get. So please, when taking photos in the bluebonnets, whether just photographing your own kids or as a professional, please be respectful of this limited beauty we get every Spring so that everyone can enjoy them. If you needs some tips on taking photos to avoid crushing the flowers keep reading:)

  • Bring something for the kids to sit on like you see in the image above. I placed the ladder around the flowers to be sure not to crush them and sat him on the ladder. You can use a chair, stool, wagon. Plus it ads a little extra to your shots!
  • Find a bare patch surrounded by flowers, especially for little hands that like to pick the flowers, if you photograph at the right able you won’t even notice the bare patch.
  • Bring someone to help! It is tough photographing little ones and making sure they don’t trample the flowers, if you can, bring another adult to help out.
  • Talk with your kids before you go out there and let them know that we need to take care of the flowers and not to pick or step on them, you could make a game out of it:)
Emma Stasko Photography specializes in newborn, baby, maternity, birth, child and family photography in Austin, Texas and surrounding areas including but not limited to Cedar Park and Round Rock.