Suze Randall publishes stunning images. For almost 30 years she has been at the top of the erotic glamour business, producing images known for their clarity and vivid crispness. They are sharp without being too sharp, saturated, but not oversaturated. Photographers frequently wonder how Suze gets such good web images and I've heard more than one guess that Suze's images are all expensive medium-format, drum scanned transparencies. Or that they are the product of elaborate staging with dozens of lights.

They are not. Holly Randall, Suze's photographer/daughter, shot this photo of model Lanny Barbie on 35mm Kodak E100S slide film. And it was scanned as a conventional PhotoCD image. And while Suze and Holly are obviously experts at studio lighting, the lighting is substantial but not terribly exotic. The key light was an extra-large softbox on the right, a fill on the left, two rim lights, one on either side, and an overhead hairlight. Three lights illuminate the background.

But no matter how beautiful the model, how lush the set, how skilled the photographer, few images arise perfect and ready for the web. The variables of film, of processing, and of scanning can cause the images to drift from what was in the mind's eye of the photographer. To give images full impact on the web takes the skills of someone like Warren Gold. Gold, an independent photo editor and color-correction expert from Bonita, CA, has been preparing Suze and Holly Randall's images for the Web for over five years. I will show you, step by step, how Warren prepared this image for posting on Suze's website.

Before we begin, I have a suggestion: It is tempting, looking at these two versions of this photo, to think that a little touch-up with color balance and brightness levels is all that is involved here. To disabuse you of this notion, I suggest that, before I explain how Warren edited this photo, you try it yourself. Click here to download the large version of both the before and after image of Suze. Load them both into Photo-Paint, Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro - whatever your weapon of choice - and see if you can match the "original" to the "final." It isn't easy.

Warren's procedure with this photo was to brighten and flatten the image and then bring it to life with selective and global color correction. Finally, he selectively sharpens and reduces the image to web sizes.

Download All The original Screenshots