Rich’s Method

Over the past 30 years, I’ve built a reputation for making fine art photographic prints of the highest quality, and it’s all based on one thing I am willing to teach anyone: my processing methods.

This process has been:

  • Proven on countless thousands of photos

  • Tested at my former business, West Coast Imaging

  • Developed and painstakingly refined by myself and my team of experts

  • Applied to hundreds of thousands of photographs, representing the work of over 9,000 photographers.

  • Further refined as digital printmaking processes and printing technology matures.

  • Used to create prints that are sold and collected in galleries and museums across the world.

The typical approach to editing is based on reacting to something you don’t like in the photo, then trying to fix it. This haphazard approach makes it hard to achieve the best results.

I use a very different method that anyone can learn, and I am convinced it is the best way to approach editing and processing. By learning how to see the foundational problems in a photo, and how to correct them, you can solve any problem for any genre of photograph. It is essential knowledge that every photographer needs, shortening the learning process over traditional trial-and-error, brute-force approaches. 

My approach all comes down to one essential truth: The problems you need to fix in your photos are not a mystery. They are governed by fundamental elements that anyone can learn to see, understand, and control. These underlying fundamentals behave in rational ways that are governed by color theory. If you use them in the right way, and learn to see the problems that are common to all photographs, you can greatly improve your results. That idea is at the core of my method.

I spent the first half of my career in photography perfecting this method through the prints made at my highly-regarded fine art print lab. I’m spending the second half of my career sharing what I’ve learned to help other photographers unlock their potential and tell their stories. 

I’ve worked with thousands of photographers during my career, and it’s clear that EVERY photographer has a unique story to tell. The challenge for you is to discover that story and learn how to tell it. Through my workshops and other teaching opportunities, I’ll share what I’ve learned to help you tell your stories—while I work to tell mine and contribute to creating a rich, vibrant community of photographers.