Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Running A Craft Business ~ Photography

Your Photographs are the first thing that will catch a perspective clients eye and real them in to look at your item on your website. There are lots of examples around and I am sure you have seen them, where blurred, badly coloured, out of focus or confusing images are pasted onto the site.  It's just really bad.  Personally I'd rather not list a product if my photo's are not up to the mark.
I am in no way trained to use a camera and I have no state of the art equipment, only a very old digital camera (Nikon coolpix 3100), but with trial & error and an awful lot of patience and a little IT interference! I have been able to produce clear photos.  It can be done.
I'm personally a fan of the all white background.  There is nothing to draw the eye away from your product, the product stands out and it all looks clean and professional. 
My method is not fool proof, I sometimes take several pictures before I get the image I want.
  • I take several sheets of white printer paper and lay them flat
  • Lay out the product making sure that the componants are all facing the right way, 
  • Ensure there is enough space around the item.
  • Set the camera onto the macro setting (Looks like a small tuplip) and the flash to Auto.
  • Put elbows onto the table.  Tilt camera  so it is directly over the item at forearms length.  Take photo.
  • Load photo to computer
  • go to photo processing software (I use paint shop pro 6)  
  • open photo
  • Crop image leaving equal area all around photo (or square if using Folksy)
  • Adjust brightness if required (but remember to makesure you are not changing the colour as it needs to be a true representation of your item,)
  • Whiten background using colour flood tool.
  • clean any grey areas with the spray can 
  • Save photo. 
 Before
 After
The little bit of time and concern shows a professional image and will look so much better.

Examples of use of the white background.

(all these product look fantastic and give a very professional image)



I'll look at other backgrounds another time.

2 comments:

Kazies Magical Designs said...

Do you mind if I tag this its very imformative I noticed you on thw craft forum on twitter

Ra Ra Bazaar said...

feel free.

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