Photo Tips

[Rayela Art]

Ahem... I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings, but some of our dear members need help with their photos. Today I deleted over 1200 photos from my hard drive of product that I had sold on eBay while I had my brick and mortar store. Yish! Good riddance! I couldn't believe I was able to sell those items with such poor photo quality. In other words, my photos have improved in the last four years. They are not perfect, but they are better.

Learn from the school of hard knocks!

I don't have a top of the line camera. It cost me a bundle when it came out ($450), but now it would probably be a $100 camera. I've dropped it a couple of times and the battery thingy is taped down, the zoom sometimes gets stuck and I have a hard time getting good purples. I don't have a fancy photo editing software. I use photoshop elements and you DO need to have something to crop, sharpen and adjust colors.

Learning is a painful process, but it's a must in cyber world, especially if you are selling what you make! (Or, most often in my case, what someone else made...)

There are some simple tricks:
1. Photograph outside on a grey day or in the shade. This is to avoid shadows.
2. Buy a large white or black board as a background. Only use colors if you are confident about what you are doing. I prefer white, but some things do look better on black.
3. Don't try to give your item an environment. Don't hang the earrings on a pot. Don't use leaves or flowers as decorative items. Just keep it simple and try to document your piece as closely as possible to the actual thing. Even if you are not selling something, having good photos is important if you want to develop a portfolio, remember what you did accurately, and share the process with others.
4. You must, you must, you must: Absolutely must learn to focus (experiment with different options the camera might offer), crop, sharpen and adjust colors. Have someone teach you those basics. Take the time and just do it!

Doing this will result in a sigh of relief on your part and to others. You will likely be photographing similar things over and over, so make a set up that will work for you. Don't learn everything, just learn what you need. Remember that people cannot touch your item when they see it online, they have to imagine that they are touching it. Make that photo so good that they can feel it. I promise that this will make you happy!

If you know of other tips that are helpful, please post them here. Or, if you have nightmares about your photos and don't know what to do, give us a word here, too and we'll try to help you!

[Morna Crites-Moore]

ThePaintedTiger said:

Rayela asked me to drop in, so I did!

For this photo, (and most of my photos), I have a black velvet shirt as my backdrop (it's the blackest you can get, and usually disappears. If you prefer white, you might try white velvet.) I'm set up right next to an east facing window, in the afternoon. My camera is positioned by the window, so the light is coming from behind the camera. I actually like some shadow, as it gives the yarn and fiber some depth and life. I have a Canon S3IS, and use the Macro and SuperMacro functions A LOT. I also use the light control functions to get the colors to be more true. I do have troubles with photographing items that are only blue or purple, but a slight tweaking in Nero generally takes care of it.

So, my set up is simple, really. I tried the whole cardboard box with the tissue paper thing, and although I got a few great pictures, it was more hassle than I found worth it....especially since my items are bigger.

The picture above is on my new business cards, BTW. I took at least 30 shots to get it just right so I wouldn't have to stretch or squish too much to fit it on the card properly.

Excellent point - if you can create a set-up that uses natural light, that's the best. Also: avoid flash, at all costs!

[Rayela Art]

What is Nero?

I also have trouble with purples but can usually edit pretty closely. I use Photoshop Elements and am pretty happy with it.

[Gina DeLorenzi]

Here is what you will need to create better quiltart photos for your website:
1. A digital camera (at least 2 megapixels)
2. A computer with a good monitor (laptops are not the best display for photo work)
3. Software to edit your photos (such as Photoshop Elements, check the price on Amazon in our right sidebar)

In placing quilt photos on your website there are two main considerations:

* Are the photos displaying the quilts "professionally"?
* Are the photos files optimized for the website?

Read More

Let's start by preparing your photos for the website:

1. When a photo is taken the lighting can create color shifts that result in incorrect colors in your photos. A flash can help, but even with a flash you can get color shifts. It can be difficult to adjust color with software such as Photoshop. If you are experiencing this problem, purchase a "grey card" used by photographers. A grey card, about 10x10 inches is neutral grey in color. When you take your quilt picture include the grey card in the photo. Now when you are making adjustments in Photoshop, you will have a neutral grey area to use as a reference. The grey area on the card in your photo should not have any color casts (red, green, blue & orange). It should be neutral grey.
2. The next step is to do a rough crop leaving some room around the quilt. Make sure the the sides of the quilt are parallel to the edge of the crop. If they are not you may have to use the rotate and transform features to get the quilt square and parallel. Once this is complete do another crop tight against the edges of your quilt. You now have a master image. Save this file for future use.
Preparing quiltart photos for the web

Now you should optimize the file for the website. You want a file that shows your quilt in the best way possible. You also do not want a file that will slow down loading the website page. This is especially important when you have multiple photos on a website page. Here are the steps to follow:

1. Determine the size that you will want for the photo on the website. When we refer to size for websites we are only concerned with the size of the image in pixels. The DPI settings are not relevant. A thumbnail image will be about 100-150 pixels wide. A medium size image will be about 200-300 pixels. A large image about 600 pixels wide. Keep in mind the bigger the image the fewer images you should have on a page.
2. Once you know the size you want, load your master file and re-size it in Photoshop by selecting the pixel width you want. Keep the aspect ratio fixed.
3. Next it is a good idea to perform some sharpening on the image. You do this in Photoshop. Don't over sharpen or it will look unrealistic. Some experimentation here will help you.
4. Now you are ready to save you final image file. You want to keep your master for other uses. You will use jpg file format. With jpg you can vary the file compression to reduce the overall size of the file. Smaller files will not need as much compression. You should strive for a file size of about 20KB for your thumbnails. Try to keep larger pictures no more than 80-100KB in size.

With these steps you will have an image that shows off your quilt while balancing the web user's experience on your website. It's time for you to take some photos and run through the process a few times.

[Rayela Art]

Very helpful info, Gina!

[Rayela Art]

Here's a good thread on Etsy about some lights that are available at Home Depot: Click!