Article Roundup - Esp. For Photography & Photographers

I'm only including 3 articles because the first article includes a video that is 50 minutes long:

The 10 Legal Mistakes Photographers Make & How to Avoid Them - Video Q & A with Legal Expert Rachel Rodgers. This video is focused on legal issues especially faced by photographers, but it has some really useful information for any small business.

Natural Light Jewelry Photography with White Background Tutorial - Image editing sucks, so take a good image to begin with. This tutorial has a lot of great tips.

7 Digital Camera Predators and How to Keep Them At Bay - photography equipment is expensive. This post has 7 things to watch out for in order to avoid having your camera ruined.

How To Enhance Product Photos Using Color Mode: a tutorial for both GIMP and Photoshop

Ever take a photo, load it up into the computer, and then realize that the colors are off? You like the photo, but you're not sure how to get the colors right?

Have you ever noticed how catalogs seem to show all of their different color options using THE EXACT SAME PHOTO?

Or maybe seen a newborn photograph that appears to be completely in black & white - except for some cute accessory, like a tutu or hairbow - and then wondered how they did that?


It's actually pretty easy to get these effects using something called 'Color Mode' if you're willing to work on your photos in GIMP or Photoshop. (BTW, GIMP is a freeware software package that is VERY similar to Adobe Photoshop. If you are a business on a budget, I recommend using GIMP rather than shell out tons of cash for Photoshop.)

I'm going to show you how to use color mode to enhance product photos. You can use the technique to remove color from everything but your product, to get colorized images for marketing purposes, or to create color previews for your own custom catalog.

Working with Photo Metadata

Have you ever wondered how google knows that a given image is relevant to your search when you use image search?

They look at a couple of different things - like file name and the content of the webpage around it - but one of the big factors is the image's metadata.

What is Metadata?
Metadata is information that is attached to a file on the web (such as an HTML webpage or a photo) that is usually not visible to the general public, but can be read by search engines or viewed using certain software.

How to Make an Amazing Item Look Awful. (And How To Fix It.)

When you first start to sell online, you can be confident that you have a great product. In fact, you KNOW people love it because they fawn over it at shows.

But then, it doesn't sell online. 

Why? 

It could be your photos. Trust, me, it's possible to make an amazing item look awful. 

To show you what I mean, I'm going to use an amazing piece that I got from Anna of Crafts of the Past. It's made using an antique jade archer ring that's been turned into a necklace. For jade, it's got an amazing range and pattern of colors and a cool piece of history to boot. Anna has a lot of really neat pieces incorporating antique elements. They all look lovely in person.

However, even this amazing piece can look awful under the wrong photography conditions.

Here I've intentionally photographed it doing all the wrong things:

Using Props Effectively in Product Photography

If you have to take your own product photos, you may find yourself wondering: Props or No props?

There are plenty of reasons why you might not want to use props:

A wooden spoon seems like a nice prop for
an apron. But not when the color clashes.
I altered the color of the spoon in
Photoshop to make it extra-distracting.

• The prop clashes with your product. It could be the color, size, scale, or texture. Sometimes a prop that seems to be perfectly appropriate for the item just doesn't work. One of the most common examples I see is when sellers don't pay attention to texture. If you have a fine-textured, detailed item, a coarsely-textured prop may or may not work depending on how far away you are shooting from and whether the surfaces are matte or smooth. 

• The prop distracts from what you're selling. If you find yourself looking more at the prop than at the item, then it's not a good prop. If you look through a lot of catalogs, you'll see that products are often presented completely alone - there's nothing to distract from the product. 

So far, nobody has wondered whether the
spoon comes with this embroidered apron.
However, if I used this this image to sell
the SPOON, it would be too confusing. 

• The prop has nothing to do with the product or its use. (If you're going to include a prop, be sure to have a reason why it's there.) You certainly don't want your buyer wondering why it's there. The apron photos I'm using would be a lot less effective with a toy dinosaur stuffed into the apron pocket - unless, I was trying to sell the apron to a daycare provider or something.

Article Roundup - Dec. 30

This week, I looked for articles that loosely focus around blogging. Since regular blogging may take too much time for small business DiYers, I've chosen 4 articles that have applications beyond blogging. (Mostly advertising and graphics.)

Leverage Blogging to Build Business Identity, Authority, & Credibility

Pinterest and Blogging: The Good, The Bad, and The Huh - I have to admit, I didn't expect to learn much from this article when I first clicked on it, but I was pleased to see that it had some real content to it. The author talks about how she had to start thinking about the graphics she used for her blogging business in order to have some that were blogging friendly.

Moreover, she talks about some of the mistakes she made. One of her most linked to posts was essentially her talking about a number of projects she had completed using the information from another person's furniture painting ebook, but the people clicking through from pinterest thought they were going to find the how-to instructions themselves and this caused some people to accuse her of bait-and-switch. She responded by changing her graphics to be more clear and by using an app that allows you to create a description that autofills for Pinterest when someone pins directly from her site.

If you're thinking about incorporating Pinterest into your marketing scheme, then it highlights the importance of creating clear graphics that avoid confusion.

How to Use Watermarks with Style - This article starts off with an example of what a really, really bad watermark job looks like, then gives 3 different alternative styles so you can have a watermark on your image to identify your work without making the image ugly. This does not include detailed how-to instructions for the 3 styles, but is meant to give ideas.

Creative Watermarking - How to Incorporate Your Signature into your Photos - this post is aimed at professional photographers, but it includes really good how-to instructions for using Photoshop CS3+ or Photoshop Elements to seamlessly hide a watermark into a photo.

5 CSS Tips for Creating Hierarchy - Although a lot of people will mix two or more font styles (or font faces) in their blog/written ads, using the same font style throughout makes things look clean - but then, how do you distinguish titles, headings, subheadings and other items of relative importance? This goes over 5 ways to do that (not necessarily through CSS).

I picked the CSS article because it applies to WAY more than just blogging. The advice there is solid for any written piece - be it a report, sales copy, website design, client proposal, even a business plan presented to a bank.

Using the Clone Tool to Remove Distractions Using Either GIMP or Photoshop

OK, let's face it, sometimes when you pull a photo up at full size on your computer screen, you notice that little distracting something that shouldn't be there. For example, it could be....

How to Crop and Re-size Images in GIMP and Photoshop

Most modern cameras are capable of taking very, very large photos. However, these large photos are not good for the web. They take a long time for you to upload and a long time for users to download. Sometimes, they are so big that the entire image wouldn't even fit fully on the screen at full size.

There is no reason to have an excessively large image up on the internet. Optimize them for the web by cropping and re-sizing.

How to Crop

In Gimp, the crop tool looks like a utility knife.

In Photoshop, the crop tool looks
like two L-shaped pieces.

Cropping refers to cutting off a portion the image in order to get the shape (and perhaps size) that you want. In Gimp, the crop tool looks like a little utility knife; in Adobe Photoshop, it looks like two L-bars. (Photographers sometimes take two L-shaped pieces of matte board to play with framing options on a print.)

Product Photography: Adding A White Background in GIMP

In my last post on Improving Your Product Photography, I talked about an easy method for using bulletin board paper to set up a white background. For my second installment, I'm going to talk about how to use an image editor to improve on an existing photo and to replace an existing background with white (or any other color or image - this method is versatile).

Software
There are lots of different image editors available. I personally work with Adobe Photoshop CS 5. However, there is a program called GIMP that can do almost everything that Photoshop can, and it's available for free via gimp.org, so I'm going to use it for this tutorial. (By the way, the biggest difference that I've found between the two programs is that Photoshop allows for macros and batch processing, which most Photoshop users don't even know how to use.)

I like these two programs because they allow you a lot of flexibility for fixing things. Sometimes with other programs, if you go too far, you can't undo a certain change. I'm going to show you a method that'll let you make changes later if you need to without starting all over again. Also, the program's flexibility means that you don't really need to complete the steps in the exact order that I give. I'm just going to list them in the order that I generally do them.

Original Source Photo

I'm going to start off using this photo. This dress form is nice for display, but the black and white pattern on the form can sometimes make it a bit tricky to separate it from the background. For the purposes of the tutorial, I've moved the dress form to an area where there are lots of background distractions. Usually, I photograph it against a plain white wall.

Bag originally embroidered by special request for a client.
The tote features my own exclusive embroidery design.

I'm using a bag on the form because the straps create open areas where you can see the background between them.

DiY Product Photography: How to Easily Set Up a White Background

Crafters and artisans might go into online selling because they love their product or because it sells well in person. However, if you run a store on Etsy, Artfire, ebay, or your own website, then you need to take your own photos or get someone else to do it for you. Getting a good photo can sometimes prove tricky. Whatever you do, you want your product photography to clearly show the item in an appealing way.

Often the easiest way to get an appealing photograph is to eliminate all background distractions. People want to see your product - not some random door frame in the background, or worse, a close-up view of the flooring in your house. (Especially if the floor in your house has bits of debris or stains. I've seen people do this, and it's gross. There's a better way, trust me.) 

There are no background distractions
in the photo of this
Monogrammed Xmas Ornament
from Polkadot Orchid Embroidery.

A white background is clean, free of distractions, and keeps the focus on your product. It also lends some cohesiveness to an entire shop when all of the photos use a similar style background. If you sell on Amazon, you will be required to have a pure white background.

There are two basic ways to achieve a white background in a product photo:  

1. Take a photo of the item against a white background in the first place. 
2. Use image editing software to replace the background with white. 

Now I have been working with image editing software since Adobe Photoshop version 3 - on a pre-windows 95 computer. (So close to 15 years at this point.) I can do most image edits pretty quickly. However, it's still far less time consuming to take a few extra steps to start with a white (or mostly white) background in the first place rather than spend 2-3 extra minutes on every single photograph removing a non-white background.

Easy Setup for a White Background
My favorite method for getting a white background is to use a roll of bulletin board paper. Tape the top of the roll to the wall and then let it drape in a gradual curve down to floor or table top. You end up with a seamless white background both behind the item and underneath it. If the paper needs to drape down to carpeting, then you may find that you need to place a hard surface down underneath the paper to prevent wrinkles. You may also need to place something on the paper to keep it from rolling back up while you're shooting. Almost anything can work from books to your kid's toys or rock collection.

Why do I like this method?

Even a white wall may not be totally
white - this one was attacked by a
two-year-old armed with a crayon.  

• Paper is cheap and readily available. Teacher supply stores and most large office supply stores carry rolls of bulletin board paper. For very small items (like earrings), you may not even need anything more than a sheet of standard-sized or scrapbook-sized paper.

• Bulletin board paper comes in two widths. The narrower two-foot-wide paper shows up in the photo, and it's great for jewelry forms, bags, baby clothes and other small to medium-sized items. There is also a size that is almost twice as wide (which you may need to visit a teacher supply store to find), and it's great for when you need to take photos of dress forms or other very large objects. 

• It has a smooth surface, so you eliminate potentially distracting textures. (If you're taking a really close up detail photo, you may not want to see the weave of a fabric background.) The smooth texture also makes it easier to ensure you don't have bits of dust, lint, or stray hairs on it.

• Bulletin board paper is often colored on one side and white on the other - potentially giving you the option to use either the white side or the colored side depending on what will work best for your item. 

• It's pretty easy to setup, take down, and store. Just tape it to the wall for the photography shoot, then remove it from the wall and roll back up for storage. (I like to use the clear 3M re-usable mounting squares because it doesn't damage my walls. Depending on what you're attaching the paper to, wall damage may or may not be a concern.)

• Unlike foam core board, paper creates a gradual curve so there no hard seams or creases. (If you look at the travel makeup case I use behind the title at the beginning of the article, you'll see a gradual transition from pure white to light grey in the background. This is possible due to curving the paper. Please note that the item still has a drop shadow beneath it to ground it in reality.) 

• Paper doesn't need to be ironed like fabric. (Though you do need to make sure you don't crush your roll of paper in storage.) 

Clamp Light with Daylight
Spectrum CFL Bulb.

• It lets you set up where you have the best available light. This may be by a bank of windows inside. It could even be outside on your porch. The nice this about the paper is that you could drape it off of furniture. Or you can use it to cover up a door frame if that's the space you have to work with.

• If you don't have access to good natural light, then you can still supplement this setup with additional lights. (I like to use 100-watt equivalent daylight spectrum compact fluorescent bulbs in portable clamp lamps. You can find both at hardware stores. If you want to do this - get the clamp lights with the larger reflector because CFL bulbs sit up higher than incandescent bulbs.) 

Now if you setup your photography space to have a white background you may still run into one little problem: the auto-exposure setting on your camera normally expects a photo with a range of values from light to dark. In fact, they usually meter the scene so that the average of everything in the picture comes out to a medium grey. (About the same value as a green grassy lawn.)

How do you fix this? One method is to line up your shot so that the white background doesn't overwhelm the frame. Another is to switch to a manual exposure setting if your camera has the capability (metering off of a digital grey card will ensure that all of the subsequent shots in the same lighting will be perfect).  A third option is to adjust the exposure compensation value - which is possible on even basic point and shoot digital cameras (though you may need to consult your manual to find out how to do it). A fourth option is to adjust the brightness and contrast after the photo shoot in the digital darkroom using an image editor (this is what I do).


What Happens When You Need a Pure White Background?
Stay tuned for my next article on the subject, where I'll cover using the free image editing program GIMP to get a pure white background.