Make It

Tiltshiftmaker

Hours of fun to be had at www.tiltshiftmaker.com. This is the feature that's often used to make cityscapes look like little toy cities, like this. But you can apply it to any kind of photo to get a kind of fuzzy halo effect.
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Camera Info

Several of you have asked about the new camera I'm using. It's a Canon Powershot S5 iS. We got it "refurbished" via Amazon from a vendor called Warehouse Deals,  which was a great deal because it was cheaper, in perfect condition, and still came with all the original packaging and manuals. My camera that I used to use is a Canon Powershot SD200 digital Elph that I got for Christmas 04.

Also,  in the interest of full disclosure, I did use a little photo editing software on the notecard photos. So they didn't go straight from the camera to the blog. It was especially hard to get the navy dots to look right. I don't really have any method for editing photos. This tutorial on the Switchboards was a good starting point. Mostly I just click around in things that say "curves" or "color saturation" until it looks the way I want it to.

I use GIMP which is a free alternative to Photoshop. I'm a big fan. One day, if I get my act together, I want to write a guide for all of the free Open Source software that you can use for your biz in place of the - expensive!- Adobe suite. There are free versions of Dreamweaver (NVu, which I use), many vector drawing programs that can stand in for Illustrator and more. Luckily I live with my techie boyfriend who can help me find and use these programs, but I don't know if I would have found them on my own.

What a difference a new camera makes

I took a bunch of pics this morning with Matt's new camera. I think it makes quite a difference in product photography.

New custom work to show you

I have to say I am surprised at how many of you like the green print on charcoal paper from the post below. Sometimes I think my ideas can run a little conservative or boring, so when I try something different (and in this case, totally unplanned), it's good to get positive feedback.

I'm pleased to show you a peek at one of the patterns designed by Elisabeth at Black  Pearl Press that I silkscreened and delivered to her earlier this week. The photo is by Elisabeth, via the Frolic blog, where she's been guest blogging this past week (I highly recommend checking out her post on purchasing vintage stamps). I love this print and the large scale of it means that when you wrap a gift you see a different view on each side. I was hesitant about the orange paper when she first suggested it (there goes my conservative nature again) but now I love it.

I also really like how she photographed this. I've tried both approaches to photographing wrapping paper in my Etsy store: photographing the flat paper and photographing a wrapped package. I also visit other sites to see how others do it. Photographing the flat paper is much easier and faster than wrapping a package, but it doesn't have the same "umph" as a nicely presented package. I think this picture has convinced me to start taking pics of wrapped packages again. This photo makes ME want to buy  this!

GIMP Your Way to High Quality Photos

Here is a great tutorial on how to use GIMP to acheive professional-quality product photos. High quality photos are key for attracting customers to your online store. GIMP is a free photo editing software that I use and is available for download here. [Via]

Adventures in Product Photography

This weekend I decided to take my own advice and build a light box so I could take my product photography to a new level for my etsy store. I followed this tutorial step by step and found it to be pretty simple. One thing I would recommend is that this is a two-person project. It helped to have someone else hold the foam core boards in place while I taped them up. I didn't purchase daylight bulbs and shop lights yet, so once the box was built, I made do with a combination of natural light and some desk lamps I had. I definitely think the lighting is key to good photography so that's something I'll be investing in in the future. The lightbulbs I currently have gave off a noticeable orange tinge. When I was able to get natural light the pics turned out well, but that pretty much limits my photography time to the weekends since I'm at work during prime daylight hours Monday - Friday. Also, I didn't use a diffuser (i.e. a piece of fabric in front of the light bulb) to prevent shadows, which I will try next time. Pretty much, I still have alot to learn. Below are the results of my efforts.

Here are the pendants of two necklaces photographed using natural light.

Here's a pic of one of the necklaces that I took using the light from the lamps.

Here's a photo of a necklace taken using the lamps and here's a long shot showing how I had the box and lights set up. (Note: I made the box using 20 x 30 boards as suggested in the tutorial, as you can see the resulting box is huge! Where am I going to store this thing? The big box will be useful for photographing larger batik projects but if you're just going to be photographing jewelry or buttons or something equally small, you could go with a smaller box.)

Here are the necklace and earrings that I got compliments on last week.

The picture on the left was taken with a flash, the picture on the right was taken without a flash, both in natural light. I believe the pic on the right looks softer, less harsh. In general I would advise against using a flash for pics as it makes the lighting uneven.

Below are pics I took in natural light (with pig) and with the lamp lighting (tall jar), respectfully.

So you're probably wondering what's up with the props in my pics. At first I photographed everything flat on the bottom of the box, but that was boring and the box quickly started getting smudges from my fingers which were visible in pics. I decided I wanted some kind of prop to make the pics more interesting and to distract from smudges (which I believe are unavoidable, it is a white box). Also I've started to view product photography more like a chance to create an ambiance and convey the character of the designer and the product, instead of just a piece of jewelry on a white background. I was majorly inspired by the work of this etsy artist, not only the images in her cards, but the way she displays them as well.

The only thing I could find that was tall enough and sturdy enough to hang my necklaces on was a large glass jar I have used for extra change. When it came to photographing smaller objects, like the earrings, I looked for a smaller prop and had an "aha moment" when I spotted my boyfriend's piggy bank also filled with loose change. The result is kind of cool and totally unintentional. Plus, who knew pigs love jewelry! I'm liking how the clear glass and muted metallic tones of the change accent the jewelry. Maybe in the future this could also present an opportunity for me to make some witty comments about how my jewelry doesn't cost that much, style on a budget, etc. Some pics have rectangles of different colored paper on the bottom. I also did this to camouflage some of the smudges I was making, they are colored blank business cards from Paper Source. My next goal is to get some daylight bulbs so I can keep my lighting consistent. As you can see from these pics, the type of lighting used dramatically changes the outcome of the picture. I'm looking forward to experimenting and learning more and will post results here. What's worked for your product photography? Do you use a lightbox? Leave comments below.

These pics and more made it to my etsy store.

Make your pictures POP!

Stephanie, the writer of a blog called little birds uses her blog to cross-promote her etsy store. In this case, the proof is in the pudding. Her etsy store has over 30,000 views, a large part of those no doubt driven by her blog traffic. A professional and engaging blog is a powerful way to give your product personality and visibility and increase interest in your wares as I mentioned in this post. Stephanie takes gorgeous pics on her blog and her post on photo tips is worth checking out.

Free photo manipulation software

So I'm trying something new with the pics, which you can see in this week's Crafter Interview. I'm in awe of sites like Oh Joy and Just My Cup of Tea, which do amazing photospreads. It's major eye candy. So I was inspired (my fave word) to kick my own photos up a notch on the blog. I figured some kind of photo/image manipulation software like Photoshop was used, but I didn't have the money to buy a copy of the program myself. That's when my tech savvy boyfriend pointed me to GIMP.

GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program and as far as I can tell it's like a free version of Photoshop. I have very minimal knowledge of Photoshop, so I can't tell you whether it's comparable on all levels. But, for what I need, it's been perfect. Pretty much I use GIMP to create something like a photo collage. I gather all my photos, crop them, resize them, and put them together exactly how I want them in one file. This allows me to upload them to the blog as one image, instead of posting several images directly to the blog and trying to fit them together like a jigsaw puzzle. It's more time consuming but I think the final product looks really clean.

I have a Mac and therefore after downloading GIMP, I had to download X11 so that I could run the program on my computer. If you don't take the extra step to download X11 and you're a Mac user, you may have problems starting the program.

I mostly learned by clicking around and testing out all the different buttons, but I also referred to these tutorials: http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Lite_Quickies/
http://gimps.de/en/tutorials/gimp/picture-photo-image/resize-size/index.htm

So far this has been a great free find, so make sure to pass this along to anyone who can use some photo editing software for their website or blog without the $600 pricetag.

Let there be light!

Once you've mastered the photographic techniques mentioned in the article below, build your own lightbox to take your pictures to the next level. A lightbox allows you to control the lighting and background of your photos. If you've ever wondered how sites get a perfectly white background for their photos of small items like jewelry, a lightbox was probably used.

Yes, you can purchase a lightbox, but why do that when they are so easy and cheap to make yourself?

A Google search for "lightbox" or "light tent" will give you lots of results. But, I've saved you the time and picked out some of my favorite D-I-Y tutorials for building your own lightbox.

http://www.instructables.com/ex/i/BEFDA1F002CB102985CB001143E7E506/?ALLSTEPS

http://www.jyoseph.com/extras/archives/2006/02/diy_lightbox.php

http://www.pbase.com/wlhuber/light_box_light_tent

I create jewelry myself, so I'm planning to build one of these and you know I'll post the results when I do.

All about digital photos

Have you ever used the Macro mode on your camera?
Do you know how to change the f-stop value?

If not, this article is worth a read. It offers an easy to understand overview of digital photography. The article mostly deals with photographing jewelry, but the tips could be applied to any kind of small scale digital photography.

Article appears on pages 14-16.