Thursday, July 21, 2011

Photo shoots and product picture process

 Anyone who sells anything online has grappled with the photography issue.  (ok, so maybe a real photographer wouldn't struggle as much but you know... I'm talking about the rest of us).  I've been selling online for over a decade so, even though I can still use some improvement, I've gotten the whole system down pretty smoothly.  Over the years I've sold a huge variety of things on eBay and I run a full time webstore as long as selling my handmades on etsy.  I've acquired several mannequins and props and such but most of the time, my tools are pretty basic. As you can see from the photo above, I've turned my pool table room into a staging area.  Poor hubby, never gets to play pool because that pool table (while covered) is an awesome craft table.
I'm always curious about how other folks do their pictures and stuff, so I figured I'd show how I do it just in case you were wondering the same thing.
This room is half windows so I only shoot at certain times of the day and I don't use a flash.  I have a simple point & shoot camera and just take loads and loads of shots then go through them and delete the yucky ones on the computer.
 When I put them on the computer I go through them pretty quickly and rotate any that need rotating and delete any that are blurry.  Then, I go through a second time and any pictures that are similar, I do the eye-test style thing... A or B? I choose the better of the two, delete the other, move to the next and do it again.  I do this until I'm left with a handful of different angles and closeups of detail but not more than one of each angle.
 Then I go and crop it all in tight.  Sometimes I add a watermark, but I'm still on the fence about whether or not I should.  Sometimes I find it tacky but totally want the credit if someone decides to "borrow" my pic for something.  How do you feel on the issue?  Watermark? or Raw photo?

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