Please note - this page is still under construction
How to take decent pictures of your jewellery
As you can see (if
you've taken the tour in my galleries), I'm not the worlds best
photographer. Anyway, if you find your pictures are worse than mine,
these simple hints might be useful to you. If you want professional
quality, I would suggest that you look around your beading forum, most
of them have a thread or even a whole section about fotography. I apologise for any inaccurate language, neither photography or computer science are my areas of expertise.
What's important when taking pictures of jewellery and posting them on the internet?
focus: a tripod or a stack of books etc.; macro setting
lighting: do not use flash - build a light box, take pictures outside, use lamps with high intensity and correct color spectrum
size: with size I mean mostly the file size - this is what has impact on the time it takes the images to load
What you need:
A digital camera
with a macro setting (the
synbol for macro is a flower)
A tripod or a stack of books (small tripods are quite cheap)
Lots
of light, natural light makes the colours come out best, but there are
bulbs available that give the same kind of light spectrum. Direct sunlight is
not optimal, though, it creates very sharp shadows and can give the same
effect as using flash.
A nice background - wrinkled sheets aren't
that appetizing, as you can see from my earliest pictures. I use a
light background, except when the colours of the piece are very dark -
the contrast can make it difficult to get the right colours. This is a
matter of taste, as is using props.
An editing program - there are
several available for free in the net. The kind of "editing" I do
(cropping and resizing), can be done with any of them.
Step 1 - lighting
The
best way to get the colours right is using natural light. If you can't
get enough help from the natures side (using flash should be avoided,
so the external light source has to be strong), you can use light bulbs
with a natural light spectrum. Of course, many people take their pictures with
the old fashioned light bulbs, you should try and see how it works for
you. If you are taking pictures in natural light (be it in- or
outdoors), direct sunlight should be avoided, as it creates very sharp
shadows and has a similar effect than using a flash.
A light box will help getting pictures of consistent quality. They can
be bought or you can make one yourself. (Search google). It seems I'm
too lazy to make one myself, so I just take my pictures on a table next
to a window, with sunlight coming in from one side and the artificial
light from the opposite side. Outi uses something in between these
methods: her lightbox is placed on a table by a window and only has two
sides, the side facing the window being open.
Step 2 - focus
This
must be the single most important aspect of photographing your
jewellery. As you won't be using flash, it might take a bit longer for
the camera to take the picture, so shaking hands are not the best
choice. You will need some kind of stable support to keep the camera in
place. A tripod or a stack of books will help you here (small table
tripods are quite affordable). My tripod can't really support my camera
on its own, so I still have to shoot real time. This means that the
camera might move anyway, especially when pushing the button. What I do
to avoid this shaking is pushing the button down and keeping it there
until the picture's been taken (a bit like squeezing the trigger when
shooting with a gun). If you can get the camera to stand on its own, you can use
the timer function.
To get the lens to focus properly, you will need to use the macro
setting ("the flower setting"). After that, you still have to make sure
the focus is where you want it. Most digital cameras show you which
area they are focusing on by showing a box around that part, when you
push the shoot button halfway down. If the area the camera has chosen
is not correct, try releasing the button and pushing halfway down
again. This might not work on all cameras, though (I'm using a Canon
Powershot). If the camera will not find a new area to focus on, you can
try to move the camera a little bit, so you are in a different angle.
You can of course always use the manual focus, too.
Step 3 - size
The
time it takes to load an image (or any content) on a web page is a
major factor in getting people to look at them. (You might not notice yourself when testing your website/blog, because your computer recognises the image and uses it from its memory.) The pictures taken with
a digital camera are large both pixel and resolution wise. On many
cameras the pictures are maybe 1900 pixles x 2500 pixels, which will
fill the whole screen or more on a regular 15" laptop screen - this
depends on the screen resolution, though. I myself find this size
unnecessary, and it also blows up all the teeny tiny mistakes... On
forum posts, these images don't usually fit, and some forums also have
rules about image sizes. Some forums have an inbuilt system that
resizes the images, but the loading time is in my experience not altered by this.
Another thing to consider is the resolution of the image: in newer
digital cameras this is often 250, but web browsers can only give out a 72 pixel
resolution, so even if you upload your picture with a resolution of 250 pixels/inch, it will look like it only had a resolution of 72 pixels/inch.
Unless you want people to be able to download your images to make
prints of them, there's no need to upload pictures with the high
resolution.
What to do then? If your background isn't a part of the experience, you
can crop the excess from the edges. Here's how it's done in Paint.net
(free software): Open your original image; choose the rectangle tool (image 3.1);
choose the area you want to save; go to 'Image' and choose 'Crop to
selection' (there is an icon for this function in the toolbar too,
please see image 3.2). You can always cancel, if you make a mistake, or
crop more if necessary - do not save with the save button, but go to
'File' - 'Save as' and give your picture a new name (this way you'll
have the original, if something goes totally wrong with the edited
picture).
image 3.1 Rectangle tool
image 3.2 Cropping
Ok, now the picture is cropped, but your earrings are 1000 pixels tall
and the image resolution is 250 pixels/inch. It's time to resize. From toolbar, choose Image -> Resize: the resizing box pops up. Make sure to tick the Maintain aspect ratio box, so your picture doesn't get all wonky. Choose new values for width and hight, if you want to change the dimensions of the picture, then enter the resolution value (72 pixels/inch).
image 3.3 Resizing the (cropped) image - Image -> Resize
Now you have done the minimum editing, making your image faster to load, and can play with other tools of your editing software, if you wish :)
