Building Websites, Traffic, and Income
Taking Pictures for the Web
Here I am opening my big mouth again waiting for the real photographers to come along and prove me wrong. But when you are trying to get products online quickly, there is really no time to wait around for a photographer or Photoshop expert to do everything perfectly.
I have taken over 1000 pictures over the last year. It’s part of the daily grind at All About Doors. Some of the products have never been put online. This is the reason why much of our photographs get hotlinked and show up in Google images first, even though we have never really optimized the images.
I wrote this because I realized there is a lot of tutorials on taking pictures online and a lot pf photoshop tutorials, but nothing really basic. At least, nothing as basic as we do it.
The setup for taking the pictures doesn’t need to be much. In fact, none of the stuff we use could be called cutting edge technology. For lighting, we have six tungsten desk lamps arranged around a long table with tissue paper taped over the ends to soften the light. For a backdrop, we use some blue paper we got at an auction. And the tripod is held together with duct tape. The camera we use is older than mine, the one I took this picture with.
Here are the tips:
- Find the tungsten light setting for your camera if you are using these type of bulbs or your colors will be off.
- Use macro mode if you are taking detailed close up pictures.
- Don’t use a flash. Use lights and a tripod.
- Use manual focus for shiny objects.
- Learn this menu in Photoshop: Image->Adjustments->Levels. I played around with a lot of things until I found this. It is a miracle for pictures that are too dark. Just slide the slider until the colors look right.
- For scanned pictures of line drawings, first use Levels in Photoshop to take out the dirty spots. This may wash out the picture. Then you use contrast and brightness to bring the lines back up. The dirty spots will stay hidden.
Really that is about all. I wish I had known some of these tips when I was an Ebay seller.
6 Responses to Taking Pictures for the Web
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Hi Stephan, kudos for finding a unique but valuable topic on which to write. I am really struggling with getting good photos of the handmade cards on my website – if I show the card open, some background inevitably has to be visible, and given the white of the card, this background has to be dark. But this makes the gallery too dark. I thus chose to take flat images of the face of the card, but they’re not too inspiring.
Any ideas on how to improve the images of cards?
Thanks!
I took a look at a few things others online. One method I saw was taking a picture of just the card or cropping it down to show just the card and then using a drop-shadow to give it emphasis. Another I saw is taking the picture with a more neutral background color instead of black or white.
Hello,
I am talking pictures of merchandise for my website…on the camera the back ground looks really crisp and white, but when I transport the images on a computer they look grey……why is this happening…..I use a good amount of lightening….do I need special lights….can you identify any other reasons why this may occur?
Thanks
What kind of lighting do you use to take the pictures? I have found that fluorescent doesn’t do much to the colors but tungsten lighting (standard light bulbs) can really mess colors up unless you use the tungsten setting on your camera. It will tend to make everything brownish. And this is hard to filter out later with PhotoShop. At least, I haven’t found an easy way to do it.
If it’s not that, try dropping the levels down until the gray becomes whiter.
I just mess around with things until they work and then create a process so I don’t have to think the next time I do it. I am not really an expert at Photoshop. I just get the job done.
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Thanks for your tips….I got some nice results from the photoshop tip.i am using it from a long time but never came across this one.I have searched a lot for some stuff about photography but nothing was good enough for some advance level.