ETSY PHOTOGRAPHY FOR THE AMATEUR

This article was written by MadeByMari

Here's a trick for your any of your photos in order to get them uniform.  It takes away a lot of steps of camera-fiddling!   INSTEAD OF ZOOMING IN to get all the details, and then getting less-than-perfect results with your colors and focus, try this when trying to get a good set:

1.  Set your camera to fairly HIGH MEGAPIXELS like in the 2000-3000 range if it goes that high

2.  Leave the camera on “wide angle” or “fairly far away" shot.

3.  Turn your flash ON if the lighting warrants it.

4.  Now pull the camera back a ways. At least 18"

5.  Sometimes I have it on "MACRO" (The little flower symbol) and it works well.  It all depends on the size of what you’re taking.

6.  The item will look fairly small in the viewing window.

7.  Hold down the shutter/picture taking button half way til it focuses, then push it til it CLICKS.  Be sure to be at a slight angle so you don’t get a flash glare.

8.  Take at least twice as many pictures as you will need.  Digital pictures are “cheap” to delete or retake!

And if you want a totally great closeup of a tiny object:

1.  Put it on MACRO (the little flower symbol again)

2.  DO NOT ZOOM IN AT ALL

3.  Turn the flash on

4.  Place the camera very close -- sometimes within a couple of inches

5.  Angle so the flash doesn't wash it all out.

6.  Focus and click.

After you have loaded them into the computer, fire up your photo editor:

1.  Crop it  so the picture of your item is centered how you want it and you still have some “white space” around it.

2.  Note that your pixels will still be high so it will be sharp

3.  Now "resize" to about 1000x1000. It’s OK to be somewhat close, like 1100 x 800 or even 1200 x 700 etc.

4.  If you need to brighten the photo, do so in slow increments using your photo editor.

Your blacks should be black,

Your reds shouldn’t blur out too bright.

And your backgrounds should be sharp (unless you are intentionally blurring them.

Heck I use regular lights, fluorescent, halogen, and incandescent. I have a piece of white cardstocked taped behind my clothes dummy on the patio door. Low tech.  My products aren’t really fancy, but I want them to show up.  Seems like I’m achieving that according to my buyers!

Good luck and have fun.