Taking good Photograps for Websites - Experiences and Beginners Mistakes
As the title says "If I knew then what I know now.... experiences and mistakes taking photographs for my websites..."
As every beginner you just start with a photo for an eBay listing - probably as I did, having what I thought was the best, a small compact camera to take the shots and Photoshop elements which came as part of the software package on my new PC - to clip and sort of "make a bit better". Did move up to a portable studio - a few pieces of white polystyrene and a box.
I thought this was great and of course the shots and listings were wonderful... How wrong can you get.. Looking back I cringe at the photos - no depth, either too light or too dark - I would not buy a product that looked like this.
It was then given a copy of Photoshop CS3 wow I could now do more things with the photos - crop, lighten, contrast and all that good stuff - but the photos were terrible and whatever was done to them they still did not look much better - So I invested in a Canon digital SLR camera - things just snowballed from there - pictures were so much better ( even still with the old portable studio...!!)
Today we are still learning but have invested in some daylight lights and a large foldable tent - we were recommended Steve's photoshop there are some good items there at reasonable prices and some tips and great ideas for what to buy to get the best shots. I have just upgraded to Photoshop CS5 - again Wow there are so many ways to take a photo and make it into the perfect picture. At the moment I have been madly updating some pictures that I was not happy - using CS5. - the last time we redid all the pictures was when I changed the lens on the camera from the one that came with the package for a 50mm 1.8 - stunning pictures - we will be redoing some again as I have just upgraded the lens to a 50mm 1.4 and hoping for more perfection...!!
I has been a long "journey" so to anyone starting out or wanting to take better website or eBay pictures my tips are:
Get a good Digital camera and learn how to use it to get the best shots - maybe an idiots guide book. Also any courses - I know that warehouse express have some basic courses listed on their website.
Invest in a good lens - for website pictures a 50mm f1.8 or if you can afford it a 50mm f1.4.
Photoshop CS4 or CS5
Some good lights and a Photo tent
We do all our own photographs for our websites D2D and Just4leather its been a most time consuming process but if I had a list of good tips from the start maybe we would have got there a lot quicker. One last tip to prevent others using your really good photos use layers in Photoshop to add your website someone in the shot - this can be amended to appear lighter by changing the text opaticity. Hope our experiences have been some help...
About the Author
Photography tutorial - depth of field
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