Product photography - editing, not just for newspapers, part IV

I think this might be my last blog post in the series. At least about photography. I know you're all very sad about that.

So once you've got your pictures downloaded from your camera, there's the gnarly step of editing them before you can post them. Sometimes you're lucky and all you need is a quick resize to shrink them down, then you can upload them. Other times, you need a bit more help than that, to make them look their best.

One thing to keep asking yourself during this process is "Is the picture still true to my work?" Make sure you haven't doctored the picture so much that when the customer gets the item in their hand, it looks totally different. This is especially true with colors, and especially difficult since everyone's monitor displays colors differently.

The first step in this editing process is to look at all the photos you took of a particular piece and choose the ones you want to keep. Just like we discussed in the Staging post (part III), make sure the ones you choose have a broad range of angles and views of your item. You might find at this point that you need to go back and take more photos because not all of them will come out well, especially when you're getting started. It is totally worth it to spend the extra time here. And like I said before, digital photos are FREE, so just do the right thing up front and take 100 pictures if you need to.

At this point, I delete the ones I know I'm not going to use. Photos are big and that helps us save space on our hard drive. If I'm not sure, I keep it until I have my complete, edited set of shots for that product.

Before you can edit your carefully-chosen photos, you need a compatible photo program. There are a lot of free ones, and some great ones you can buy. If you're not a professional photographer, and don't want all the fancy widgets, you can probably get by with one of the free editors.

Here are some free ones, listed in no particular order. Google them to find out how to download and install, and what operating systems they work on:

Picasa

Picnik

GIMP -- somewhat complex, but powerful

Windows Photo Gallery -- built into Vista, limited features

Microsoft Office Picture Manager -- comes with Microsoft Office, limited features

Windows Paint -- v. limited but can work in a pinch

iPhoto -- for Mac, limited but has some decent features

These are software packages you have to pay for, and some are quite powerful:

Adobe Photoshop -- the big mama, also correspondingly priced

Photoshop Elements -- a lite version with lots of features

Microsoft Digital Image Editor -- my personal fave, though it isn't meant to work on Vista

Acorn -- a great little program for Mac

If you're just starting out, try out the free ones first. It'll be a bit of a learning curve to figure out where things are and how to use them, but don't be afraid to experiment! Just make sure you're not saving or overwriting files you need, and spend some quality time with your photo editor!

For my jewelry and tags, I have some standard simple operations to adjust my pictures. Once I set the white balance and exposure on my camera, that eliminated a lot of the work I needed to do in my photo editor.

First note - don't save changes until you're happy with a particular one, otherwise you'll have to start over. Also, it's good to make a copy of your original before starting, in case you need to go back.

1. Fix color - if your photo still looks too yellow, or too you can fix the color values. Many programs have an "autofix" feature. Try it and see if that works for you. This is where having a solid black or solid white item in your picture will help, so you can tell the program "this thing should be true black, or white".

You can also adjust the saturation here to make your colors stand out more. Be careful with this, because it can quickly lead to a picture that's not true to the real thing. But if your photo doesn't reflect the vibrant color of the item, then you can tweak this setting a bit.

2. Fix exposure - my program calls this setting 'Exposure and Lighting'. You can use this to brighten up your shots. Now that I've set my camera properly, I rarely need this. Some programs have an "autofix" button for this too. Be careful not to go too dark or too light. Some photos are just unfixable if they start out at one extreme. You may just need to take more shots of your item to get better lighting in the photo itself.

3. Unsharp mask - this one is my personal favorite, and even if I do nothing else, I use this one. It's a setting that makes your picture nice and sharp. Note that this won't fix a blurry shot, just sharpens up an already good one. If you use this too much, your picture will look grainy and "doctored" so use it judiciously.

4. Crop - this is important. If you didn't stage your shot perfectly, or if you're trying to make a rectangular photo into a square, this is perfect. This will also help you get the right proportions in your shot - you can get rid of excess background, or crop to a small detail of your piece. Do this before resizing your photo, or it can get too small. Note that many programs will only let you crop in straight lines (you place a window over the part of the photo you want to keep), so sometimes it just can't fix things like that extra dog hair in the frame. In that case, just retake the shot, sans dog hair. :)

5. Other functions. Yes, I know this isn't specific. But this step could include a lot of things, like adding a watermark or logo text or blurring out faces or naughty parts. Many sites will not feature photos on the front page with prominent watermarks or logos, so keep this in mind for online selling. For those who rely on images as their art, a subtle watermark or maybe just uploading a really low resolution photo might be a better choice. But you, as the artist, have to make that tradeoff.

I use the 'Gaussian blur' function to blur out phone numbers on my dog tag listings, to protect personal info. Some publications and websites don't like this (I admit it's not the prettiest). When my tags were featured in a print magazine this year, they asked me to make some tags with "fake" phone and address info so they could photograph them as-is. Of course, I promptly obliged. You may consider doing the same if you sell personalized items.

6. Resize - also important. Most newer digital cameras take huge pictures. You can usually adjust that, but you do want the highest quality in case you decide to print the picture, or you want to enlarge it. If you use the resize feature, and save to another filename, you can have several different sizes of the same picture: one for web, one for print, original huge size, etc. Thanks to those who commented on my last post for this idea.

The other reason resizing your photos is important is because many sites put a limit on the size of photo you can upload. Also, smaller photos upload faster. On your own website, you want the smallest size you can get away with because they will also download faster when someone is viewing it. Yes, there are still people in the world who use a sloooow dial-up Internet connection, so you want them to see your pretty pictures as soon as possible. Make 'em small.

For my online shops, I use the "large email" size setting which is 1024 pixels per side.

IMPORTANT TIP: Your photo program will have a setting called 'Maintain Proportions' or something like that, meaning that if you make one side smaller, it'll reduce the other side in proportion so your picture doesn't get all distorted and wonky. (No one wants to see those earrings in tall skinny head vision!) Use it!! It's really hard to fix it later if you don't check this box from the start.

So that's it. Then you save your photos in the folders that you've designated, with descriptive names, and you're ready to rock and roll! New listings in your shop! Yay!

What are your tips for photo editing? What program is your favorite, and why? Talk to me!