product photos

[bigj2552]

looking for ways to take quality pics of my products for my site.
Yes i have pics from some of the suppliers sites of the stock i will be selling but -

when i add my own pics,they look bloody awful next to the clean, white(backgrounds)one of the suppliers .
Note - not all suppliers have decent quality pics you can use anyway !

I know i can photoshop my ones and take background out - but thats a laborious task for so many pics.

The other way is to take ALL the pics myself of ALL my products but -

the thing with that is,as i have seen with some other sites, they look so .....if this is the right terminology - dirty and unprofessional looking - kinda all over the place !

I have tryed with A4 pure white paper for below and behind item - still looks kinda grey - tryed with flash - to much of a white center....
any ideas ?

will get thinking hat on this wk :rolleyes:

[JSR]

It's not what you want to hear, but I take photos of mine and then painstakingly remove the backgrounds.

It's an arduous task (particularly when you're doing it for the first time and you have so many to do), but I'd rather do that than use the same pictures that everyone else is using. You want to look unique, not like a clone of everyone else.

Best time to take the photos is during the day, preferably with natural sunlight, and don't use the camera flash. Put the camera on a tripod (or table) to keep it steady so that all pictures look similar to each other. I tend to use the camera's timer function so that there's no risk of a blurred picture by my unsteady hand!

Other people use lightboxes (white canvas boxes with artificial light sources) but I haven't found one that's both cheap and recommended.

One thing you might consider is to have a common background (like blue velvet or something) and use that behind everything and not cut it out. You'd be making a design statement if all of your photos had the same background.

[bigj2552]

yep....i kinda thought that might be the road i needed to go down jonathan.:rolleyes:
Tripod is here anyway, so might as well use it as my hands aint the most steady either !
timer good idea also bud ....

ah well, another small hurdle to go over

[JSR]

I'm sure there's better software around than the old outdated Fireworks 4 that I use..! :redface:

[bigj2552]

I'm sure there's better software around than the old outdated Fireworks 4 that I use..! :redface:

aye - photoshop CS5 bud :biggrin:

Use that just now anyway jonathan - just gonna be a loooong time doing it - but i got a loooooong time to do it lol.

its not hard to do jonathan - just a pain in the bum

[JSR]

aye - photoshop CS5 bud :biggrin:

Use that just now anyway jonathan - just gonna be a loooong time doing it - but i got a loooooong time to do it lol.

its not hard to do jonathan - just a pain in the bum

Who can afford CS5? I have a workable copy of Elements, but I haven't got the hang of it yet.

[Paul]

What camera do you have? All looks grey as i am sure use yoir camera on auto mode?

[WorthDoingRight]

I have one of these for photographing eBay items, not as yet tried it with my mugs but imagine it will work wonders as usual.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/studio-includin ... 251&sr=8-1

[bigj2552]

I have one of these for photographing eBay items, not as yet tried it with my mugs but imagine it will work wonders as usual.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/studio-includin ... 251&sr=8-1

Now that looks like something i can use ! off to read reviews ! - thank bud for link

[Paul]

tent is great idea but is essential to know how to set your camera. otherwise pics will be still grey and not to attractive :/

if you know how to set your camera then I recommend this tent. dont let them fool you about amount of the backgrounds etc... they are useless. they need to be replaced as they to reflective. I know as i got one of them