Photographing Projects - the inside scoop

**This is a post I shared on the Imaginisce blog a couple of weeks ago. I thought I'd also share it here for those of you who may have missed it.**

Taking great photos of crafty projects is difficult.  It really is. In fact, I believe it is an art of sorts too .  While I won't profess to have all the answers I have spent a fair bit of time working on my technique, reading about what others do, and finding a method that works for me.  Today, I have been asked to share some tips on how I get that "perfect" shot of my projects.

Location, Location, LOCATION:

While shooting outside is ideal, that is very seldom possible for me.  It's either raining, snowing, too windy or too bright when I want to take my photo.  So when I can't go outside, this is what I do.  I find the brightest place in my house, my sunroom.  Patio doors are a perfect place to take photos of projects.  This is where I take 95% of mine.

STAGING:

Layouts:
I place my layout on the floor in front of my patio doors. I use the floor tiles to line it up square. Standing directly over the page and looking down, I take the photo. I use the automatic setting with no flash. I usually take a couple, checking the display each time to see if I need to make any adjustments.  Is the photo straight?  Are there any shadows?  Is the focus OK?

Cards, Mini Albums:
I do this one a little differently.  I place two sheets of patterned paper on a chair, one up the back and the second on the seat. This gives me a place to position a card while also giving a nice back drop. I position the chair so that is is fully light by natural light and take the photo. 

Sometimes, I will set my piano bench in front of the patio door and use it to place "hard to photograph" projects.  As long as my stage is well light with natural light, I am good.


EQUIPMENT:

I shoot with a Canon 60D but you don't need a fancy camera to get a great photo.  Don't get me wrong.  It helps for sure but if you don't own a dSLR,  you can still get great shots.  To prove just that, I dug out old point and shoot Fugi S5000 bought in 2004 for the photos in this blog post.

So if the camera isn't the secret, what is the secret?

POST PHOTO EDITING

It took me awhile to figure out that even with a great camera, photos can still use some editing to tweak the sharpness, colours, contrast and lighting.  I use Photoshop Elements 6.0 to edit my photos.  There are newer versions available but this is the one I own so that is what I use.  There are some great auto functions under the ENHANCE tab.  Something as simple as the "auto contrast" function will sometimes go a long way to brightening up a layout.  I use either "AUTO LEVELS" or "AUTO CONTRAST" on most every photo.  Try each one individually and see which one works best for your individual photo. 

Take a look at these examples:

This is a cropped version of the layout I staged above.  I have not done a single other thing to this shot.

(For full design details on this page, visit THIS LINK.)

Adjusted Coloring:  On this photo, both the auto contrast and auto colors functions didn't really do a whole lot to change the photo (wouldn't you know it!) so I dug a little deeper in the menu and adjusted the colours for skin tones.  Notice how grey my daughter's skin tone is above.  By adjusting the skin tone, the entire page warms up and looks more natural.

Once you have chosen the "adjust color for skin tone" feature, simply click anywhere on the photo where there is skin and watch the colours change.  Because my daughter is so fair, this function works really well for me. There is a menu that comes up where you can use the sliders for different skin tones but I have never used it.
The last thing I do to my photos before saving is sharpen them.

Now I will admit that those are some of the most basic photo editing functions that I use.  If you want to delve deeper into this topic, I would recommend taking an online course.  I chose one by Jessica Sprague called "How to Edit Photos Like a Rockstar".  This is the single moment where my photo editing changed dramatically and to a point where I was really starting to be happy with my end result.  I edit all my photos now in RAW and have developed a work flow that works for me.  This is what you will need to do as well - find a work flow that works best for you.  Start by trying a few of the things I've mentioned here.  I use that skin tone trick alot.  I also use the auto functions alot.  Experiment a little bit and try not to tackle too much at once.  All of the little things I've learned have been over time.  I'm still learning.

Additional Tips:

Photographing Shaped Layouts:  Place the layout on a piece of white poster board.  I place the poster board in front of my patio doors like I do with any other project and take the photo.  Crop the photo like you would any other layout and adjust colours and contrast as needed.  Then, in Photoshop Elements, use the Paint Bucket tool on the white colour setting to make the white background "disappear".  Click on the photo where the poster board is and everything around the shape of the layout "should" turn perfectly white.  You may need to click on more than one area if it all doesn't turn white at once.  If you have shadows on your photograph, you may have difficulty.  Just play around with it and don't give up.  This tip only works well if your shaped paper is not white or very light in colour.  In this case, use black poster board and black on the paint bucket tool.

So there is it, in the smallest nutshell I could, some of my tips for making your projects shine when photographing them.  I hope you are able to take at least one thing away from these tips and apply it to your arsenol of photograhy tips.