If anyone has a moment can you look at my photos and say if they are any good please.
I think they are OK, but you know its always a good idea to have a fresh pair of eyes. Ta.xx
I’ve looked at a few and they seem generally very good to me. One or two are a little out of focus but then you usually show several photos of each item so it doesn’t seem too important. It’s very hard to get the perfect white background we’re meant to aim for, I don’t manage it myself, but your backgrounds look quite acceptable to me. I would suggest maybe showing one or two photos of the bunting hanging up. Anything where you can show an item in use, being worn etc, helps to bring things to life. Hope this is some help!
Hi, your photos are generally quite good. Perhaps some could be a little brighter and have the colour balance adjusted to improve the whites; also you could try saving your main photo as a square image, to see if it stops edges getting cut off by Folksy. But otherwise, I think they are not bad at all - at least as good as many of mine (I am constantly trying to improve… WIP!)
Your products are nice too and I like your shop layout, arranged by colour.
Lizzie
Many thanks to both of you for looking. I do have trouble getting my whites white LOL! They keep coming out cream!! Driving me mad!! But glad that most are acceptable, thats a relief! Will try and keep improving best I can. I generally take them in th conservatory where the light is bright too!
Generally good in terms of focus and exposure (heart bunting and amethyst hoops are over exposed but there are other photos of the same item that are correctly exposed) and it all has a cohesive feel (it all looks like the same shop something that mine lacks). But… your cropping needs work - remember the thumbnail photos (ie the ones that a customer sees on your shop front or as search results) are square and so the folksy brain crops anything that isn’t square and you can loose bits. eg blue shell drop earrings - one of them is cut in half by the cropping on your shop front or your cosmetic rolls are missing just little bits of the corners (I didn’t realise this when I first started and someone had to point it out to me). Also not all of your jewellery listings give dimensions and there is nothing in the photos to give scale.
Not relating to the photos but you might also find that broadening the tags you add might help - ie rather than just having hot pink put pink and bright pink in there as well.
With respect to getting rid of colour casts (ie getting your whites white) in picasa there is ‘neutral colour picker’ under the contrast tab. Select that and then click on your background and it should remove the colour cast. Other photo manipulation softwares probably have the same facility I just don’t know where.
Hope some of that is helpful.
Sasha
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ps your views will be excellent tomorrow as the OH and I have had a good trawl through your shop!
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Tags @SashaGarrett, where do i put them, there doesn’t seem to be anywhere? and interesting about the cropping, i didn’t know this, thanks!x
When you create a new listing there is a section for colours and materials which you can have up to 5 descriptors (or as I call them tags) so you might as well use them. Drop down lists of the ones that folksy has added should appear as you start typing or you can add your own if you have things they haven’t included (turquoise is a colour but not a material according to them).
Lots of people don’t know about the cropping thing - pick any section from the menu on the front page and have a quick scroll through to see what I mean. It tends to be worse if people have long thin items such as dresses or long dangly earrings. Picasa has a square crop option (cd cover I think its called in the drop down menu) but it is not always possible/ suitable to have a perfect square.
Right, thanks @SashaGarrett, I have just checked my windows photo gallery, it has a square crop, so i have just done 2, lots more to do tho!! But thanks for the tips, will def be using them.x
- Some of the images are fine, but overall I think these are the issues:
-Some of the close ups of anklets and similar are not all in focus.
-The photos lack vibrancy and ‘punch’ which is down to adjusting the levels
contrast and similar. This can be done in some cameras but often done in software.
That can be resolved by checking and adjusting the white balance on your camera , making trial exposures using different white balance settings, or also in software.
- Some of the colours seem to be a bit muted, and lacking saturation, although adjustment of that in software should resolve it.
As regards taking jewellery close ups, it can be tricky, and if your intention is to get everything in focus, you need a longer exposure and a smaller aperture in your camera. That is sometimes at odds with close-up settings on cameras, which may have some of the item, but not all in focus. Go over to manual exposure settings and set a smaller aperture, say f11 or f16 or even f22, but the higher the number, the more the image quality is compromised once you get past 16.
The smaller apertures gives you more ‘depth of field’ meaning more in focus, so focus on the middle of the item and the rest may be in focus too, but you need to experiment. Also, you may need a tripod, or higher ISO setting, as the shutter speed will be slower when you choose a smaller aperture.
Bounced electronic flash is great for controlling the lighting and will give you good contrast usually.
Of course, even pro-photographers sometimes focus in or a small detail of the jewellery item and diffuse the focus on the rest, but you need to know what you are doing, otherwise can look confusing for the customer.
Remember, most of the time, people looking online take only seconds to scan images before moving onto the next one or another shop or site.
Composition looks generally good, which is a plus. Hope this helps.
The best thing I did was invest in a cheap light tent from amazon. It came with 2 daylight lamps and different colour backgrounds but as yet I have only used white. I then take everything on square on the ipad. It would be ideal for jewellery. I am no expert but it did make a huge difference. Oh it is also portable, important for me as am constantly travelling!
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