Item Photography

[clubesquire]

Good afternoon all,

I hope some of you have the day off and are enjoying life.

This is a much 'lighter' subject to most handled in here, but noneltheless, presenting your items in the best possible way is very important. Probably more important than the narrative.

I'm not a novice photographer, but still have much to learn. I consider my skills to be basic. I use a Nikon D90 DSLR. I use good lighting, a well appointed light box, and I tweak my camera settings as much as I possibly can to eliminate that time costly, pre-posting exercise of cleaning up and modifying pics, although when I look at some competitor pics it's becoming more apparent that I should invest some time in this.

What are your experiences with photo processing? Is there one or two, user friendly, processing platforms that stand out from the rest? I'd be interested in what you are using, these days, and your thoughts.

Basic Attributes:

Background cleaning

Contrast and brightness

Cropping

Sharpenning

Colour hue

Anything beyond is a bonus.

Many thanks,

Melina.

[clarry100]

Hi Melina,
I'm no photographer either.
My wife takes our pics outside in natural light and the passes them to me for processing prior to use online.
I've discovered Adobe Elements 2018.
It's a cut down version of Photoshop and I find it so simple and intuitive to use.
It can do colour correction as well.
I'm loving it.
In fact I'm now going thru every pic on every listing redoing them and updating all our listings.
A few need newer pics so will also do that.
Elements comes with a 30-day free trial and after that is $A145 one time payment for a licence.
I'd recommend yo give it a try.

[dazzledayz]

Clarry, you could do well to have a look at Gimp as Melina has done.

It's a very comprehensive editing package which attempts to provide full blown Photoshop function to Linux users.

(It's available for Windows too and being open source is free)

If you don't get too involved in the advanced functions, you'll still get all the advantages of advanced image control and bulk editing features.

(like resizing an entire folders contents to eBay sizing standards or running a set of corrections across a whole days work).

These settings can be saved and run again as the need arises.

The whole idea is not to spend huge amounts of time on jobs, but to set up photographic systems in such a way that individual image editing becomes a minor tweak or touch up here and there.

A few minutes work rather than a whole day in post processing - very useful if you are shooting lots of images!

[clubesquire]

Hi Clarry, I'll certainly have a look. Thanks for the heads-up 🙂

I think I'm a bit hooked on Gimp already though. Those who really know their way with it must create some terrific end results.

I will check it out though. Anything to take the pain out of processing.

I would normally enjoy the fiddling, because I am an enthusiast photographer, (I really love it) but when you're time poor it's nice to have something very straight forward that will give results suitable enough for here.

good luck yourself Clarry.

thanks,

Melina.

[dazzledayz]

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@clubesquirewrote:

Hi Clarry, I'll certainly have a look. Thanks for the heads-up 🙂

I think I'm a bit hooked on Gimp already though. Those who really know their way with it must create some terrific end results.

I will check it out though. Anything to take the pain out of processing.

I would normally enjoy the fiddling, because I am an enthusiast photographer, (I really love it) but when you're time poor it's nice to have something very straight forward that will give results suitable enough for here.

good luck yourself Clarry.

thanks,

Melina.

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This is what I'm trying to suggest - we are taking on the duties of a Commercial Product Photographer.

If you do this professionally you'd be dealing with hundreds, possibly thousands of images daily (think about your junk mail and online catalogues).

In a commercial studio setting all processes that can be either automated or extensively regulated most certainly are (and in detail).

A new shooting project setup can take days or even weeks to put in place and tune up for production BUT once done, it becomes largely automatic and the work devolves to subject prep and placement followed by pressing the shutter button.

Few photographers even have cards in their cameras - they'll be running tethered directly to a computer and sometimes, that computer will have a separate operator processing images as they transfer.

I've seen weddng photogs able to provide candids at the reception.

I've seen school photogs have ID pics and class proofs done on the day.

This is of course way beyond our requirements but definitely not our capability given the modern tools available.

The thing is, if you put in the initial time to get everything set up right, the work thereafter just flows and you an get on with more important stuff like running a business.

It's absolutely amazing what digital photography has done to the speed of turn around wjere all elements of the operation can fall under local control.

[clubesquire]

I'll be doing a bit more with Gimp later tonight dazzle, but so far, I think it very comfortably and quickly meets the criteria for here. The good thing is, it appears to have an array of advanced features in its suite too. I haven't mucked with them yet, but looking forward to a bit of 'time' to investigate.

You're so right about us taking on the role of Commercial Product Photographer. If we ignore it and don't take advantage of dressing up our wares we're going to pay for it at the till. I'm sure of that. It might even equate to just $5 or $10 here and there, but I'd suggest more if pics are just average, and over a year or so that adds up. And, it's a bit hard to ask for and expect a certain price when your pics don't reflect the quality you're trying to sell.

I'm a bit excited actually, because I can see all sorts of possibilities. Thinking, like I have, that a reasonable quality DSLR is all that you need is a bit naive if you really want to showcase your item and compete with others. Sure, it's a good start, but that's not where it ends.

I'm sure too that others must wonder, like I do, how some sellers manage to sell some items. The pics really are so bad. Every wee bit of knowledge helps and I'm pleased, grateful too, that people will unselfishly share it.

Onwards and upwards 🙂

Melina.