Photos

I've been asked a few times about how I take my pics and I've decided to do a short tutorial today.

Can I stress immediately I am no photographer, I've just improved my pics over the past year and a half or so of selling online.

There's no doubt the best way to get customers into your shop is to draw them in by great photos. When I'm looking to make treasuries or just browsing with a view to buy, my eye immediately runs past many lovely items just because the pic is poor.

When I started selling online I had absolutely no idea about taking photos of jewellery. This is one of the first pieces I sold on Etsy.


Really pretty dreadful because the shadow is so harsh. I remember getting so frustrated waiting for sunshine to make it as bright as possible. A friendly Etsian sent me a convo telling me to improve my pics or I'd have trouble selling online. She suggested using something like Photoshop. I'd never heard of it, but it really was a god-send. It took a bit of practice before I stopped dazzling everyone with the over bright pics! Unbelievably this bracelet sold to someone who has become a great repeat buyer!



Gradually I got much better and am pretty proud of this pic of one of my first memory wire bracelets I sold last July.


So now I use Picassa which is free to download. I take all my pics outside, in the shade on a pure white background using the macro setting. Ours is a pretty basic camera (don't ask me the make!) Once they are loaded onto the computer, I just edit them with Picassa. This allows me to whiten the background and just as important, crop them.

The white background works best with dark colours like this blue bracelet -


but not so well with paler beads like in this lemon bracelet -


I still stuggle to find an alternative background when the white doesn't work and usually pick a grey/black one, which I'm not too keen on.

Hope this has been helpful and as I say, I'm certainly no expert!