Quick Photo Tips: Do What You Can With What You’ve Got

You don’t need a professional photography studio to get decent product pics. You just need a little ingenuity!

1. North-facing windows have the best light for taking pictures and morning light is ideal.
2. Set yourself up a little photo stage: I happen to have a goodly amount of white primed, stretched canvasses laying around the house (painting is one of my hobbies!), but any white surface will do. I’ve gotten decent results with a white sheet of paper and two small pieces of foam core to reflect the light. The bigger, whiter and more angles your setup has, the better. You’re trying to capture as much of the light coming in that window and reflect it down on your photo surface. The sheet of white paper is useful as a background and if I want to take any side shots, the paper keeps the crease between the two canvasses from getting in the shot!
3. Next tip is to read your camera’s manual and figure out how to increase exposure when taking pictures and what all the Natural Jewelry Product Photography settings do. Then, just play around with them until you figure out what works for you!
4. Finally, you’re probably still going to need some picture editing to make them perfect. Luckily, you can do this for free 🙂 I’ve used pixlr.com with good results. A common thing that needs fixing is increasing brightness and contrast. Maybe the picture’s too yellow or too blue? You can fix that, too!

Original post can be found on Authentic Arts by Jenny Hoople. Republished with Permission.