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Post by scrapaddict702 on Sept 16, 2017 1:56:36 GMT
I can't be the only one that struggles immensely with taking optimal photos of their projects. I basically threw in the towel and only share haul photos because the quality doesn't matter as much, but I really want to try and showcase my submissions as best as I can for my Elle's Studio DT application. Are there any tips and tricks that anyone has for taking blog-worthy photos (especially helpful if you've been on or currently are on a Design Team) that don't require me to hang like a monkey from a chandelier? I've seriously seen some crazy behind the scenes pics of people climbing up to ridiculous heights and angles to get a good shot...of people, I get...of projects, it seems a bit excessive. I've gone so far as to pick up Dollar Tree foam board (it's non glossy, so it should help with glares and reflection) and figure I should probably lay everything out on my porch to photograph, but I'd love some good tips and tricks for good indoor photos if you have any!
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Post by ellewood on Sept 16, 2017 2:12:48 GMT
You can judge for yourself if you think my pictures are blog-worthy (though I do post them on my blog and I'm happy with them). I take all of my photos with my iPhone 5s. The toughest part of actually taking the picture is getting your phone square with the project. So stand right above it and look at your screen and use the guides to make sure it's square all around, making sure not to tilted the phone side to side or up and down. It should be the same amount of white space on both sides and the top and bottom. Again, the guidelines in your camera app really help. I try to use natural light and I move my desk lamp around to get decent light but I'm not really worried about the color because I can fix that in an app. The one thing to watch for is glare on PL pages. You just have to move closer and father from your light until you get it right. Sorry I don't have a trick for that. I put my projects on top of my low
Alex unit and it rolls so I can get a good shot.
After I've taken several photos, I straighten in the photo app if necessary and open the photo in pic tap go. I use lights on, adjusting depending on the color of the original photo, cool it down to tone down yellow lighting, and crispity to bring back the black contrast. Sometimes I use auto color to help the colors recover from the lights on. You can adjust all of those filters' intensity so your photo looks good, but kinda normal.
That's just my method. Hope that helps!
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Deleted
Posts: 0
May 20, 2024 13:48:19 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Sept 16, 2017 15:43:34 GMT
You can judge for yourself if you think my pictures are blog-worthy (though I do post them on my blog and I'm happy with them). I take all of my photos with my iPhone 5s. The toughest part of actually taking the picture is getting your phone square with the project. So stand right above it and look at your screen and use the guides to make sure it's square all around, making sure not to tilted the phone side to side or up and down. It should be the same amount of white space on both sides and the top and bottom. Again, the guidelines in your camera app really help. I try to use natural light and I move my desk lamp around to get decent light but I'm not really worried about the color because I can fix that in an app. The one thing to watch for is glare on PL pages. You just have to move closer and father from your light until you get it right. Sorry I don't have a trick for that. I put my projects on top of my low Alex unit and it rolls so I can get a good shot. After I've taken several photos, I straighten in the photo app if necessary and open the photo in pic tap go. I use lights on, adjusting depending on the color of the original photo, cool it down to tone down yellow lighting, and crispity to bring back the black contrast. Sometimes I use auto color to help the colors recover from the lights on. You can adjust all of those filters' intensity so your photo looks good, but kinda normal. That's just my method. Hope that helps! Ellewood, your blog is lovely. You should put a link in your signature so more peas could enjoy it. Lots of ideas! |
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christinec68
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,129 
Location: New York, NY
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Post by christinec68 on Sept 16, 2017 16:23:51 GMT
I use the google photo scan app on my iPhone to take pictures. When you take the picture it grabs the image from four corners then allows you to adjust them for square pictures. I have a bigger issue with getting the color correct. Good luck wi the DT submission! |
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Post by ellewood on Sept 16, 2017 20:26:33 GMT
You can judge for yourself if you think my pictures are blog-worthy (though I do post them on my blog and I'm happy with them). I take all of my photos with my iPhone 5s. The toughest part of actually taking the picture is getting your phone square with the project. So stand right above it and look at your screen and use the guides to make sure it's square all around, making sure not to tilted the phone side to side or up and down. It should be the same amount of white space on both sides and the top and bottom. Again, the guidelines in your camera app really help. I try to use natural light and I move my desk lamp around to get decent light but I'm not really worried about the color because I can fix that in an app. The one thing to watch for is glare on PL pages. You just have to move closer and father from your light until you get it right. Sorry I don't have a trick for that. I put my projects on top of my low Alex unit and it rolls so I can get a good shot. After I've taken several photos, I straighten in the photo app if necessary and open the photo in pic tap go. I use lights on, adjusting depending on the color of the original photo, cool it down to tone down yellow lighting, and crispity to bring back the black contrast. Sometimes I use auto color to help the colors recover from the lights on. You can adjust all of those filters' intensity so your photo looks good, but kinda normal. That's just my method. Hope that helps! Ellewood, your blog is lovely. You should put a link in your signature so more peas could enjoy it. Lots of ideas! Too sweet, thank you! I thought I added the address to my avatar thingy but if you can't see it, I will have to check into it! christinec68 that is an clever idea! I will check it out! |
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Post by scrapaddict702 on Sept 16, 2017 23:20:28 GMT
There is a pictapgo (different name) app for Android now, apparently...I uploaded pics to my computer thinking that photoshop would be the best option (it's not) to help whiten photos. I did a search for pictapgo and this other app came up, so I tested one of the junk photos of my project that I hadn't yet deleted and it brightened it exactly as I had hoped...so it looks like I need to move the photos BACK to my phone to see if that gives me the result I was looking for.
A friend said that even though it LOOKS like PL cards are in a page protector when featured on social media, oftentimes they are not. They are merely laid on top of the page protector for photos. Soooo, I might have a dedicated page protector or two with removable adhesive on it for me to attach my cards to. This will be my last go for the day (I had a meltdown after my last attempt...not so much because of this frustrating me, but rather a culmination of how awful and hard my week has been and not being able to hold back my emotions any longer) and if it doesn't work out, I will try again tomorrow when I'm hopefully of sounder mind.
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nicolep
Drama Llama
Posts: 7,080
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Post by nicolep on Sept 17, 2017 14:12:20 GMT
scrapaddict702 Do you know what the Android app similar to Pictapgo is called?
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Post by sleepingbooty on Sept 17, 2017 15:07:25 GMT
Android users: PhotoToaster, Fotor and Piclab are the most used alternatives to PicTapGo. I'm still a huge fan of A Color Story by ABM combined with Facetune (for cleaning out and clearing up backgrounds) though.
RadLab on Photoshop will do anything you need super quickly and easily.
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Post by scrapaddict702 on Sept 17, 2017 15:25:28 GMT
scrapaddict702 Do you know what the Android app similar to Pictapgo is called? Piclab |
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Post by scrapaddict702 on Sept 18, 2017 14:39:27 GMT
The photos I ended up with aren't awful, but they took a LONG time to get to. My photos ended up being from my phone because my camera wants to bubble out the sides (hard to get a square image when your camera wants to round parts of it) but when you zoom in, you can tell the quality isn't as good as my DSLR and they don't make me happy. I'm going to look into spending $5-$6 today to get some foam board and white tissue paper from the dollar store to manufacture my own light box to see if that helps. I might need to look into doubling up the sides since it's cheap material and the top so I can make a top with a hole for my camera's lens in order to more easily take photos from the top. My other thoughts are to put huge globs of tombow mono onto the back and allow it to dry and take pictures straight forward if trying to make it work with a top opening doesn't end up working. I will need a top regardless, though, because one of my biggest issues is with direct light (my overhead lighting). I can manipulate my lamps to avoid glare and shadow, but it's much harder with my built in lights.
I'm damned and determined to not only make my submission photos look good, but to also figure out how to take good photos in general so if (unlikely, but you never know) I am asked to be on the team, this isn't something I have to figure out later!!
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Post by anniefb on Sept 18, 2017 19:25:02 GMT
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Post by crazy4scraps on Sept 19, 2017 3:21:28 GMT
My advice is to use natural light as much as possible, and daylight lamps if you need some additional light to fill. This helps so you don't need to do so much color correction in post production.
A friend of mine gave me some tips long ago to help with the lens distortion problem, which is to physically get back from the piece and then use your zoom lens to come back in. It really helps to limit the distortion in the first place, and then any remaining distortion can be fixed with Photoshop Elements to completely square things up perfectly.
If you're having trouble with glare, you could try using light diffusers to soften the light that's hitting your project. I bought a small light box years ago for about a hundred bucks that came with two halogen lights, a camera stand and two colored backdrops (gray and blue, I don't use either because I prefer all white). The sides and top of the box are made of the diffuser fabric which helps cut the harsh glare from the lighting hitting the project.
Good luck! Let us know if you make the team!
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Post by scrapaddict702 on Sept 19, 2017 14:30:46 GMT
My advice is to use natural light as much as possible, and daylight lamps if you need some additional light to fill. This helps so you don't need to do so much color correction in post production. A friend of mine gave me some tips long ago to help with the lens distortion problem, which is to physically get back from the piece and then use your zoom lens to come back in. It really helps to limit the distortion in the first place, and then any remaining distortion can be fixed with Photoshop Elements to completely square things up perfectly. If you're having trouble with glare, you could try using light diffusers to soften the light that's hitting your project. I bought a small light box years ago for about a hundred bucks that came with two halogen lights, a camera stand and two colored backdrops (gray and blue, I don't use either because I prefer all white). The sides and top of the box are made of the diffuser fabric which helps cut the harsh glare from the lighting hitting the project. Good luck! Let us know if you make the team! Natural light is what I thought, too. However, direct light here was making things harder because the shadows were incredibly jarring. Then I tried the shade and it turned everything blue. The best results for me was lights out in my office (since I haven't found an easy way to cover my overhead light to prevent glare from it) and a cheapie DIY 3 panel (resting on top of a full piece) dollar store foam board light box. I still have to take upwards of 50 shots to get one that can be easily manipulated post production in photoshop, but I'm much more pleased with my results. I did, however, figure out the whole far away makes pictures look squarer thing...not easy when I only have a single step step stool and my set up is on a standard height desk instead of on the floor. The only long term problem my solution is going to cause is that I have to set everything up on my scrappy surface. My lamps are inexpensive ones from Ikea with ott light bulbs in them and they mount in one place with the clamp screwed in (not easy to move around). So, for now I'm going to deal, but if by some miracle I am asked to be on the DT, I will invest in a couple more lamps that can be moved around easier in order to set things up anywhere in the house on the floor or possibly set myself up a specific place for photo taking in the garage. I feel as though this might all be for nothing, though, lol. It doesn't look like squared up shots are common for PL spreads on Elle's Studio's blog and not even the case 100% of the time for layouts. Angled artsy pictures aren't much of a problem, but with the application being via email and her wanting to see 3 projects, unless I send 15 emails with attachments, I'm going to have to pick and choose photos to send and the ones that show everything are the straight on overhead shots (as it is, I'm probably going to have to compress these in order to get all 6 images of the 2 page projects to attach in 1 email). I'm probably making this all way more complicated than it needs to be, but project photography is something I've struggled with for a really long time and I want to have that problem solved before I have a recurring responsibility to have quality photos. AND even if I don't make it, having a good set up for project photos will mean that I can more easily share my everyday work, too. So I won't be limiting myself to just sharing hauls on my IG account.  |
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Post by crazy4scraps on Sept 19, 2017 21:16:33 GMT
My advice is to use natural light as much as possible, and daylight lamps if you need some additional light to fill. This helps so you don't need to do so much color correction in post production. A friend of mine gave me some tips long ago to help with the lens distortion problem, which is to physically get back from the piece and then use your zoom lens to come back in. It really helps to limit the distortion in the first place, and then any remaining distortion can be fixed with Photoshop Elements to completely square things up perfectly. If you're having trouble with glare, you could try using light diffusers to soften the light that's hitting your project. I bought a small light box years ago for about a hundred bucks that came with two halogen lights, a camera stand and two colored backdrops (gray and blue, I don't use either because I prefer all white). The sides and top of the box are made of the diffuser fabric which helps cut the harsh glare from the lighting hitting the project. Good luck! Let us know if you make the team! Natural light is what I thought, too. However, direct light here was making things harder because the shadows were incredibly jarring. Then I tried the shade and it turned everything blue. The best results for me was lights out in my office (since I haven't found an easy way to cover my overhead light to prevent glare from it) and a cheapie DIY 3 panel (resting on top of a full piece) dollar store foam board light box. I still have to take upwards of 50 shots to get one that can be easily manipulated post production in photoshop, but I'm much more pleased with my results. I did, however, figure out the whole far away makes pictures look squarer thing...not easy when I only have a single step step stool and my set up is on a standard height desk instead of on the floor. The only long term problem my solution is going to cause is that I have to set everything up on my scrappy surface. My lamps are inexpensive ones from Ikea with ott light bulbs in them and they mount in one place with the clamp screwed in (not easy to move around). So, for now I'm going to deal, but if by some miracle I am asked to be on the DT, I will invest in a couple more lamps that can be moved around easier in order to set things up anywhere in the house on the floor or possibly set myself up a specific place for photo taking in the garage. I feel as though this might all be for nothing, though, lol. It doesn't look like squared up shots are common for PL spreads on Elle's Studio's blog and not even the case 100% of the time for layouts. Angled artsy pictures aren't much of a problem, but with the application being via email and her wanting to see 3 projects, unless I send 15 emails with attachments, I'm going to have to pick and choose photos to send and the ones that show everything are the straight on overhead shots (as it is, I'm probably going to have to compress these in order to get all 6 images of the 2 page projects to attach in 1 email). I'm probably making this all way more complicated than it needs to be, but project photography is something I've struggled with for a really long time and I want to have that problem solved before I have a recurring responsibility to have quality photos. AND even if I don't make it, having a good set up for project photos will mean that I can more easily share my everyday work, too. So I won't be limiting myself to just sharing hauls on my IG account. Do you have a north facing window or door? A north facing window will give better indirect lighting without all the glare. |
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Post by scrapaddict702 on Sept 19, 2017 21:36:45 GMT
Natural light is what I thought, too. However, direct light here was making things harder because the shadows were incredibly jarring. Then I tried the shade and it turned everything blue. The best results for me was lights out in my office (since I haven't found an easy way to cover my overhead light to prevent glare from it) and a cheapie DIY 3 panel (resting on top of a full piece) dollar store foam board light box. I still have to take upwards of 50 shots to get one that can be easily manipulated post production in photoshop, but I'm much more pleased with my results. I did, however, figure out the whole far away makes pictures look squarer thing...not easy when I only have a single step step stool and my set up is on a standard height desk instead of on the floor. The only long term problem my solution is going to cause is that I have to set everything up on my scrappy surface. My lamps are inexpensive ones from Ikea with ott light bulbs in them and they mount in one place with the clamp screwed in (not easy to move around). So, for now I'm going to deal, but if by some miracle I am asked to be on the DT, I will invest in a couple more lamps that can be moved around easier in order to set things up anywhere in the house on the floor or possibly set myself up a specific place for photo taking in the garage. I feel as though this might all be for nothing, though, lol. It doesn't look like squared up shots are common for PL spreads on Elle's Studio's blog and not even the case 100% of the time for layouts. Angled artsy pictures aren't much of a problem, but with the application being via email and her wanting to see 3 projects, unless I send 15 emails with attachments, I'm going to have to pick and choose photos to send and the ones that show everything are the straight on overhead shots (as it is, I'm probably going to have to compress these in order to get all 6 images of the 2 page projects to attach in 1 email). I'm probably making this all way more complicated than it needs to be, but project photography is something I've struggled with for a really long time and I want to have that problem solved before I have a recurring responsibility to have quality photos. AND even if I don't make it, having a good set up for project photos will mean that I can more easily share my everyday work, too. So I won't be limiting myself to just sharing hauls on my IG account. Do you have a north facing window or door? A north facing window will give better indirect lighting without all the glare. My windows are all north/south, however we have a pool fence in the backyard (north facing side of the house) and I ended up with reflections of the mesh on our pool fence in every shot. Most other north facing windows are actually inaccessible for a variety of reasons. I'm fairly happy with what I ended up with. I did have to edit a few pictures quite a bit (reds kept coming out over exposed) but they ended up turning out decent. I tried using her blog for reference on the types of photos current DT members have used and the ones from today aren't the best representations of her product's colors, so my photos should definitely be passable...it's what I've created with her work that's going to be the determining factor now. |
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