Photography for Your Jewelry and Craft Website
By Lisa Jay
Lantana
Designwear
Not only is
it important to take good photographs for your website, it is equally important
to make sure that your pictures load quickly. In this article we will
cover a number of important issues:
*Photography
set up
*Camera
settings
*Editing
for Website
*Other
Important Resources
Photography set up
Your backdrop
is your first concern. Where will you take pictures of your product,
craft or object? Outdoor light seems to be the most recommended background.
The outdoor lighting helps to create beautiful pictures. For jewelry,
this option is not the best. It is harder to photograph jewelry than
other crafts. For jewelry there are many other options for setting up
a small photography studio.
How to Make My $15.00 Photo Studio
Lapidary
Art: Basic Jewelry Photography
Photographing Jewelry for Print and Web
Jewelry Photography Techniques
Camera settings
Each camera
comes with their own terms. You will have to read your manual to decide
what term they use for each of these settings.
There are a
few settings that you need to make on your camera.
*Quality - I
use the middle setting. This takes really nice pictures, but does not
use up as much disk space.
*Picture Resolution
- My camera has either High (1760 x 1168 pixels) or Standard
(896 x 592 pixels). Use the Standard setting.
*Using a scanner
to take pictures - Use the highest setting for you scanner to scan your pictures.
Then edit as you would pictures that you have taken with a camera.
Editing for Website
Before we begin
editing your photos there are a few things that you should know:
*Do NOT save
your photos in JPEG format until you are DONE editing. JPEG files do
not take any changes very well. If you save it as a JPEG, then change
the size, the picture quality goes down. Each time you open and change
it, the quality keeps getting worse. Save all of your original files
in your photo editing programs format such as .psd for Photoshop.
*Save all of
your website pictures in the size that you will use them on your site.
Do NOT change the size of them once you get them onto your website.
This will cause them to lose their quality. I like my "thumbnail" pictures
to be 125 pixels x 125 pixels. The smaller the picture, the quicker it will
load.
*When you use
the "thumbnail" tool, you are VIEWING the picture smaller, but your file size
is still large. This causes your pictures to load just as slow as when
you put the large picture on that page. This is why you save your picture
the size that you want it to appear on your website. If you want a "thumbnail"
sized photo, save it that size.
*I recommend
Photoshop or Photoshop Elements (the less expensive version approximately
$80 at Buy.com) photo editing. There are many more products out there
that are less expensive.
Following are
the steps to take to edit your pictures for you website.
1. Once
you have taken your pictures, download them to your computer. Save these
files in your photo editing programs format. Since I use Photoshop,
I save them as .psd files.
2. Open
your photo editing program and open your picture. Crop your picture two sizes.
-Crop one picture for the "thumbnail" sized picture. I crop at 125 pixels
x 125 pixels for square or 140 pixels x 125 pixel. You will have to decide
how large or small you want your pictures. Just remember that the larger
that they are, the slower they will load. (crop, save this file, then click
"undo" to crop your next picture)
-Crop one picture for the larger picture that people will see once they
click on the thumbnail. I use 300 pixels x 300 pixels, or 300 pixels
x 275 pixels.
3. Use
your photo editing tool to sharpen, and adjust brightness. These are
all tools that you will have to play with to get the look that you want.
I suggest that you read the tutorial on the photo editing program that you
are using. Once you have the setting that you like, write them down and use
them for most of your pictures.
4. Once
you are happy with the appearance of your picture, it is time to save it for
your website. In Photoshop they offer an option to "Save for Web".
Once you have clicked Save for Web, it will take you to a tool that allows
you to save it at the quality that you want. You can save most pictures
for websites at 60%-80%. You will also have to play with this to find
the right balance between picture quality and load time. For example:
-Picture saved
at 60%, not real clear, loads in 3 seconds
-Picture saved
at 70%, pretty clear, loads in 4 seconds -- Best Bet!
-Picture saved
at 80%, very clear, loads in 10 seconds
If your program
does not offer, Save for Web, you will have to read the directions on saving
for a website. **Just make sure that you save all of your website pictures
in the JPEG format.**
5. Always
keep a copy of your original (saved in your photo editing programs format).
You may decide to go back and change it.
Other Important Resources
Taking Professional Looking Photos without the Professional
Digital Camera Short
Courses - FREE photography course that teaches you how to display
and use lighting.
Have your pictures taken
professionally by Azad