Welcome to Gaia! ::

Most people have to photograph their work at some point, whether its to post it in a forum like this for critique or to display your work for selling.

I'm certainly no pro at this, but I thought it would make for some interesting discussion that would apply to everyone, no matter what their medium.

Anyway, here's some basic tips from what I've learned:

• If you're photographing to put up for critique, don't worry too much about mood and focus on taking as clear a picture as possible. Try to keep it with a not-too-distracting background, be sure to have good lighting and take pictures from a few different angles.
  
  
• If you're photographing to display or sell, then its a good idea to photograph your work in some surroundings that suit it. Clarity is important if you're selling, but you can get away with more fancy lighting and backgrounds than when you're posting work up for critique.
  
  
• Lighting is really important! Because direct flash kills everything sad Unless you have a fancy camera with directional flash (in which case you're probably way to advance for my little list of tips), try to make sure you have enough lighting to avoid using flash at all. Sunlight is usually best.
  
  
• If your work is small or you're going for a detail shot in something larger, use Macro mode. Most digital cameras have this, and it allows you to focus on objects which are fairly close (less than 10cm or so) and get some really nice detail, as well as depth-of-field which makes the background blurry and puts the focus more on the subject. If you don't use this mode and try to get a closeup, you might find that your photos come out a bit blurry because it can't focus on something so close to the camera. Macro is usually symbolised by a little flower on cameras.
  
  
• I take my photos against a white backdrop, which is actually just a piece of printer paper with the top stuck in the lid of my varnish bottle so that it curves nicely xd I've also seen people take photos of their cute items against some pretty stationary, which seems quite effective.
  
  
• Once you've got your photos, it's useful to take them into a photo editor to clean up a bit. Photoshop is great for this but a bit expensive; for a cheap (and simple) alternative, you can try Picasa which is free and also serves as a good directory for all your images. I usually take all my photos into Picasa before going into Photoshop, just to to crop and adjust the contrast and warmth.
  
  
• If you're displaying your pics on the web remember to resize them to something web-friendly - try to keep it less than 800px in width, less for sites like this with elements around the edges that combined might make the browser stretch. Picasa has a resize option when exporting if you don't have another app like Photoshop to use.

Anyone else?

I did photography for 2 years as part of my last course... it was my worst subject, which is kind of funny because my Dad's a super-keen amateur and has been teaching me snippets my whole life... *brings shame on family* sweatdrop

Good tips, good lighting and clarity are essential. My tip would be if you need photos of work you're going to sell, particularly as a serious source of income, do yourself a favour and hire a pro! whee

I'm a terrible photographer.

I think it would help if I had a digital SLR instead of my digital point and shoot.

@keirsin: Yay, good to know I'm on the right track! I'll put your tips up in the first post soon, so we can compile a good resource and I'll link it in the Resources thread.

...what's a full spectrum light? sweatdrop

@Maimy: Aww, at least you have other talents xd

@RabbiTut: Yeah, I've seen some really nice environment shots done with plushies outside whee

@Fan: I've found that point-and-shoots aren't too had if you have it on the right settings and have decent lighting 3nodding Using Macro mode, turning off the flash and making sure your camera is steady before taking the shot really helps, and you can get some pretty decent results without having to pay so much for a camera.

Awesome.

I must make one.
:0

Danke.

I often like to use mirrors (If I can find any under all the muck on my desk) when taking photographs. It helps get all the angles and it saves time for me when it comes to Photoshopping photos taken from various angles together. =3 I guess you could call it the lazy way, ha ha.

This thread should be stickied. ^___^

Definitely 3nodding From what I know, optical zoom is 'real' zooming whereas digital zoom is more like scaling up a small picture - the extra detail you get is just interpolated, so won't be great quality.

Oh! And the DIY lightbox works far better with even lighting on both sides (for what I'm going for anyway) and with some white card or cute paper as a background. Here's some of my pics from my second try: