Top 8 Tips for Photographing your Cards by Jak Heath

Something we all strive to do is showcase our cards for people to look at, I’m no different to the rest of you and to be honest we just don’t get the best of natural light in the UK.

• Light Source – we all know that natural daylight is the best, whether you are using a top of the range SLR camera or using your phone camera, if the lighting is good you will get a better result. Try to take your photograph near to a natural light during daylight, near a window or even outside, if you cant do this then use a daylight bulb or a daylight tube.

This is that difference that light can make, the first took at night under the home light and the second took under a daylight lamp.

 

• Macro – Most camera’s will have a macro setting, this may show in your camera setting as a tulip flower, this is great for close up shots. If your camera has a fine quality setting also use this.
• Steady hand – if you don’t have a steady hand either rest on something or use a tripod, my hand isn’t the steadiest so I try to stop the shake shot by resting on something.
• Backdrop – try not to have a busy background behind your craft, it can totally take away the emphasis of the craft you are showcasing. You could try a plain piece of card behind your craft or even material or plastic sheet would work.
• Level – Try getting down level t the craft you are photographing, unless you need a top view of your project of course, dodgy angles can distort your project for the viewer, by getting down to the level of your project you are more likely to get a better photo rather that the fat at the top and skinny at the bottom of your project shot.
• Editing -  It doesn't have to be the top of the range editing software, just something that you can adjust the brightness and contrast or even and auto adjust can make a big difference. There is so many software programs out there and they all work differently but will have the basic settings to get the best from your photo. A good free online software is Pic Monkey here is a couple of screen shots showing before and after using their program.

Before Pic monkey edit, you can see that it is quite dark.

After using the basic Pic Monkey settings. I adjusted the brightness, the highlight and the contrast.

• Add a Watermark – Add your name on your project, a simple text, again this can be done in Pic Monkey by clicking the P on the left hand side tool options.

You can select the font and even the colour that you would like to use.

Once you have added your text you can select where you would like the text to be on your photograph just by right clicking your mouse over the text and dragging it to the position of choice.

• Saving your Picture – save your image to your computer, I like to save mine in files for the month and the year, name your photograph when saving it, it makes sense to do this as reference so you can find it.

Now I know professional photographers may have a fit over my tips, I don’t claim to be a professional photographer but I do know what works for me as a crafter and as so many of you have asked what I do and use I thought this would help you out.

Feel free to share the link to these tips with your crafting friends, I hope this helps you all.