In this article I am going to give you some tips about photographing your products for your catalog. The images you use in your catalog are the most important features you will be deciding on. The images sell your products. The text and everything else are important, but if the images are not well-produced, then your sales will suffer.
There are professional product photographers and using them will ensure that you have the best photos for your catalog. However, this does not come cheap. If you decide to do it yourself, you can save a lot of money. Just be sure you are confident that you can produce high-quality photos for your catalog products.
The first rule of good catalog product photography is to photograph your products individually. Group photos of products do not sell product as well as individual images. Again, it is more costly to do this because of film, printing, and layout concerns. You can save money by photographing your catalog products in groups as long as you understand that this method could also cost you money in reduced sales.
Choose appropriate backgrounds for your products. You want the product to stand out in the picture, not the background. If your product is white, use a dark background. Add contrast to your photos. Take several photos of each product so you can decide later which ones are the best of batch later.
If you are skilled with PhotoShop you can enhance the images of your products. Shadowing is a great method to use when you are displaying expensive products like wine, jewelry, or artwork. If you do not know how to use PhotoShop, you may want to get a professional graphic artist to touch up your photos for you.
Why all this trouble for just a few pictures? You want to present your products in the best light, no pun intended. You will not be there with your catalog to speak to the customer. Your pictures must speak to the customer for you. By taking the extra time to make each and every photo a virtual showcase for your product, you make the potential customer want to see more of your photos, then buy your products.
To the consumer, the quality of the image equates to the likely quality of the product. When people see an image that is pleasing to them, they want to possess it. If you want them to possess your product by ordering it, you have to make them want it. Your images are the best way to do that.
You can use a high-quality 35mm camera or a high-quality digital camera to photograph your products with. Personally I recommend you go with the digital camera if you are going to photograph your own catalog products.
Digital cameras and images are much easier to deal with and the quality is as near to perfect as you can get. Touching up the pictures of your products is not necessary, but you would be surprised at how much it can improve your results.
The bottom line is this. No matter where else you might cut corners, do not cut corners when it comes to the photos of your catalog images.
It is often the simple things that spoil an image. Using simple techniques and a little care, you can easily give you images the attention that will do them justice. The materials used in printing your images play an important factor in the quality of the finished print.
Printer: When buying a printer think about the materials that youll be using. If your are going to be printing your images in large format buy a printer that can handle rolls of photographic paper. These printers are usually more expensive, but great savings can be made when buying paper.
Paper: Photographic paper comes in many different sizes and textures. It doesnt do any harm to test a few different papers from different manufacturers to see which one suits your needs.
Ink: When buying inks for your printer I would strongly recommend that you buy from your printers manufactures. Third party inks will give you great savings but may not be suited for your printer.
When buying a printer, photographic paper or inks, it is advisable to plan well in advance. If you are only going to print a small amount of images it may be better using your local photo lab. If youre planning to sell a large amount of images, your own printer will be very valuable. Having your own printer will ensure that you can process orders immediately after getting them.
In todays world, offering a speedy delivery can be the difference in making a sale. Using a third party to print your images may take a week or more before youll get your images back. This will not be good for your business.
Presentation.
When you are happy with the quality of your printer you now need to consider presentation. Placing an image in to a cheap frame will not do anything for your prints. Presentation is all about giving your images the impact they truly deserve. Before you print your images start thinking about presentation.
It is often very effective to add a white border in Photoshop before printing. If you decide against Photoshop I would recommend that you mount your image before framing.
When finished printing match your prints to your computer screen. If you think you have a problem with your final print you may need to calibrate your computer. This is a common problem with a lot of people printing at home. Most advance photographic software comes with a basic calibration program, which can be simply used in improving results.
Printing Tips:
Before you print your images do a final check to make sure colours are perfect and that there are no marks on your image.
Make sure that you have the right quality settings on your printer.
Always use the best printing options available on your printer.
If you are using heavyweight paper load the paper one sheet at a time. This will avoid clogging.
Once you are happy with your printing, allow your prints to rest for 24 hours, place a sheet of plain paper between each print when storing your images.
Other printing tips: Most ink and paper companies claim that their product dry instantly this means that they are dry to touch. If you print you own images there are a few important points to follow before framing.
1 allow your prints to rest for 15 minutes after printing.
2 after 15 minutes place a sheet of white paper over the print use standard paper dont use photographic paper. The paper acts as a sponge absorbing the outgoing gases from the printing process. Allow this process to continue for twenty-four hours.
3 if the plain paper is crimped once removed, repeat the process for another twenty-four hours. If not, your image is ready for framing.
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2006, All Rights Reserved
Family portraits are an important part of our heritage. They preserve history. They record family growth. They document changing styles (some good, some not-so-good!). More than that, however, portraits seem to call to us and will garner our attention almost immediately when we enter a room. These, among many other reasons, are why family portraits continue to be so popular. Its also why portraiture is one of the most popular areas of study at photography schools.
While almost all get looked at, only a few spark the phrase, Thats a good picture! Why is it that since most photographers go through photography school, only some family portraits gain compliments while others seem ordinary? The posing strategies and selections of photographers play a big role. Photographers tend to get into ruts taking the same styles of portraits over and over. When you feel this happening to you, its time to shake things up with new ideas about posing families.
Natural Sittings (and Settings) Are Popular
First and foremost, keep things light. The days of stiff family portraits where everybody is in exactly the same pose are over! Today, more natural-looking poses (even formal portraits) are what give that noteworthy appearance.
Let the family members be themselves. Keep your eye behind the lens, always looking for an opportune shot as family members interact with each other. Youll also want to encourage natural laughter and smiles rather than forced cheese smiles.
Creative Family Poses
Get creative! Use your imagination and a host of props or natural settings to capture moments that are truly unique. For young families, consider placing baby in a bassinet with siblings and parents looking at baby, not at the camera. Perhaps toddlers could play at the edges of brooks or streams with mom and dad.
Other memorable (not to mention adorable) shots could include toddlers chasing bubbles or butterflies and toddlers playing with puppies, bunnies or other small (but tame) pets.
For families with older children, head outside! Fabulous portraits can be created with the family standing behind a fence (smaller kids sitting on the fence). Try a portrait of all silhouettes or of the family gathered on the front porch sipping lemonade. Families can even lounge at the edges of ponds or brooks for creative shots.
Move!
While theres a place to use your tripod, it may not be during a family portrait shoot. If you feel your posing is getting stale, toss the tripod and try alternate angles. Shoot from above or to the side or experiment with lighting. If the family isnt sure of exactly what they want, offer to take a variety of portraits and let them choose the style they like best once they see the results.
When you break down the barriers that squelch your creativity, you free yourself to produce your best work yet. Youll enjoy the sessions more, and your clients will be thrilled with the results!
S3 AND S5 TWO GENERATIONS OF ULTA-ZOOM CAMERAS BY CANON
In common practice, the comparative test aims at distinguishing the advantages of one producer over another within one and the same price category and functional group. That is why models by different producers representing the same section of the market are taken for observation. Canon cameras are usually compared with their group-mates from Panasonic, Sony or Nikon. But we at DigiCamFriends.com ( http://www.DigiCamFriends.com ) have agreed to take another way and get to know what obvious innovations may be found in the Canon PowerShot S5 IS (hereafter, Canon S5) in comparison with the Canon PowerShot S3 IS (hereafter, Canon S3) that used to be extremely popular.
Lets imagine we know nothing about new features developed by Canon for the new model S5 that appeared after the Canon S3…
PHYSICAL VIEW
Canon models of S series, being different from another Canon PowerShot subclass (that is models of A-series), are characterized as amateurish but with some skills of professional. This is for report or art-report shooting, but not for the motionless photos, something like a tree and me type. From this point of view both models have a very handy design.
In fact physical view of the camera has not been changed, except first- the enlarging of the movable screen from 2 to 2.5 inches and second- the replacement of one of the control buttons. And while the latter novelty hardly seems to be pleasant, the first one fits quite natural- its become more convenient to take photos with a larger screen.
Pic.1: Canon PowerShot S3 IS and PowerShot S5 IS; front.
Pic.2: Canon PowerShot S3 IS and PowerShot S5 IS; rear.
Pic.3: Canon PowerShot S3 IS and PowerShot S5 IS; movable screens.
OPTICS
The cameras have the same lens construction type with identical settings (the market interpretation of the term construction the quantity of the optical elements and its groups). Unfortunately, there was no information found on the manufacturers Web-site mentioning that these lenses are identical; so I wont insist on theoretical view point, but make a display with some photo examples.
Example 1 : Shots with max. depth of field (the aperture priority mode, the shutter is closed down; Flash is on; ISO80 sensitivity; the white balance Flash). The distance between the objects is about 15-25 cm. Auto focus on the handle of the cup. On the left is a shot taken by the Canon S3, on the right, by the Canon S5.
Example 2 : Shots with min. depth of field (the aperture priority mode, the shutter is absolutely open; Flash is on; ISO80 sensitivity; the white balance Flash). The distance between the objects- about 15-25 cm. Auto focus on the handle of the cup. On the left is a shot taken by the Canon S3, on the right, by the Canon S5.
These cameras are recognized among the majority of digital cameras for equally good color reproduction and quick focusing on the objects, even if they are trying to escape from your camera.
Example 3: Focus on objects moving to and fro with 12x optical zoom in. On the left, a shot taken by the Canon S3, on the right, by the Canon S5.
It doesnt make much sense if we start making a display of numerous examples of similarities between these cameras. Well stop making trivial comparisons of their features and proceed to noting peculiar and individual characteristics discovered during the experiments.
THE IMPERFECTNESS OF THE LENS
Practical optics has very little in common with the geometrical sums in the physics lessons that students solve while learning about cameras as a kind of equipment. But however accurate the calculations may be, even the most carefully developed ( and rather expensive) model of the lens is not completely perfect. For example, there can be chromatic aberrations, when the objects on the image are colorfully haloed. Test results show that both cameras have the same level of chromatic aberrations. Surprisingly, in spite of the progress of the competitors, Canon hasnt manage to overcome this problem when developing the Canon S3 into the Canon S5, even after the evolution within internal toolkit. On the whole, in my point of view, the number of drawbacks of cameras for ultra-zoom class is high.
Example 4 : chromatic aberrations are the colourful halos around the bridge footing. This example also displays the difference of the sharpness of the objects in the photo taken by different cameras, but well discuss it later. At the top is the whole shot with the testing area highlighted. On the left is a shot taken by the Canon S3, on the right, by the Canon S5. For both cameras we set semi-auto Landscape mode with completely closed aperture, 12x optical zoom in.
SHOOTING CLOSE-UPS MACRO MODES
Macro-shooting is not an easy task for a camera, designed as the the mater of landscape photography. The technical characteristics for shooting bugs and spiders are just opposite of those for shooting sun-sets and mountain landscape. There are numerous items that can be evaluated to identify the macro capacity of the camera. In particular, there is a famous test based upon not simply measuring the distance from the lens surface necessary for focusing, but making a photo of a small object wthin the whole shot. The smaller the object, the higher degree of macro capacity of your camera has.
We agreed to experiment upon the monetary unit of our country coins of different values.
For both the Canon S3 and the Canon S5, macro-shooting is available in two different modes: macro and super-macro. We had expected to get the similar results, but it turned out that, with the Canon S5, the borderline between these modes suffers influence of its predecessor. While macro mode of the Canon S3 enables you to take a photo of 5 coins, that enlargement is not enough for the Canon S5 for its limit is 6 coins (shooting of 5 coins requires super-macro mode).
Example 5: On the left, a shot taken by the Canon S3; on the right, by the Canon S5.
After experimenting at length with super-macro mode we managed to take the image of a single coin. By the way, the coin is 15.5 mm in diameter. Unfortunately, this test cant be characterized as complete. It might be possible to take photos of much smaller objects on the whole screen provided there is extra lighting ( the cover around the lens prevented the addition of more light…in fact the lens was resting on the object; we had to build up a flash reflector, manually-set ISO200 sensitivity, and at last lighten the image with an image editor program.
Example 6: Super-macro mode. On the left, a shot taken by the Canon S3, on the right, by the Canon S5. The lack of light forced us to set the sensitivity to a high ISO level, and the bright halo around the coin is nothing but a flash, spread all over the tightly-stretched piece of white paper.
SENSOR AND ISO SPEED
Both cameras have sensors of 1/2.5 size, the number of effective pixels (pixel value) is 6 8 megapixels. Nowadays 8 megapixels for that type of sensor seem to be the limit (A greater number is quite possible, though it might be not economically feasible).
An important characteristic of digital camera, referring to its sensor, is ISO speed. The manufacturer gives the ISO speed scale from 80 to 800 for the Canon S3 and up to 1600 for the Canon S5. Lets experiment to evaluate data in low light condition.
Example 7: ISO80 speed. At the top is the whole shot with the testing area highlighted. On the left is a shot taken by the Canon S3, on the right, by the the Canon S5 (shutter speed priority mode, external light; for better observation the highlighted areas are enlarged in an image editor).
Example 8: ISO100 speed. At the top is the whole shot with the testing area highlighted. On the left is a shot taken by the Canon S3, on the right by the Canon S5 (shutter speed priority mode, external light; for better observation the highlighted areas are enlarged in an image editor).
Example 9: ISO200 speed. On the left is a shot taken by the Canon S3, on the right, by the Canon S5 (shutter speed priority mode, external light; for better observation the highlighted areas are enlarged in an image editor).
From the examples above we may see that an ISO speed within 80- 200 scale makes good results for both cameras, although the results with the higher ISO speeds are not so clear.
Example 10: ISO400 speed. Same cameras and same conditions as above.
Example 11: ISO800 speed. Same cameras and same conditions as above.
While shooting with ISO400 sensitivity gives equally good results, the setting of ISO800 sensitivity enables the new internal algorithm of noise reduction in the Canon S5 to come into play (Heaven knows how it happens either via auto or programmed mode). As for ISO1600 sensitivity, it is absolutely useless; even the above mentioned noise reduction mechanism doesnt cope with the noises. Though the manufacturer doesnt hold this option back from customers.
Example 12: ISO1600 speed of the Canon S5. The same image patch, as in the previous examples (the shutter speed priority mode, external light; for better observation the marked out areas are enlarged in image editor).
By the way, during the experiments with ISO speed, another peculiar feature of both cameras had been noticed. They manage to operate the white balance mode equally good, except when the white balance mode should be set manually at high ISO speed (800 and 1600). The noises of the sensor seem to appear in the program accepted averaged color, that is white.
It is not a great obstacle to overcome for usually the candlelight is used at such a high ISO speed (the dim light of a table-lamp and dingy street-lamps, for example) and you may choose the appropriate manual setting. Still, it is strange why such an imperfect algorithm inherited from its predecessor didnt go through any changes.
FOCUSING ON THE DISTANT OBJECTS
It has already been mentioned (discussing chromatic aberrations) that we get different results when focusing on distant object by Canon S3 and Canon S5. To check the fact we shot a series of landscape images with 12x optical zoom in. The semi-auto landscape mode was set to provide completely closed aperture along with the other auto-set characteristics (in other words to realize the greatest possible depth of field). To meet the non-stop character of the experiment, the test shots were taken at once without choosing the object to focus on but as soon as the camera informs that its ready to shoot (as soon as it has focused on). In addition, to avoid different views of nature by the cameras, we set Spot focus mode. Let me show you the effect referring to the series of shots of a TV tower.
Example 13: Focusing on distant objects with 12x optical zoom in ( Landscape mode, Spot focus mode). At the top is the shot of the landscape without enlargement; in the middle- the same landscape with 12x optical zoom in (with highlighted testing area). At the bottom to the left is the image by the Canon S3, at the bottom to the right, the image by the Canon S5 (both shots have been enlarged in an image editor).
The results show the pre-eminence of the Canon S5 working in auto focus mode. Probably, the Canon S3 might have shown not as bad results, if it were used in manual focus mode, but then it would break the conditions of the experiment.
TOOLKIT
Sharpness is available for both cameras, being called Rezkost in Russian texts. It attracted most attention among the other settings, because in a way it may be regarded as the equivalent of the internal noise reduction option (it doesnt reduce the noise but highlight the edges, that make impression of a high-quality shot). To test that no changes had been made within the algorithm, we took a number of shots with 400ISO speed (the noises are already conspicuous, but they do not prevail).
Example 14: Internal algorithm of increasing Sharpness for the Canon S3 and the Canon S5. At the top the photo with highlighted testing area. In the middle, a shot to the left, taken by the Canon S3 without increasing sharpness, a shot to the right, taken by the Canon S3 at a high level of Sharpness. In the row below the same operations with the Canon S5.
Based upon the examples above, we may say that this algorithm as well didnt go through great changes: such a delicate way of increasing sharpness with a few artifacts left. It seems as though the manufacturer had not intended to update toolkit for a new model.
THE ALGORITHMS OF COMPRESSION
Its a pity, but neither of the cameras deals with RAW files (despite the Canon S5 sporting a new feature which is characteristic of a professional camera; that is, the flash hot shoe for external flash); all the image files are saved in JPEG format with various degree of resolution and compression (both are manually set). To compare the internal algorithms of compression we shot 2 series of photos in Landscape mode (to provide the best depth of field on the small far details). The center of the shot had been taken for the testing area to eliminate possibly the influence of the imperfect optics; all the changes were made in BMP format in order to make JPEG artifacts more conspicuous, and at the same time, not to add any extra while preparing shots for publishing; all the image patches were enlarged in the end.
Example 15: The comparison of the internal algorithms of compression for the Canon S3 and the Canon S5. At the top- the photo with highlighted testing area. The shots with the increasing degrees of compression follow below. On the left are the shots taken by the Canon S3, on the right, by the Canon S5.
The above examples display that the Canon S5 inherits from its predecessor the Canon S3 the visual effect of compression even for the high-quality images. I would recommend either increasing the super-quality of JPEGs (by any possible way) or contribute RAW-format (TIFF/ BMP- any of the formats that compresses without faults); the cameras really suffer from the lack of one!
FEATURES
Among the pleasant innovations for Canon S5, such have been noticed (though not checked):
*extensive work with the same set of batteries (170 shots in stead of 110 according to the results of the standard test by the manufacturer);
*a hot shoe and sync-contact for external flash.
SUMMING UP
AFTER PRACTICAL WORK WITH BOTH CAMERAS, WE AT DIGICAMFRIENDS.COM ( http://www.DigiCamFriends.com ) MAY CONCLUDE THAT SOME CHANGES INDEED HAVE BEEN MADE FOR THE NEW MODEL. THIS CAN BE OBSERVED IN SUCH OPERATIONS AS FOCUS ON DISTANT OBJECTS WITH HIGH OPTICAL ZOOM OR WITH HIGH ISO SPEED. THESE NEW FEATURES HELPED TO CORRECT UTTER DRAWBACKS FOUND IN THE CANON S3, IN COMPARISON WITH THE SUCCESS OF THE SIMILAR PAIRS OF CAMERAS BY OTHER MANUFACTURES. THE QUESTION IS WOULD YOU AGREE TO PAY FOR THESE INNOVATIONS?
