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Advice from the Experts

Discussion in 'PUBLIC Vintage Chatter - Anything and everything' started by onceoza, Jun 18, 2013.

  1. morning-glorious

    morning-glorious VFG Member

    Also, see if your photo program lets you increase the canvas size of an image? Then you can make a square by combining two photos into one, which I and many others do for Etsy Something like this. You copy one image, increase the other image's canvas size, and paste "as a new selection" the first one onto the second one, creating one new layer image. This works well to showcase an item's details, close up of a print or cool buttons, etc.

    PinkChiffonTest.jpg
     
  2. jauntyrooster

    jauntyrooster Alumni

    One if the easiest and most overlooked programs for making collages is Microsoft PowerPoint. Let me know if you want more info. It is all I use to make collage photos which I have in every listing.
     
    Leonardo Da Vintage likes this.
  3. Retro Ruth

    Retro Ruth VFG Member Staff Member

    That's a great idea Maureen. I used to work as a full-time PowerPoint operator (thank goodness I don't do that anymore), and I'd never even thought of that!
     
    jauntyrooster likes this.
  4. jauntyrooster

    jauntyrooster Alumni

    Off topic but PowerPoint is also an easy way to create Etsy shop banners.
     
  5. Pinkcoke

    Pinkcoke Alumni

    Thanks for the reminder. Somebody did tell me this and I never looked into it. Might be a good reason to get Office again, I ditched it in favour of MicrosoftWorks but it appears that's the one program they don't have a substitute for...
     
  6. Midge

    Midge Super Moderator Staff Member

    Good point about Powerpoint! I've been working with it quite a bit for work lately, but never thought about that... I need to reshoot some images for my etsy shop anyway, as I have a much better camera now.

    Karin
     
  7. All excellent advice.

    If you want a really quick and easy fix, removing the doormat would be a huge step in the right direction. Nobody wants to know they're buying used clothing from a private home, regardless of the reality. You see a doormat at what is clearly someone's private front door, and you immediately imagine dogs, cats, snot-nosed children with sticky hands ... you get the idea. It doesn't make you want to buy a dress, or present your items in the best light.
     
  8. If you saw my work space, you'd crack up. I'm in what amounts to a rather small bedroom, with at least 500 articles of clothing all around me (4 full-size industrial garment racks of hanging items, and then some).

    My photo backdrop is a custom-made, white window roller shade -- 6 feet wide, 12 feet long, so it goes behind and beneath my mannequins or model without a break (but that's just personal preference -- a starched white sheet would work, too). I have the roller-shade attached into the wall studs just below the ceiling. It rolls down in front of the closet (the only wall long enough to accommodate photography and not occupied by racks). When I need to get into that closet, I just roll up my backdrop.

    I have no room for light stands, so I use the cheap, clip-on light fixtures from Home Depot, with compact fluorescent daylight bulbs (x6). They're clipped to the clothes racks, the shelving, my sewing table -- everywhere. I never use a flash.

    Even so, I spend quite a bit of time on PhotoShop brightening, adjusting levels, and getting the color as accurate as possible. This is more a reflection of my not-so-great camera than my photo set-up. I am holding off buying a better camera for the time being. The bonus of being poor is that I'm getting pretty proficient at PhotoShop : ).

    Just above the closet frame and about a foot below the roller shade mounting I recently mounted a regular old $4 curtain-rod. On that is a (too-narrow, but it was a freebie) black velvet curtain, and a 6-foot wide, 11-foot long mid-tone gray polyester photo backdrop that has a rod pocket at one end. It doesn't wrinkle like muslin, so I can keep it bunched up, off to the side, beneath the roller shade. It works fine.

    Sure, I'd love to have a fancy studio with a proper set-up. But with a little creativity (and not a lot of money), you can take some decent photos:

    00483-001twirl.jpg
     
  9. Don't know what's worse -- photographing on carpet (and carpet is just gross regardless), or on a bed! Ack.
     

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