Could do with a bit of advice....

[northwest monkey]

Probably basic advice really, so please don't laugh

I sell clothes online, and the biggest selling tool we have is the photos really. Currently, I use a Sony F828 (about 10 years old, 60k pics taken but still working!!), a tripod, white sheet background, mannequin and a couple of lights with umbrellas and massive (135W) curly wurly bulbs. I don't use the flash (seems to "wash" the colours out) and just put the timer on to take the picture. I use Adobe Photoshop CS to remove the background. My pictures seem ok, but don't seem (to my eyes) as "punchy" as they could be. The F828 has a lot of options to play around with the settings although it obviously isn't a DSLR.

So I have a couple of questions:-

I use the setting "P" and the White Balance to one of a person. Everything else I think is set to Automatic. Should I be adjusting anything else?

Where is the best position to put the lights - should they be shining down or from the side or face on?

My last question is picture size - is there an optimum size for web viewing? We're doing our own website at the moment and the picture zoom function is, if anything, too big. Our pics come out of the camera at 3264 x 2448, and once we've finished they end up about 1881 x 2810 (portrait). Fine for Ebay and Amazon as they "shrink" the picture, but when I resize them down to say 900 x 1800 for our website (using MS Picture Manager) the picture quality seems to drop a bit & they look a bit "fuzzy". Bit hard to explain really so I hope that makes sense!

This is one of our pics:



And these are my lights:



Thanks in advance folks

[Simpo Two]

I think you've done a decent job with limited kit. WB is supposed to be set to 'white' - which would normally be the background - but as you've done this afterwards it's hard to tell. If the colours are looking right to you then that's OK.

Exposure-wise it looks a little dark - in PS my histogram is off the bottom. If you put it in PS and push the curves up a bit then you get more punch.

The other thing I notice is that the top is better lit than the bottom, so I think your lights are set high. If you move them down to waist level you'll get more even lighting on the dress.

For web, don't trust auto-resize software as it can make photos go soft as you've seen. I use 800px wide for landscape and 700px high for portrait BUT you must resharpen after resizing. You've got PS so use the unsharp mask to do this for best results.

[Ed_P]

Just a couple of thoughts. The lighting is a little uneven top to bottom, so I suspect the positioning of the lights may need adjusting. If you were photographing a live model, you'd often use a fill-light to give a low level of even lighting across the scene and then a key-light (often to one side and above the model's head height) to add "structure" to the features. Here; it's the dress that's important. You might want to try both lights in front of the mannequin; one illuminating the top half and one the bottom half.

Because the colour of the material is important; I would suggest using a grey-card in the shots and then adjusting the colour temperature using this in post-production. Not sure about the problem with image quality in your web images. There should be enough pixels there to give a crisp image. The lack of "pop" could be post-processing, rather than in-camera.

[northwest monkey]

To be honest, I didn't expect any replies on a Saturday night so thanks very much folks

I'll definitely play around with the positioning of the lights - I've not tried them at different heights so that's a great idea. I've just tried the curves & the unsharp mask & it looks miles better - well happy

Before:



After:

[RobDickinson]

You have no contrast across the images, this make them look flat, which may be what you are after, may be not. Try moving one side of the lights away a little say 1.5 times the distance of the other this should give you about a 1:2 ratio.

Put a grey card ( or better yet a colour checker passport) into the image so you can set a proper WB and exposure

[northwest monkey]

RobDickinson said:

You have no contrast across the images, this make them look flat, which may be what you are after, may be not. Try moving one side of the lights away a little say 1.5 times the distance of the other this should give you about a 1:2 ratio.

Put a grey card ( or better yet a colour checker passport) into the image so you can set a proper WB and exposure

At the risk of sounding daft, what do you mean by no contrast across the images?

[Simpo Two]

I think you've overcooked the second dress shot. By that I mean it's too contrasty - all black and pushing overexposure at the top end. Apart from the background, try to keep the dress in the histogram and make sure you have some midtones (middle slider in Levels).

[northwest monkey]

Hmmm - any better?



Bloody awkward skirt to photo this one - it's black with silver ribbon so very shiny

[northwest monkey]

Actually, this one looks better - the other one was too sharp.

[Simpo Two]

That may be as much as you can do with the setup. As you say the main issue is the silver rings which flip from 'black' to 'white' with little in-between. They look like coils of silver wire to me. It's the same with all shiny things - to light them properly you have to light whatever they're reflecting...

You might like to try photographing a close-up, say 6" square, where, if you can't move the lights much, you can angle the subject around until it looks representative.

[northwest monkey]

Simpo Two said:

They look like coils of silver wire to me. It's the same with all shiny things - to light them properly you have to light whatever they're reflecting...

You might like to try photographing a close-up, say 6" square, where, if you can't move the lights much, you can angle the subject around until it looks representative.

Pretty much exactly what they are really - I chose this picture as it's probably the one I've had most problems with!

I'm much happier now though with the levels & unsharp mask so thanks very much

[King Cnut]

RobDickinson said:

You have no contrast across the images, this make them look flat, which may be what you are after, may be not. Try moving one side of the lights away a little say 1.5 times the distance of the other this should give you about a 1:2 ratio.

Put a grey card ( or better yet a colour checker passport) into the image so you can set a proper WB and exposure

Alternatively, place both lights to one side - one above the other - to light the whole length of the mannequin evenly down one side. Then use a large reflector on the opposite side to fill in the shadows. The reflector needs to be full length - something like a poly board or suspended sheet - and it can be moved back and forth to provide more or less fill. You can also use a white wall as reflector by placing the mannequin into a corner and using the 'returning wall' as the reflector.

As above, not only will this provide contrast, but it will also create a more naturally sculpted lighting effect, giving the mannequin curves.

[Simpo Two]

The closer example is much better - now I can actually see what's going on - but the lighting is still top-heavy. You could use just the top left corner and add it to the main photos as a close-up.

[northwest monkey]

Good idea - thanks for your help

For all its faults, Pistonheads still is ace

[Simpo Two]

Heh, it's only because of this forum that I do what I do now!!