correctmyphotos

Close Up photography can be tricky.
Close up photography of flowers can be a bit tricky if you don’t have a camera with the right macro lens.  However, you can get great results with almost any digital camera and the right photo editing software. But, before I get into “close up cropping” let me tell you about Grandpa Wesler’s Heirloom Cannas.

Heirloom Canna Flower-Edited with CorrectPhoto-Titled with ImageTitler

The Heirloom Canna Flower
 Cannas grow from bulbs (rhizomes) that have to be dug up every fall, wintered, and re-planted in the spring except in zones 8 to 10 which is pretty far south. We live in Minnesota on the edge of Zones 4 and 5.  The bulbs we use in our garden (and in many of our friend’s gardens) date back over 75 years. My wife’s grandfather who lived in Collinsville, IL was the original gardener of these particular cannas and when he passed on many years ago at the age of 92 my father-in-law, Les, became the “keeper” of the family heirloom cannas. Les, now 92, lives in St. Louis and when he and my mother-in-law moved from their house to a retirement facility I became the keeper of the cannas. You can image the responsibility that rests upon my broad shoulders to keep these heirloom Cannas propagating from year to year.  This is no small task in Minnesota and involves digging up the bulbs after a freeze has taken care of the stalks but before the ground freezes to kill the bulbs. Then they must be stored in a cool dry place until spring when they are planted in pots to get them started so they will bloom before the snow flies in the fall.  Since I assumed the responsibility for the cannas three years ago with about a dozen bulbs they have multiplied to almost 60 plants this spring. The flowers are absolutely gorgeous and a real attraction to people passing our house. If you are interested in learning more about history and care of Heirloom Cannas go to http://www.oldhousegardens.com/CannaHistoryAndCare.asp.

Cropping Photos for Close Ups
The other day a neighbor stop by to take a picture of the Canna flowers in our garden with a point-and-shoot film camera (can you believe that?). She was trying to get a close up shot of the flower and while I haven’t seen the photo my guess is that it wasn’t a close up as she had hoped.  Most often it is difficult getting a good close up shot with a point and shoot camera. That is true for digital as well as film. Looking through the view finder or at the digital screen you think you are closer that you really are. With a film camera there isn’t a lot you can do about it after the shot. With a digital camera it is highly likely that you can achieve the close up you wanted with by cropping the photo. Here is an example of what I mean.

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So far in this series of posts on Better eBay Sales with Better Photos I described the various photo shoot setups for photographing items for sale. I have been using my Stangl Bird collection as examples because they are representative of the items many people are selling on eBay and because I plan to start liquidating my bird collection. In fact, yesterday afternoon I photographed 20 birds using the light tent. I took about 5 or 6 shots of each of different views (side, back, front, base, etc.) so the potential buyer can see the characteristics, quality and flaws, if any, of the item.  As I look at other birds for sale on eBay I find that most of them are poorly presented and one would have difficultly deciding if they are worth buying.  If you have followed this series of posts you might recall the example I used in the first post comparing a bird photo I “borrowed” from an eBay listing with a photo I took of a similar bird in my collection. Here it is again, however, with a new photo I took using the light tent configuration with artificial lighting. 

Which Stangl Hummingbird would you buy?

UseMultiple Views for Greater Sales Impact
One of the benefits of digital photography is that you can easily take many shots of an item making it easier for the prospective buyer to make a buy decision. Taking mutiple photos of an object is real easy once you have the photo setup. Here is a composite of photos of the bird from different angles. (Note: the composite photo is for illustration only. You will want to show individual photos in your listing.)

Use Multiple Photos to Show Off Your eBay Listing

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In my previous post, Better eBay Sales with Better Photos-The Photo Shoot Setup, I described two setups: indoor with artificial light and outdoor with natural light and compared the two. My preference between the two was using natural light. I also said that I ordered a light tent to use indoors with artificial light. I ordered it from OBN Photographic Equipment and it arrived yesterday. 

OBN 20” Light Tent
The light tent kit (http://www.obnphoto.com/light_tent.html) included a foldable tent, and four backdrops (white, black, gray, and blue), and a storage case.  For my purposes I selected a 20 inch tent but they offer sizes ranging from 12” to 86”. Here is a photo of my initial test set up.

Light Tent Setup-Light Tent from OBN Photographic Equipment

I chose to use the gray backdrop for reasons that I explained in my previous post and took a few test shots with different lamp positions. I also set my camera to aperture preferred (f8) instead of auto exposure for greater depth of field.  Here is an edited photo of a test shot taken with the best lamp position.

Stangl Bird Photo using Light Tent and Edited with CorrectPhoto Editor

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Sometimes you just have to see better color to know.
The other day our Rotary Club  cooked 250 hot dogs for the Burnsville Kids of Summer program’s final day, a project we have done for about 20years. Heather and I took a few photos of the event. When I got back to the office I edited a few with CorrectPhoto and sent them to Heather for our clubs website. She went back to her office and uploaded a few of my photos with a few of hers. (Heather is the editor of our club’s website.) Now Heather does have CorrectPhoto and loves it, however, she has it on her home computer and not on her office computer so she bypassed the photo editing step and uploaded uncorrected photos. (Sound familiar?) When I saw the photo gallery of the event I mentioned to my friend Bill and mentioned the fact that Heather hadn’t had time to color correct her photos. His comment was, “Only you would know that?” That is really not true, but it did get me to thinking about how does one really know the color is not right? I guess the reality is that most people just accept the color they get from their digital camera and don’t realize that the color could be better. So, do you think the color is right or okay in the following photo?

Is the Color Right? Look at the mustard bottle and the girls shirt.

Now compare it with this photo. Now, doesn’t the original photo look dull and lifeless compared with the color corrected one?

Look at the mustard bottle and the girl's shirt to see the difference in color

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I have a Stangl Bird collection that I am thinking about selling. So I did a litte research on eBay to see what was being offered. Since I have never sold nor purchased anything on eBay I really haven’t spent any time looking at how items where being presented. I was somewhat surprised (maybe I shouldn’t be) at the quality of the photos people posted to sell their stuff. For the most part the quality ranges for poor to terrible. In particular, the colors of the items (in this case ceramic birds) were dull and washed out. Okay, so I am more sensitive than most when look at photo colors, but how can anyone purchase a Stangl bird where color is very important by looking at a dull lifeless image? Here is an example of what I mean.

eBay Photo Example. eBay photo on left. Color Corrected with CorrectPhoto on right

 The photo on the left is a photo of a listing on eBay. I color corrected the photo with CorrectPhoto’s OneClick (I clicked on the gray concrete background and adjusted the brightness and saturation.) The colors are certainly better and the dullness has been reduced making it a better photo.  Even with better color the photo still is not very good.  The cracks in the background is distracting and one could argue that the perspective of the shot could be better.

How do you take better eBay photos?
That is a question I spent a little time on this weekend and I think I have come up with a simple approach that should work for almost everyone that wants to sell an item or product online. And, it won’t break the bank. I will layout the approach in upcoming posts, but here is an example photo of the same Stangl bird that is in my collection.

Wayne's Bird Photo

Okay, so this post is a teaser. The next post will tell you how you can take better photos for selling online.

Wayne  www.correctphoto.com