Help! I can't take a picture...

Before

Sorry for being so remiss in my postings. I set up my Etsy shop several weeks ago and, although I haven't sold a darn thing, am spending what amounts to hours a day trying to tweek everything.


I've been surfing the forums and getting to know some of my fellow Etsians. By the way, I haven't experienced this sort of camaraderie EVER in my life. The people that I've been in contact with are absolutely precious! If you ask a question or have a concern someone hops right in to help. Heck, they even have patience when answering questions!


I've sold on e-Bay for over 8 years now and have never had this sort of experience there. On e-Bay, a few people are helpful and nice the rest are snippy and, at times, down right cruel. Etsians seem to have a more personal, caring attitudes. Perhaps it's the fact that they make most of their things by hand and have a deeper appreciation for what's going on around them due to that fact. Selling something made by someone else can be very impersonal. There's no passion involved unless you inject it.


One of the things that I've noticed is a very high standard in the shops. Pictures and listings are well thought out and, for the most part, highly artistic. When I listed my first few items I thought I'd done a fairly good job with the photos, until I compared them with other shops. Oh my goodness! I was almost embarrassed to see them side by side. Mine were so dark and fuzzy.


This past week I've been testing out all of the options on my camera - with flash, without, with Macros enabled, without, with scene settings, with special lighting, you name it... I've even been taking pictures in my dreams!


After uploading the photos, there is more "repair" work to be done - cropping, correcting any lighting or color issues, making sure what looked good on the camera still looks good.



Here's what I've learned -

• I have a good camera with lots of bells and whistles. It's a Nikon CoolPix S210. Reasonably priced at around $100 when on sale.




• There are WAY too many settings to check for each and every picture.




• I don't understand why the picture looks great with the flash on and terrible with the flash off. With the flash on, the definition is fantastic but, it's too dark. With it off, on the same settings, the photo looks grainy.




• You can change the focus outcome by changing the focus of that little box that shows up before you click to take the picture. Who knew???




• You need to take about 5-10 photos of each item in each pose to get one that looks halfway like you want it.




• I have 5 different photo assistance programs on my computer - each one does a slightly different job and none are exactly what I need to fix a photo 100% for posting.




• I downloaded Picasa by Goggle and it works better than any of the programs on my computer but, I still have to resize the photos in another program! Somebody please fix this!




• Picnik works really well but, you have to spend a lot of time waiting for upload and download. You can "buy up" in service but it's too expensive if you're not selling anything. It would be much better if you could install it on your computer, like Picasa, and work offline.




• By the time I finish making, photographing, editing, uploading photos, listing, and packaging items I would need to charge over $100 for each item to bring in minimum wage for all of the hours spent on the item BEFORE a sell is made.

If anyone else is having the same concerns here are a few links that may help with the photography issues -

Little Birds flash photography tips from her blog.

My Handmade Registry offers tips on cropping.

LiciaPots blog post on her photography contains lots of comparison photos and tips in laymans terms.

Flickr shows some shop makeovers although, many of the photos don't offer a comparison. It will give you some perspective ideas.

Why do you need this if you don't have an Etsy shop?

These tips would come in handy on a blog, too. How many times have you been drawn in to a blog because of an interesting avatar photo, or blog logo? When you get there, don't you expect to find more great photos? I do, but my blog has probably been severely lacking in interesting photos to this point.

What to do now?

I'm still working on my photography. I suppose it's one of those things that you constantly strive to improve at. Ideally, once I get more comfortable with my camera and lighting I'll be able to produce show stopping photos! (And, hopefully, stop taking hours to edit them!)

After

P.S. Many of the links in this post came in a recent Etsy e-mail, which I found immensly helpful. I told you they were great folks!