Learning Photography Again

OK, I admit it, my photographing has gotten lazy. Set the dial on “Auto” and point and click. Then hit the ‘auto correct’ feature in PhotoShop Elements and I’m done. That all has to change! I need better pictures on my website and have to be sure the colors are good, too. To that end, I attended a lecture at my local chapter of the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen on photographing for a jury. And I learned that there’s a whole category called “product photography,” and found a YouTube video on the topic. I had also signed up for a Craftsy class on exactly that subject before the meeting, and watched a free lecture there from QuiltCon. So I am all primed and ready for pictures.

OK, enough words, here are three pictures of buttons.** Both are straight out of the camera with no editing or correcting of any kind. The first is typical of most of my pictures, though I usually crop out the camera shadow. That was taken under the studio halogens.

For the second picture, I moved the buttons to my storeroom and staged them on a tee shirt that’s awaiting dye. I installed some hideously bright ‘Daylight’ CFL bulbs in the ceiling fixture this week. Annoying for lots of things, but very good color for photographs. On my monitor, the color is better, but still not right.

The third picture is one that I have tried to improve the color on. The color of the blue button is better, but the other two, and the white background have too much of a yellow cast. Does it still have a way to go? Absolutely. Is it better than the first picture? Yes! Do I still have more of the Craftsy class to work through? You betcha!
 
 

**About the buttons: these are the Swirly Girls’ Monogram buttons from Dill. They sent me some in white that I’ve dyed. The blue button was ‘immersion’ dyed in 1/4 teaspoon of disperse dye stock in a canning jar in the autoclave. The green one was painted with slightly thickened dye, put into a canning jar as is and processed at the same time as the blue button. The grey-green one was painted with the same dye as the green button. The first difference is that I cleaned the button before painting; the second difference is that it had not been processed yet! That’s how the green color starts out. The next thing I have to try is a heat transfer press onto a button. Watch this space!