I hope everyone here in the US enjoyed their Thanksgiving celebrations!  I certainly did and took the opportunity to take a mini-blog break at the same time.  This post is inspired by my role as shop critique thread starter for the Etsy Mud Team, which I recently revived after a bit of an absence.

Shop critiques are usually scheduled for 3 shops at a time and are voluntary for folks who want a constructive critique of their shop.  Most often, photographing ceramic work is where most sellers need improvement.  Let’s face it, taking photographs is tough and it’s not just about clicking the shutter and uploading the image to a computer – though it certainly is easier with digital photography than film.  It is even trickier when it comes to photographing work that one hopes to sell online where the listing description and photos are all that the buyer has to go by in order to make a purchase decision.

There are a multitude of options for taking product shots and I am only showing but one – using an inexpensive homemade light box inspired by Strobist Blog which uses clamp lights, light bulbs, piece of seamless white drawing paper cut to size to fit in box, and a simple prop.

Total upfront cost if you have to purchase everything new =  $39.50.  Chances are that you already have many of these items on hand and your cost will be < $5.00.

Supplies:

• $14.00/2 energy saving 100 watt compact fluorescent light bulbs
• $24.00/2 clamp lights with aluminum reflectors
• $1.00/drawing paper cut to size
• < .50/trace paper cut to size – I have rolls of trace paper from landscape arch school that I used, though it’s also sold in pads
• free recycled box
• and a bit of tape

Tools needed:

• scissors
• box cutter or X-Acto knife
• ruler
• pencil and eraser
• scrap cardboard or self healing cutting mat

I set up my light box one morning on my kitchen counter before it was even light outside and began the process of photographing some ceramic jewelry to list for sale in my Etsy shop.  Etsy allows 5 slots for photographs per listing and I encourage people to use all 5 slots since it’s tricky selling items online when a buyer can’t touch or see an item in person.  Ideally, each photograph will offer something new – whole piece, detail shots, different angles, and I always like to offer the flip side of a piece of jewelry or the foot of one of my pots (some might not think it’s important, but I like seeing what the foot looks like before I buy something – I want to know if it has one?, or does it have a wiggle wire bottom?, or whether it is just flat?).

Before diving into the Photoshop tutorial, I would like to point out that there are a number of free photo editing programs out there – I just happen to have Photoshop CS2 loaded on my computer and this is what I am comfortable using.  Just google free photo editing software programs and lots of web based and downloadable program links will pop up.

I would also like to credit Lisa Lapella who wrote a tutorial on her blog that alerted me to the use of the Photoshop “curve” tool.

I also want to mention that I’m using an older Olympus C-7070 digital camera and I am becoming more familiar with the settings of my camera.  The settings that are very important for photographing small items are the macro buttons (which are often depicted by flower symbols), ISO (affects amount of light coming through aperture), and white balance (there are often presets such as day, night, florescent, outside, etc.) – though I am still learning my camera’s settings.  In the meantime, I’ve been able to correct some of my photographic shortcomings by using Photoshop.

So, let’s get started!  As you can see, after taking the photograph of my pendant in the light box and opening it in Photoshop, it has a gray cast to the image.  I want to lighten this up a bit so it doesn’t look so washed out and really make it pop off the computer screen.

Note: I used a bit of wet clay to prop the pendant up in the light box – an alternative is using pliable wax or poster putty.

Type “Ctrl + M” to open the curve tool – I am used to using keyboard short cuts to save time when I edit 100+ photos in a sitting.  To do it the long way, simply click on “image” from the top bar, then “adjustments”, then “curves” to do the same thing.  You can either click and drag on the line in the curves tool box to adjust brightness and contrast, or click on the white eye dropper bottom right and then select a space on the photograph to adjust.  It might take some playing around to get a good likeness without distorting the color of the item you’re photographing.

When I’m happy with the way it looks, I simply hit the “enter” key on my keyboard.  Note: if your image gets out of control and is no longer representative of your item, just click cancel and start over.  You can use the undo key, but it only goes back 1 action.  Or, click and drag the last action from the “history” box that you want to undo into the little trash can icon – though this will affect all actions that follow the one you want to delete.

Next, I will crop my image because Etsy uses a square shaped as thumb nails and photos of items for sale.  The crop tool is on the left hand side of the Photoshop workspace. Or type “Ctrl + C” for the crop tool short cut.

You can set up tool preset for frequently used tools.  I have 3 tool presets set – square, another rectangular shaped one for Etsy that I use when my photo is not easily resized to square shape if I haven’t left enough space around my item, and one for Trunkt that has very specific & odd pixel dimension requirements (300 x 311px).

In the case of this pendant, I select the “square” crop tool preset.  As an alternate to using a tool preset, is to hold the “shift” key while dragging the crop button to constrain the cropping to a square shape.

Once the crop tool is selected, I simply place the tool on a section of my image and then drag the crop tool to the opposite corner.  Once I have the basic size and composition set, I can move the area to be cropped by selecting the move tool which has an arrow and a little cross type thing next to it in the left hand tool box.  I can then move the square area I’ve selected around as desired.  When I’m happy with the photo and it looks good to me, I hit “enter” on the keyboard to crop the image.  If I don’t like the way I cropped the image, I select “edit” from the top bar on my screen and then “undo” or I can type “Ctrl + Z” for the short cut.

Note: While I eyeball my photos to see what looks right, you can get very specific and enable the grid and ruler for precision.  Go to “view” on top bar, then click on “ruler” to enable ruler, and “show” – then “grid”.

When I take photos of my work, I always take them in “High Quality” setting which is labeled HQ on my camera – though, I can take them as a RAW, TIFF or SHQ which are higher quality and much larger files than HQ.  For online work, HQ is plenty big.  I can also take them at a lower resolution by selecting the appropriate resolution from my camera’s menu screen.

To see what size my newly cropped image is, I type “Ctrl + Alt + I” to open the image size box.  I can also click on “image”  on top bar, then “image size” to open the dialog box.

For the web, 72 dpi is sufficient and Etsy, specifies images no larger than 1000 px in any single dimension.  I normally default to 800 px and always have.  It’s plenty big and if printed represents 11.11″.  Obviously if I were submitting images for a juried show, book or magazine submission, I would use a higher resolution based on guidelines provided.

Once I’ve entered the resolution and pixel dimensions, I hit “enter” on keyboard or “ok” in the dialog box.

Once, I’ve made the image smaller, I have to save it to my computer so that I can upload the new image to my Etsy shop.

I type in “Ctrl + S” to save the image to my computer.  Note: this affects the original photo file that I have uploaded to my computer.  If I wish to preserve the original file for later use, I can type “Ctrl + Shift + S” (or click on “file” – “save as”) to save as a different file name.  I will now have 2 images of same shot on my computer – the original and the newly altered one.  Sometimes this is good if I want to upload the same photo to different sites or to keep the original files away for future use or posterity.

Rinse, wash and repeat for each photo. Believe it or not, I can cruise through 100 or more photos in a about an hour.  The hard part is taking them.

It’s really important to have a filing system for photographs – I stress this because I have been a lax filer, and have lost images, altered originals, can’t find image I need when I want it fast, etc. etc.  For work like my inexpensive ceramic jewelry piece, this isn’t so critical, but for one off ceramic pieces that I no longer own, it’s a problem.

My final listing can be seen here: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=17845165. Notice, I’ve added a prop to one of my photos just for contrast.

I do prefer using a graduated dark charcoal gray to white photo backdrop for photographing pottery, although some people have been successful creating a catalog type product photo set up.  It just depends on the venue and audience.  I have found that using a graduated backdrop (like the one above) also eliminates the need to adjust photos, other than cropping and image size adjustment, in most cases.

In pinch, for less than $2.00 for the cost of paper, the make do set up above would work a lot better as a photo backdrop than many of the photographs I see on Etsy.  Simply place a large piece of paper on a table or other item against a wall and photograph outside on an overcast day or at dawn or dusk to eliminate nasty direct sunshine glare.  Different colored drawing paper would also work as a backdrop including black, gray, and something that would contrast well with the work while remaining neutral.

Have a great week,

~Cynthia

From Mad TV episode – makes me laugh…
This was shared courtesy of the Etsy Mud Team. Somehow, I really relate to Antonia – enjoy!

Meanwhile, I had a small Etsy milestone. The dawn of 2008 brought my 500th ? and my 100th sale. Thank you to everyone!

I know it’s not really a popularity contest – but it just means I have to keep on keepin’ on to continue to build my business. I’m doing something right, albeit slowly.

After spending all day in the studio yesterday, I have to switch gears today – I’m subbing for the special ed department at school. Although, it’s still a creative endeavor, it doesn’t involve making anything with my hands.

Happy Wednesday,

Cynthia

My daughter’s Birthday Cake purchased from Mulberries Cake Shop in Denver – Almost too pretty to eat!
This time of the year is, I am sure, busy for everyone – and so true for me. My daughter was born in December despite all my efforts to dislodge her at an earlier date. We try to keep her birthday separate from the Christmas festivities, including decorating the house for the holidays, so that she doesn’t feel like she’s cheated out of her special day.

As a result, she’s enjoyed a school birthday celebration, a family celebration and yesterday we hosted a proper party for her & her girlfriends. We okayed a sleepover despite knowing that we would all pay for it today due to lack of sleep. It helps that I enjoyed a piece of birthday cake for breakfast – so I’m living on caffeine and sugar today. Hopefully, I can ward off the crash till after dark.

I may be skilled in the clay department, but after last year’s birthday cake baking debacle, I decided to buy one this year to save everyone from my baking abominations. Do you know what it looks like to try to “glue” broken cake back together with frosting? Not pretty is all I have to say. We settled on Mulberries Cake Shop after I discovered the quaint Pearl Street Bakery this past summer. Last summer, my running cohorts and I used to slog through our 10 mile runs whilst talking about food. Someone mentioned the best cup cake in town – and I just had to try it out. Maybe that’s why I exercise, so that I can indulge. But, this pastime gets me into trouble in the winter months when my training slacks off.

Photo Credit from blog reader Aura Lee from the beautiful coast of Oregon
Apparently, I’m not alone in cake making finesse or lack thereof. Today, I received a lovely email from one of my blog readers, Aura Lee, who shared a photograph of one of her baking masterpieces with me. This was a cake for her daughter’s 20th birthday – one she hasn’t forgotten to this day! Aura Lee did tell me that despite appearances, it was delicious and enjoyed by all. Thanks Aura Lee! I think next year, I’m going to attempt another one – it’s sort of a reminder to me that perfect isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Birthdays should be about memories.

Meanwhile, I received phone calls and email updates from both the Art Student’s League and Anderson Ranch Arts Center this past week, confirming the kid’s art classes that I’ll be teaching next summer along with dates and times. See Below:

Class	Age Level	Location	Dates	Times
Mixed Media Marionettes	Grades 3 – 5	Art Student’s League of Denver	July 14th – 18th, 2008	1:00 to 4:00 PM
Image Transfer on Clay Surfaces for Kids	Grades 3 – 5	Art Student’s League of Denver	July 21st – 25th, 2008	9:00AM – 12:00 PM
Moveable Parts: Figurative Clay Sculpture	Ages 9 – 12	Anderson Ranch Arts Center	July 28th – August 1st, 2008	1:00 – 3:30PM
Make Some Noise with Clay	Grades 1 – 2	Art Student’s League of Denver	August 11th – 15th, 2008	9:00AM to 12:00 PM

The Arts Student League’s catalog will be coming out after the new year and Anderson Ranch already has a PDF calendar posted on their website. I love that both organizations schedule early so that I can get a glimpse of what my life will be like in 6 -7 months time.

In other unrelated news, I was perusing the Etsy Forums today and came across a link to a New York Time’s article about the whole arts and craft resurgence phenomenon and Etsy’s roll in the movement that is a good read if you have the time.

Have a great week,

~Cynthia

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Moi at the Fancy Tiger Holiday Handmade
Thank you to everyone who visited me at the Fancy Tiger Holiday Handmade Craft Fair this past weekend! Mike otherwise known as Mudpuppy on Etsy was kind enough to snap a photograph of me with some of my work at the show on Friday night right before the event opened to the public. Thanks Mike! I was so impressed with Jaime and Matthew, owners of Fancy Tiger, and their organizational skills and event planning. I was stressed out getting ready for the show, but if they were stressed, it sure didn’t show. There were fabulous crowds, lots of sales and best of all lots of connections made.

I even made a few trades and purchased a great screen printed T-shirt from Vital Industries for my daughter. Their screen printed vinyl toilet graphics are great too – I might have to purchase some for gifts for friends this year. One of my good friends and I always try to come up with the kitchiest gifts to exchange for Christmas every year. So far she has outdone me every year with a weather predicting stick from Maine (it actually works) and a hand sized plastic gnome that sits on a small tuft of plastic grass – you can even change out the background image placing him at the beach or even Paris.

Anyway, I digress. I submitted my application to the Colorado Potter’s Guild last week. Now I just wait to be interviewed – if they’re at all interested. I also have a tentative interview set up with the Art Student’s League this week to teach a kid’s clay workshop next summer.

I plan to relax these next few days, visit everyone’s blogs, maybe start Christmas shopping and get ready for our ski trip this next weekend.

Till later,

~Cynthia

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