I have run into group of marketing articles which convey the importance of quality product photos rather than attempt to rewrite the information I thought I would just re-publish the links here. The message is, without fail, use the best quality photos you can be it DYI or commissioned from a professional.
Enjoy...

The Do's and Don't of Product Photography - http://bit.ly/29PmDog
Hiring a Professional Photographer to Photograph your Products - http://bit.ly/29L3QrH
How to Drive Sales With Effective Product Photography - http://bit.ly/29Y96cr
Why Presentation and Context Are Crucial to E-Commerce Product Photos - http://bit.ly/29OT9Go

Those Darned Shinny Surfaces!

From jewelry to water filters(?) Package and product designers love to use clean polished surfaces to give the product an up-scale appeal and it works for the most part. Hey,lets face it, we love the shinny. It's amazing how human vision can cloud the details of what we really see for what we want to perceive. 
In a store we see the chrome cap on that bottle of cologne as a shinny silver embellishment. We seem to ignore the fact that that little piece of silver is mirroring back all the objects in the area. From the sales person to all the fixtures and lighting are reflected in this little mirror. Our eyes see this visual "noise" and our brains filter it out as extra information we don't need. Examine a photograph of that bottle taken in the same place and distance, suddenly we see all the little reflections and imperfections. Our eyes are drawn to them as a moth to a bright light. When we examine a photo our full attention is focused on the item without any other distractions. Our brain shifts gears and we begin to focus on the details of the product. 
As a product photographer it's my job to photograph that shinny without any distracting reflections and still show a shinny surface without the use of software fixes which tend look faked. I have spent years learning and experimenting with the shinny enough to know that each item presents it's own set of problems and solutions. Here is an example of a shinny object that, while not being a mirror, still reflects all that is around it.

A big shinny cylinder!

Keeping some of the unevenness in the reflections helps to define the objects shape and how smooth the surface.

Having trouble with your "shinny"? I can take out the stress of the shinny. Give me a call.  

Imported Jewelry and Imaging for Amazon

With the explosion of jewelry vendors vying for Amazon's attention Amazon.com has had to tighten up what is considered the primary product image rules for acceptable use. Hence the 20 page long Jewelry Style Guide. While Amazon has always had these guidelines in place, certification staff has really been towing the line and images that may have squeaked by in the past won't cut it anymore.
White means white period. Not RGB 254,254,254 but 255,255,255, and sharp as a tack front to back. Quite a challenge when we are working with macro distances. This means shooting at f/22 or higher and requiring gobs of quality light only possible with very powerful (and hot) continuous halogen lights or pricey studio quality strobes.  We choose strobes. The halogen lights are so hot they overpower the A/C and heat the studio to uncomfortable levels in about an hour.
Following are an example of some rejected images.

 Wrong layout, focus, and not on white.

Not on white and focus.

All of the above would be ok for Ebay, Craig's List and other auction sites, but they fall short because of some technical flaws. We noticed the colors on the failed images were a bit off which may  have caused customer satisfaction issues because the images don't actually reflect the products true colors.

Here are the approved shots the client had us do after the in-house method failed. (Please note: there is always some color shifting because of individual monitor/browser rendering.)

Following the style guide the background measures

255,255,255 and everything is in focus. Colors

are calibrated and 100% accurate.

The little jobs save the day!

Today I did  a shot of a client's father's wedding ring, exactly as given to the son, without any cleaning for insurance coverage.

Nikon D90 with a 55mm f2.8 Macro lens f8, 1/50 under LED lighting with white & black bounce cards.

Its little jobs like this that although, not exciting and glamorous, that pay the bills in the off season.

ProdPhoto Commercial Product Photography

In the midst of the summer months, I find myself in the quiet time before the holiday catalog and advertising crush, a great time to rekindle the urge to write.

First of all, let me introduce my company and what ProdPhoto.com does. ProdPhoto.com is a product photography shop that caters to new business and artists that want professional high end photography services but are new to what can often be the complex and expensive world of commercial photography. Usage licensing,  copyright issues, sample selection and preparation,  final image file type and sizing, and archiving are all simplified and direct. Above all ProdPhoto stays within your budget as little as $10 per finished image.




You tell us what you plan to use the images for and ProdPhoto will provide you with the original high resolution print files(TIFF format @240 dpi up to 24mpx) and any other format required, re-sized to fit your needs(ie. JPG @72 dpi suitable for the web). Fully cleaned up or "Photoshopped" images that render true colors and 1st class results.

Reproduction of artisan works which stay true to color, texture and proportion can be very difficult without the proper equipment. ProdPhoto's professionals use modern industry leading equipment and software to render your creations accurately. No color shifting, no spatial distortion only your design comes through.

90% of what ProdPhoto does is small tabletop items like jewelry, paintings, pottery and other similar items. The other 10%  are slightly larger items like clothing apparel, larger paintings and art pieces.



Well, that's it for today, I have run out of time and have to go into the studio and shoot some antique pottery. Be back soon!