Should you Watermark?

Before and After.

This is an edit I did for Vanessa of My Mommy's Bracelets. She has chosen to forgo the watermark. I was able to clean up her image with a heavy dose of the clone tool.

Is watermarking your images a good preventative for theft? I think it is! Sure, an editor can manipulate it off your image. It is time consuming to remove, and oftentimes affects the image quality. So most unscrupulous competitors surfing the net for pictures to use on their website will pass your image by if there is a watermark.

What do you think?

White Background #1

There are many ways to get a white background on your product photo. Some are easy, some not so easy. Sometimes, you need to do the not so easy edit to get the look you need.

Here are two images I edited for nstylemom.com. I want to tell you about how I got the look in these two images.

The first one, a wipe case.

Before:

After:

This is how I got this look:

• Select the lasso tool, and choose point to point selection. Have the feather & smoothing set to zero.
• Click around your object carefully. Once you have gotten all the way around, and you join up at your start, double click. Then you will get "marching ants" around your object. Hit Ctrl+X, and that removes your selection. Then hit Ctrl+V, and that pastes the selection as a new image.
  
• Select Image->Canvas size. Then size your canvas square by making the lengths a bit larger than the current length. (Make sure aspect ratio is unchecked.) Now you have a square image.
  
• Next, go to Layers ->Merge. Now your background is white, and your image is square.
• Now you can adjust your brightness, contrast, saturation, etc, until you get the look you want. Next, resize it for the web by resizing to at most 500X500.

When I first started editing product pictures, I cropped, but paid no mind to the measurements. But I have learned that most shopping carts will look MUCH better if your image is a square.

Okay, next image is of a chenille pillow. Before:


After:

This requires some more manipulation. When I click around the pillow, there is no way I have time to outline each little chenille tuft. So, I don't.

I quickly outline with the lasso. I follow all the steps mentioned above. And then, to get the chenille looking fluffy again, I use the Smudge tool. I grab the edge, and pull it outward, creating tufts of chenille :-)

~Kirsten

Quick Tip for white backgrounds

If you use a white background for your product pictures, here is a quick tip for you.

When you think you are finished the editing process, add a white border, or resize the canvas by 50 or 100 pixels around. What this does is gives you a view of how your photo will look when placed against a white background. Often times, by doing this, you will see background areas that were missed. For example:
I can now see that there is still some background to be removed around the edges. Before I added the white border, this image looked all done. Now I have some more work to do!

I hope this quick tip was helpful, so you may have the best pictures possible for your website!

~Kirsten

P.S. - no arrows were injured in the making of this image

Picasa

There are plenty of photo editing programs on the market today, in all different price ranges. Perhaps your digital camera came with organizing and editing software. For family pictures, this software is very helpful. You can get rid of red eye, crop, and auto enhance.

If you are wanting to showcase something on the internet, you will probably be looking for software that offers you more. The search for the perfect software is daunting, especially if you are price conscious. The adage "you get what you pay for" does not necessarily fit in this situation.

In the coming weeks, I will be blogging about editing software options. Today, I will tell you about Picasa, which is a free download from Google. Link: http://picasa.google.com/

Picasa is similar to the software you might get with your digital camera. It organizes your photos, and performs basic editing such as auto enhance and resizing. It is packed with common sense, and that is worth alot! Editing software tends to come with a learning curve. Not so with Picasa. And if you do find you need help, they have a user-friendly online FAQ and "getting started" guide.

If you want to fancy up your family pictures, Picasa has alot to offer you, with several auto-effects such as sepia, and black and white, with easy controls to adjust brightness, contrast & color saturation.

If you want to improve your product photos, Picasa might leave you frustrated. You do not want fancy effects on a product image. You want bright, crisp and clear details. You can resize your image through "export" but the sizes are predetermined, leaving you with no flexibility.

Surprisingly, one thing I can depend on Picasa for is resizing text graphics. I have found it resizes the text perfectly with no loss of clarity. If you are having trouble with your text blurring when resized, give Picasa a try.

Picasa's strength is in photo organizing, and enhancing family pictures. And it is free. Try it, and post back here about how it went!

~Kirsten