Making It Ep. 1: Product Photography

Hello, my darling patrons and friends, and welcome to the very first episode of the new Making It monthly series, where I take you step-by-step through how I make important pieces of my freelance art business. 

Throughout the series I’ll be sharing how I make my handmade earrings, enamel pins, custom portraits, process videos, stickers, product photography, and more, so you can be empowered to try making a new product or adding new techniques to your own process. 

And since I’m a weirdly frugal person who is growing this business from a tiny budget, I try to keep my processes as accessible and affordable as possible. If you have a big studio with all the cool equipment and software, awesome! If you’re working from your living room with just your tablet and big ambitions, also awesome and also, same! I’m a big believer in working with what you have, and not letting perfectionism get in the way of getting started. The way I make thing is not the only way, the most professional way, or the final way, but I don’t let that stop me, and neither should you!

For this first episode, I’ll be sharing my process for taking and editing product photos using only my iPad. 

(You can probably guess that I’m not a trained or professional photographer, so hopefully, I don’t offend any of you too much with my very DIY approach!)

Let's get to Making our awesome product photography!

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C  A  M  E  R  A

+ iPad Pro 2018 Built-In Camera! Why do I use my iPad to take and edit product photos? For few reasons:

• When I quit my job in 2018 to start Ragonia, my laptop immediately died and I had to make my first investment in my iPad Pro. I still haven’t bought a replacement laptop or computer (but I should definitely get one soon) and I use my iPad for everything.
• I’m frugal / eco-conscious / a cheap son-of-a-bitch, and it usually takes a pretty big push to get me to buy a new piece of tech or equipment, like a camera, computer, or Adobe subscription. 
• I don’t like taking a lot of time on product photography, and even if the quality is lower, I like as few barriers as possible in getting me to photograph, edit, and upload my products.

+ Use what you have! Before I had my iPad I used my iPhone, and one day I’ll probably upgrade to a full-on camera or cellphone with a nicer camera, and edit my photos on a computer. Use the programs and tools that you have, or if you're not sure of what to use, give the ones I use a try. Invest and Upgrade when you're ready.

L  I  G  H  T

+ Kitchen Table! My photography studio is at my kitchen table, next to the window. Ideally on a cloudy day or whenever the sun isn’t shining directly in. No flash on the camera, ever. Be aware of shadows made by your body and other objects.

+ At night! Sometimes I just want to get it over with and take pictures at night using my overhead kitchen light, which isn’t very harsh, but does alter the colors and quality, and requires a lot more editing and color correcting.

+Do it right! The idea is to make the light and color look as good as possible during the photography stage so you can edit as little as possible.

B  A  C  K  D  R  O  P  S

+ Former! For my backdrops in the past I’ve used:

• Wooden kitchen table
• Plants and rocks on my patio
• Big sheets of white drawing paper
• Red wrapping paper roll (that I found in a recycling bin, hehe)

+ Current! These days my backdrops of choice are a couple of big colorful drawing papers that I bought at the local art supply store. I experiment with different matching and contrasting colors for the products.

+ Bigger products! If I have a larger product, I’ll layer the two over each other for a funky mismatched color background.

+ 3D Products! For most products, I use the pieces of paper laying flat on my table. 

For more dimensional shots, you can gently bend the paper so it leans against a nearby wall, using small bits of tape or clips to keep it in place. Boom! Instant photo studio!

P  H  O  T  O  G  R  A  P  H

Yep, I snap my pics just like this, leaning against the kitchen table. Obviously keeping as still as possible, making sure the camera is clean and focused, and never using the zoom option or side camera button (so I don’t shake the camera.)

+ Variety: I take repeating photos of similar poses for certain products. For originals and prints the poses I use are:

• Plain flat lay
• Holding the corner with one hand (for scale)
• An angled closeup (for texture and detail)

For enamel pins, I'll take photos of the pins on their backing, on jackets, being held, etc. For stickers I take photos of them on journals, being held, next to a ruler, with similar stickers, etc. You can pop on Etsy and look for similar products to get inspiration for useful poses.

I try to have a nice variety of at least three different shots of my products. But I typically don’t like to take the full 8-10 that Etsy recommends, because it takes a lot of time.

A few examples of different poses for my online shop.

A variety of Etsy listing photos, all made from the same mock-up in the center.

+Big Print Photography Tip! MAKE MOCK-UPS! Rather than individually photographing every print you’re going to sell, save yourself a lot of time by taking your own mockup photos and editing your art onto them. Mock-ups are photographs with blank products (paper, shirts, mugs, etc.) that are a blank canvas for the final product to be edited on top.

You can buy pre-made mock-ups for your prints if you like (search ‘Etsy print mock-ups’ or something similar) but recommend taking your own if you can! Take and edit a variety of photos of a correctly-sized piece of white paper, and use that as the template to edit your final art onto in photoshop or procreate.

E  D  I  T  I  N  G

+ Get Comfy! After I’ve taken all the photos, I hunker down on the couch with a queue of podcasts playing (like MBMBAM, Oh No Ross and Carrie, or Critical Role,) because editing takes a while.

+ Snapseed! For most of my photo editing, I use Google’s free photo editing app, Snapseed, on my iPad. This post isn't sponsored, it's just what I use.

Two-step editing process for personal photos for Instagram and Patreon.

+ Personal Photos! For personal photos, photos that will go on my Instagram or these Patreon posts, I typically like to add a bit of quick colorful flair with both Snapseed and a VSCO filter. VSCO is a photo editing app, with premade filters, similar to Instagram's premade photo filters.

I usually tweak the brightness and saturation in Snapseed, then pop it into VSCO and apply a filter at about 50% strength. My personal most used filters are C1/ Chromatic, G3/ Portraits, and my super fave: KK1/ Krochet Kids. 

I’d say go fairly light with the filters, so they don’t accidentally come out looking overdone. But of course, whatever looks awesome to you!

Start to Finish product photography editing on Snapseed.

+ Example Product Photo Editing!

Let’s go through the exact editing steps I took to reach the final product photo for this painting. 

It’s not always this straightforward, but these are a few of my most used tools within the Snapseed app. Most of these tools have equivalents in Photoshop or other editing software.

+ WHITE BALANCE:  Edit > White Balance > Neutral Color. Place the crosshairs over the white of the paper.

+TUNE IMAGE:  Edit > Tune Image > Adjust. This is the step I use the most, and continually return to and adjust. Tweak the different options until the image is looking brighter, nicer, whatever you’re looking for. Usually, I at least turn up the saturation and brightness.  

Careful about overdoing it! 

+ SELECTIVE:  Edit > Selective > Add Points. One of my favorite tools in Snapseed, you can place points and it will choose only that color in a certain radius. Turn up the brightness and turn down saturation for the white part of the paper in a print. Gently adjust brightness for bright and/or dark spots on the paper. 

Another tip, select a point and pinch to change the radius of the effect.

+ BRUSH: Edit > Brush > Temperature +10. The top corner was looking a little green, so use the brush to up the color temperature (make it a little more warm, or orange) just in that area. This can also be great for brightening and whitening backgrounds by hand.

+ HEALING: Edit > Healing. Brush over blemish spots,  like any stray hairs or creases. Functions like the clone tool in photoshop, copying from the surrounding area to hide blemishes.

 Don’t cover up any perceived blemishes in the product, you want to be honest with the customer about exactly what the product looks like!

+ FINISHED! Generally, I rotate through these techniques until I have a final photo that I love. Then it’s ready to be uploaded to Etsy or Instagram!

Some of my earliest product photography. From top to bottom: 2017, Spring 2018, Winter 2018.

And that’s my product photography and editing process right now! It’s truly a learning process, but remember that you can always do better and that shouldn’t stop you from getting started. 

My product photography has improved so much since I started in 2017, and I can already imaging ways to improve it even more.

Ragonia Etsy product photography, Winter 2019. Taken with an iPad and edited with Snapseed.

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R  E  S  O  U  R  C  E  S

• Snapseed Help Guide  - Google
• How to Use Snapseed - Guide by Make Use Of
• The Ultimate Guide to Product Photography - Etsy
• How to Edit Your Product Photos - Etsy
• Taking Photographs with a Phone - Etsy

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I hope you all find this article helpful, especially if you’ve felt intimidated by product photography, and thought you couldn’t get started without a camera and Photoshop.

Let's chat! What do you use to take and edit your product photos? Do you love it or hate it, and did you ever feel too ‘unprofessional’ to get started? Where‘s your ‘photography studio?’ Any favorite tips, tricks or resources to share?  Let us know in the comments, we’d love to hear!

And please let me know what you think about this new series! You all seemed to really love the Arty Business series, and I’m so hoping you love this one just as much. Drop any topic requests in the comments as well, and I’ll add them to the list for upcoming topics.

As always, thank you so much for your support here on Patreon. YOU are truly making it possible for me to spend the time sharing this information with 140 other artists and creators around the world. I, and we, thank you.

Now go forth and get making!

xoxo, Ragon