Photographing my work

NeonThunder

Active Member
So I'm currently photographing my portfolio and my battery in the camera have died so I thought i'd start with editing some of the shots I'd done.

But after looking at them I'm not sure if i've got everything setup right, the lighting on the images seems yellow and i did wonder if a white background could be part of the problem. Before i go any further can i have peoples views?

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Hey mate, would it not be easier to mock up the shots instead of actually photographing them?
 
Gareth said:
Hey mate, would it not be easier to mock up the shots instead of actually photographing them?
I had thought of that but i also wanted to practise my photography as i think sometimes it shows more effort instead of using some templates and applying my work to it. Gives it a more 'real' presence on screen.
 
NeonThunder said:
I had thought of that but i also wanted to practise my photography as i think sometimes it shows more effort instead of using some templates and applying my work to it. Gives it a more 'real' presence on screen.
this is fine if you have the time and the experience with doing this type of work, in most cases using a template is a lot quicker and easier.

If I'm honest about the photo, in my opinion it's not that good (I do photography as a hobby and what you're doing is basically my 3D rendering with a camera).
  • Obvious issues that I can see from the image are:
  • focus (it looks blurred)
  • only used one light source, hence the dark shadow
  • no real contrast between the background and the subject matter, you could even use a lightly textured base, say brushed aluminium or a wood to add scale/contrast etc.
  • angle of shot, you're not really using perspective to it's best advantage. My recommendation is take photos of objects as though you're looking at them in real life, you would in most cases be looking down for a business card while looking at a house would be more horizontal/level in approach.
  • subject matter is not tidy and even looks damaged on the first image (corners of the 'card')
  • can't tell what it is, there's no real sense of scale

I did a very quick bit of post processing using your image to show you some of what I mean. Now this isn't perfect, I didn't change the shadow for example but it will give you a better idea of what I mean.
 

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Hey, go for it if it's something you want to do, I'm a big fan of photographed work. I'm also a hobbyist photographer and had a go myself recently, as I'm looking to make some branding/mockup packs soon. It can be quite a challenge to get something that looks good... What camera are you using, because the images don't look very high res, and that's definitely not helping.

Personally, I get quite bored of the plain grey backgrounds too. It looks very standard! Here are a couple of mine, a 1/3 A4 party invitation printed on Siri Pearl Polar card:

ieNo9vE.jpg



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You're also going to want to be able to process them at much higher res, while retaining the sharpness:

QDmwJ4P.png
 
Yeah I just picked a plain background because it was easier to edit the original image, a nice dark wood would have probably worked nicely with the theme of the cards or even something similar to the leather in Sean's pictures.
 
Spoke to my friend today who's a photographer and she's gonna give me some help with it and help me set up my camera etc so they should turn out better :)
 
The main issue is the artificial light and low light quality, this is causing a grain, is your ISO set really high to compensate?

Also try playing around with white balance, if you take pics in RAW format you can have more control editing.
 
You should always consider using sunlight, preferably on an overcast day as one of your main sources of light. This will keep your colors true and vibrant and your image looking more sharp.
 
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