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Lightshade

Compelling images of your artwork is often the key to making that online sale, getting the interest of the press, or snagging that spot at a craft show. So here are some useful links to help you out.

Etsy’s Storque has been cranking out some fabulous articles on photographing your art DIY style in the last few months:

Give Props: How to Style Your Photos- This is a great article on how to “style” your photographs to create the perfect look or atmosphere for your crafts photos.

Bright Light, Big Color: Using EV and White Balance to Make Your Photos True to Life- Great little article on that explains the voodoo of proper lighting for your photographs and how to use your digital camera to the best effect.

Shop Makeover series: Photographing for Success- This article is part of a series to help artists who sell on Etsy to improve their shops. But the photography advice is applicable to just about anyone.

On The Level: Make Your Photos Pop with Histograms and Levels- For you adventurous artists who have dabbled with Photoshop, here’s a great tutorial on how to adjust your images using the Levels tool (I’ve saved many an image by just adjusting the Levels).

Printing Digitally: Producing Beautiful D.I.Y. Photo Prints- This is a nice in depth article that can show you how to take convert those digital images into print.

Etsy Pets in Vogue: Getting The Right Shot- Not all of your models are going to be…well, human. Here’s a great article on how to get your lovable pooch to strike a pose.

How-to Photograph Jewelry: Get the Basics with Vadjutka- As any jeweler knows…jewelry is a special challenge when it comes to photography. This article focuses specifically on how to photograph jewelry.

Etsy Pets in Vogue: Getting The Right Shot- Not all of your models are going to be…well, human. Here’s a great article on how to get your lovable pooch to strike a pose.

Light boxes are often the key to that nice soft even lighting in your photography. Here an tutorial from the Instructables site:

Costless Macro Photography Light Box- A nice little tutorial on how to make your own light box

And another one from Evil Mad Scientist…

Lampshade Light Tent- How to make a light “box” using an Ikea lampshade.

Maddy at Modish has been writing a series on Building a craft business. Here are a couple of blog posts in this series is about how to take better photographs of your artwork:

BUILDING A BUSINESS: Taking Better Pictures- This article has some good general advice about lighting, props, and how to find a good digital camera.

BUILDING A BUSINESS- Starting a Prop Room- This is a nice short article on what props to gather to style your photographs.

Here’s a couple of posts by other artists…

Learning to photograph your work- This post is from Libzoid Blog. It contains tips, and links to craft photographers and useful tutorials.

How-to Photograph Jewelry: Get the Basics with Vadjutka- As any jeweler knows…jewelry is a special challenge when it comes to photography. This article focuses specifically on how to photograph jewelry.

Here is a useful post on some software for altering your images…

15 Useful Batch Image Processors- This post by Smashing Magazine lists the links to 15 batch image programs. Now if you need to resize or convert a bunch of images at a time, you can simply use one of these programs to do the work for you.

Most of these links concentrate on doing your own craft photography. But doing your own photography is not always a good idea as artist Luann Udell points this out in her blog post.

When DIY Isn’t Enough…Looks Are Everything- This post is an oldie…but a goodie. Luann talks about when it’s a bad idea to do your own photography and how to find a professional to do the job.

Enjoy!