DIY Your Product Photography

Kirsten 0:00

Have you ever wondered how in the world people get those photos on product covers and thumbnails so nice and crisp, and bright. And yours feels like super yellow and dark and dull. Or you're probably thinking oh, they probably use a super expensive camera, something that I have no time or energy to try to even navigate. The good thing is that product photography does not have to be complicated. It does not have to be super expensive. You just need your phone, a good window and some pops of color. So we will talk about that in today's episode

you're listening to the creative teacher podcast, a show for busy teachers looking for ways to engage, inspire and make an impact in their teacher businesses. I'm Kiersten, a teacher business owner who is all about simple and actionable tips, strategies and resources that result in wins, big or small. If you're looking for that extra spark of creativity, you've come to the right place. Let's dive in together.

All right, friends, thank you again for listening for this week. This week is all about how you can DIY your product photography. This is mainly really good for I mean, there's so many things you can use it for. You can use it for your product, cover your thumbnails, your previews, your social media pictures, your email, pictures, blog posts, the it's so there's so many different ways you can reuse your photos. That is why I think photos are so important. Do I think there needs to be a photo on all 500 of your products or all 50 over your products. No, I do not. If you don't have a time, it's totally fine. But if you do have a couple of resources that you feel could use a little extra shine that you want to really highlight or focus on. Or if you feel like are selling really well and you want to make it sell even more. I think product photography is a really great way to do that. So I'm going to talk about key components of product photography, some of the main things you need, there's five of them. And I'm going to give you five tips on taking your product photography and editing your product photography. So from start to finish, these are just based off of my experiences. And I am not by any means a professional photographer. I mean, I mostly create, you know, graphics and stuff. So this is just based on my own experience and how things have turned out for myself and for other clients.

So key components would be having a background right now in this day and age at the time of this recording, white backgrounds are the most desirable. There were times where it was like a wooden color background, kind of like that farmhouse chic look. But right now, what is really great, what works really well is just a white background. This can be done on a white table. You can go to any store and get a white poster board. One of the thicker thin ones, either one, just large enough to fit your papers on.

The second thing you would need is to have things to prep. So just different necessities. First of all printer ink having you know either finding a way to get printed at your local FedEx Office or other store, having printer ink available for your printer having white paper and also What helps is Astro brights or some type of colored paper, bright neon colored paper, pencils, markers, whatever you need to prep your resource.

The third key component is a phone or a camera. It's whatever phone you have on hand. Or if you happen to have a camera DSLR or anything like that, whatever you need to take the photos, that's what you use whatever works best for you, you do not have to invest at this time, on any type of expensive camera, you could just use the phone you currently have.

The fourth thing you would need is some lighting. The good thing is that everybody has it if you are, you know near a window and some sunlight, natural lighting does help a lot. And you're taking photos near a window. Now, what does help is, you know, the time of day, the time of day does matter, you need to just kind of look to see where the light hits in your house when you want to take pictures. So if you're taking pictures in the morning, that has the most light in that particular room, you might be taking pictures in the afternoon, depending on if it hits in a certain room at a certain time of day. So just kind of play around look to see you know, throughout the day, when think about when you are more likely to take pictures during the day. And also thinking about where the best rooms are where the light is where you want when you want to take those pictures. Now this would be on a clear day, cloudy days could be a little bit different, you would be probably ending up taking it in the middle of the day best. Or another recommendation would be to use a light box. And I'll link some helpful light boxes that I found that I personally have. But light boxes can be used day or night. And it's has usually an LED light at the top and some white is just basically a box that you can put in your paper. And it's white all around with the LED at the top. And you can take some really nice, crisp photos of your resources.

And then the fifth key component would be editing software. If you have a smartphone such as Apple, you can use you know your apple photos editing software, where you click on the picture and click Edit. And you can edit with that you could also use Lightroom, they have an app version, it's completely free. That's something that I use. I also have the desktop version which is paid. But you can always edit on your phone with the Lightroom app for free.

Here are some tips for DIY your product photography. Tip number one, print out just a few pages, you do not have to print out your whole entire resource, you can always pick the most interesting or best looking pages, you know, which looks visually appealing. So maybe if you have a page of like lines to answer a question, versus you know, one with multiple choice questions, and it looks you know, there's a picture that could be one you can print rather than the one with just the lights. But another thing you can do is prep it, you know adding in if it's one with just you know essay format, you can always fill in as if you are taking that test or reading that essay. And using pencils and markers or crayons or whatever you would like to use to fill it in to make it look like you know, give teachers an idea of what it would look like if it's filled out. Either way, print, you know, you don't have to print the whole entire resource. If it is a pretty big resource, I would pick a few pages from each section. So let's say you've got some you know big vocabulary unit, you can print off a couple pages of the cards, a couple pages of the exercises a couple pages of the test and take a whole bunch of pictures there.

The second tip I have for you is to use marker or pen when filling out it is easier to see than pencil. Take this from me. I've tried it with pencil because of course I don't want it to be like oh, they're using pen on this assignment. I wanted it to be really authentic. So I used pencil, but when it came to it, it was really hard to see the pencil and I even used colored pencil on one of the pictures it just did not turn out good. So I recommend using pen or marker if you're filling out something and just to make it really clear and easy to see and easy to edit. It's otherwise it's going to be really difficult to edit and get that brightness that you're probably looking for. And without it looking all like you know it's hard to see because it's it's pencil right? So think about that. Consider it and potentially implement it.

Tip number three, try different angles. If you are normally going, you know from the side, try overhead, trying to get the whole, you know everything on the poster board in. Or if you usually do overhead, try seeing what it looks like on the left angle. And on the right angle. Sometimes if I'm by a window taking pictures, I go a certain angle, but it's really hard to see because the light is bouncing down at the opposite angle. But when I turn the camera the other way, and kind of habit where the light is behind the camera. And it makes it a lot better of a picture. And, you know, just playing around with where you know the light is and where it might look best. You could also take note of any shadows, if you're opening your window, I always opened my window up, you know, during the best times, and I just kind of check you know, where the the you can usually see different shadows. So I try to move, I might move my poster board around, I might rotate it completely to the left, I might rotate it completely to the right, and it can change the shadowing depending on the time of day. So really think about you know, where you know, if it's just not looking right, you might need to move your poster board, tilt it around. Or you might need to, you know, find a different window, you might need to tilt your camera a little bit more to get the right lighting, it's all about making it really easy to see in the right light.

Tip number four, edit using preferences. So some people would not prefer having a really white background with the color, they feel they might feel like it's too over edited. And that's okay. Personally, I like high contrast with the white background. But if you're like really keen on blue backgrounds, or just a darker background in general, so that you can edit as you see fit, then you should definitely make sure you're editing using your preferences. What I do recommend for anybody regardless is to just at least brighten it a little bit so that it kind of puts your product into focus, and then potentially adding more contrast. To help those colors pop out a little bit more how much contrast you want to use might differ from person to person. Something else a big tip here is you might notice your picture looks really yellow, or it might look really blue. And that's where you would probably need to adjust the warmth. If it's yellow, it doesn't you know, whatever the time of day was, it's a war it's very warm, you want to lower that learn down. So it's like you know, it kind of goes in between until you no longer see it look yellow. If it's blue, it's a little bit too cool. So you're going to need to warm have those tones warm up a little bit, you're going to increase that warmth. And I believe you can find more fun you know, when you're editing on Instagram on Apple editing, you know, regular editing Lightroom has warmth, there's some type of warmth there that you would need to fix. Just adjust that toggle so that if it's too yellow, you can tone it down. If it's too blue, you can also tone it down.

The fifth tip I have for you is to zoom in to check for quality. This is a really great way to if you are not sure if you know how it would look, if we were to zoom in the resolution, you might notice some blurry shots, you might notice that it's hard to read the words, it's a little bit pink, might be a little too oversaturated. So you would have to make some adjustments based on that you might have to take a photo again. But definitely zoom in to check for the quality. More times than not though, you know, especially if you're just putting in a picture for your email or something like that. People are not really going to care. But if you are taking these photos and you want it to really look good for your blog, or your product listing, or your social media, then definitely zoom in to check for quality.

So here is your creative action tip for today. Think about these tips. I know it's so you know, daunting to try to take photos, but I want you to pick one resource in your store this week. And at some point, I want you to print a few pages. It can be a small resource, print a few pages, lightly prep it, take your phone, find a window and take a few pictures. Try editing it and see where you can use it. Maybe you can add it in a preview. Maybe you can put it on a Instagram Don't post. So just see if you know, just try and always doesn't hurt to try. But one of your resources, I want you to try some product photography on it. If you happen to take some photos and put it on your Instagram tagged me take a screenshot tag me in it. And I would love to see how your photos turn out. I can even give you some tidbits to help you out. That's the end of today's episode. I hope you have an amazing rest of your day and I'll talk to you again soon.

Thanks for tuning in to the creative teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode, feel free to subscribe and leave a review. I'd love to hear your feedback. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I cannot wait for you to join me in the next episode for more tips and inspiration. Have an amazing day.