# Casein RB photo



## Stevej72 (Nov 27, 2011)

I've been trying to improve the look of my photos since opening a shop on Etsy. I think this is my best so far.  Any suggestions and input would be appreciated.

Thanks, Steve
http://www.etsy.com/shop/JansPens


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## 76winger (Nov 27, 2011)

The photos look well lit and and the focus is really good as well. If anything, you might play with your lighting to see what you can do about reducing the shadows, but they're not as excessive as that produced by flash shots. 

Great looking pen too!


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## scotian12 (Nov 27, 2011)

Hi Steve...my suggestion is to go search the posts for other casein pens and see what they are doing right. You have a beautiful pen but the background colour and grey log obscure it. rememder...its all about the pen.


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## Whaler (Nov 27, 2011)

I agree with Dave. Great photos but the shadows are a bit harsh. Absolutely beautiful pen.
If adjusting the lighting a simple tweak in most photo editing software will do the job.
I use Photo Shop Elements 10 but Picasa and Gimp are both good ones and are free.
I took the liberty of tweaking one of your shots.
I opened Adjust Lighting, Shadows/Highlights, set it at 10, again in Adjust Lighting opened Levels and clicked Auto. Not a major change but it did soften the shadows.
1st pic is the original the 2nd is tweaked.


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## Stevej72 (Nov 28, 2011)

Thanks for the tips and advice!  I will give it a try and see what happens.  Dick, I do have Elements 6 and need to learn how to use it better.  I can see the improvement you made and maybe I need to upgrade to Elements 10.


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## Whaler (Nov 28, 2011)

Stevej72 said:


> Thanks for the tips and advice!  I will give it a try and see what happens.  Dick, I do have Elements 6 and need to learn how to use it better.  I can see the improvement you made and maybe I need to upgrade to Elements 10.



Steve, You can do the adjustments in Elements 6 so no need to upgrade.


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## sbarton22 (Nov 29, 2011)

One other bit of advice. Concentrate on composition. Where does your eye enter and leave the frame? Do horizontal or vertical lines stop the eye from wanting to see the entire image? 

Then, take a step back and ask as objectively as possible, what is the most important thing in the image. I hate to say it, but your wood chunk takes away from the pen. 

Compare #2 and #4. #2 makes me want to look at the wood and as it sits out of frame, the direction of the grain  shoots my eye right out of the image and I am ready to move on. The wood grain is vertical, stopping my natural right to left flow. It falls out of frame, so as it redirects my eyes, I leave the image. 

#4 is much more successful. It is ABOUT the pen...no doubt. In fact, it wasn't until #4 did I even notice the texture of the pen itself.

This is not to say that you can't stage your image. I think the ABSOLUTE best sales images out there are staged with contextual objects. You just have to be careful what the objects are doing to the composition.


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