Making better ad pictues?

I'm looking to make better product pictures because frankly mine are lame. Can anyone give me any tips on making better ones? Also, what image editor do you prefer to use?

Could we have an example to look at? That would make it easier to come up with suggestions.

Generally speaking, flattering lighting and the use of the 'High Resolution' option when taking pics are good places to start.

When I take photos of furniture I have made in rl, I always make sure it is in front of a white background. If I would ever wish to submit one to a woodworking magazine, it would be required.

I don't think that is necessary for sl pics, but don't have such a busy background that your product gets lost in the background.

I use photoshop elements for both rl and sl pics. Mostly because I can't justify the expense of a full version of photoshop.

Here is one of them. It's very dull, just a picture of the chair itself.

show an alternate shoot with someone seating in it?

It's too dark a picture right now. Either remove the background or take a picture of the chair within a more natural setting like a living room. Make it a bigger picture too. Adding a person on the chair to make people get a sense of it's size and how it would look with them on it. Maybe some text in there with your store name, the name of the item, etc.

I use GIMP and I don't sell much in SL so I've never created a product picture. But I have done pictures of avatars for people and placed them on varous, different backgrounds. Using your the picture you provided I would cut the furniture from the background that it is on and replace it with something more or less "plain"......like a simple white or slightly grey, flat background. Anything that is neutral and compliments the item of focus (your furniture item in this case).

On the item you want to sell, I would increase the contrast a little and lighten it some......not so much to fade the colors but enough to bring out the detail a little. Also when taking the picture in SL use "high resolution" snapshots to disk and choose a resolution near or at your monitor's resident resolution. Zoom in close so the item fills your UI screen. You can always reduce the size without much lose (or any at all) but you will loose detail if you have to increase the size.

You might try taking other pictures from different angels and put them on your ad picture. And as long as you use a simple background that has a color very unlike the furniture item cutting out the item is pretty easy. The picture you supplied should be easy to remove the background.

That's the way I would do it, anyway.

I would place the chair on a full bright white background. Take lots of shots to your drive from every appealing angle, including some with someone seated. The more the better.

Take all these in to any photo editing program and arrange 2 or 3 of the best shots, leaving room for names and description. Since they all have a full bright white background the arranging of the pictures should be easy. Just a little resizing and some cropping.

Add some text describing things.

To really schnazzify even basic editors have some kind of highlight edge tool.

This can be archived easily with the photo editor bloat program your puter came with. I suggest playing about with it. Of course gimp or psp have far more options, but sometimes simpler is better.

Drop me an IM in world I can show you some easy to make examples.

Alisha Matova

i don't know if the way i do it is appealing to anyone other than myself, but i also use a plain white background - including ONLY what is for sale in the vendor, then sometimes use fancy photoshop brushes to make a border that compliments my logo (or keep it white and don't use borders), and of course ad my logo and descriptions/price of the product.

i really really love the clothing lines that show an avatar wearing the clothes with all sorts of fun graphics and poses, but i don't think i could do it without making it gaudy. i'm just not that talented.

I love that glitz too.......but, it's the product for sale that you are wanting to draw attention to. Not the fancy background or snazzy graphics. Just make it so the item for sale is shown in the most appealing way. A simple snapshot is better than some fancy distracting background. White is good for most things.

See, I totally disagree with the above "plain white background" statements. If I'm looking for RL furniture, in an upscale magazine, like Architectural Digest or an Ethan Allen catalogue, I like to see what size the piece is in relation to a) people b) the room and c) other furniture. I'd rather see that chair in a picture of a lovely living room, with some well-dressed avatars lounging in the furniture.

True, but when you are talking about a small box, the item gets lost in the background. I used the plain white background because the woodworking mags that I read in rl, require plain white when submitting photos for publication in their reader contribution pages.

Why not both? A nice big poster of the chair in a room with a model and then smaller product vendors with the plain white or some other color background. I've seen a lot of stores use this. I guess it depends on where these pictures will be used.

yuk on the pic.

If you have a sit pose (you should if you don't) with it you should include in the pic a sitter (this may help the pic a lot lol). Also after getting some better shots upload the pics to your hard drive (its free) maybe add some bullet points from gimp or photoshop like prim count or small artful vignettes of different angles maybe even the price. In sales the old saying is; "sell the sizzle not the steak", so your bullet points should reflect that.

Not a photographer but the chair is a bit dark so contrast the background with a lighter not to busy background ( don't want to destract from your chair )
If its modifiable that could be included as a bullet point as well.

Visit some major furniture makers see how they package their furniture. I personally don't box furniture especially low prim stuff however I have made some exceptions with things like bedroom sets.

Just a few idea's and you should really test a few different approaches, advertising thru pictures can be a finicky science

Sometimes when viewing a flat-looking SL photo it is hard to separate objects from their backgrounds, which is why many suggest taking the photo against a plain background. This also gives the option of more easily substituting a different background during editing.

But either way, good lighting will also help an object to stand out.

A general suggestion for photos in SL is to use a client with windlight - the shading can help make an object look less flat. Play around with the time of day settings to get the best illumination.

And/or use a light source or two, a brighter one to one side and slightly higher to give general illumination, and a less bright one perhaps lower down to illuminate the shadows a little. Play around with them to find the best effect.

Thanks for all your advice.

S.

Whatever you're selling, the idea is to give the potential purchaser an idea of how they would look and feel while using/wearing it. This is Marketing 101 and it took me a while to translate it to SL in a way I'm happy with. I am absolutely no photographer, so I paid someone to take pics of my shoes and she came up with a format that works well for me.

I have one main pic of my shoes being worn with clothes that complement them and against a background that implies some kind of "story". It's the kind of pic you might see in a glossy magazine. Then I have individual, detailed pics of the shoes themselves in every colour available. I rarely have text on my pics although I think it can work very well (the way Nicky Ree does it, for example); I rely on mouseover for the description and price.

The lighting on my pics is excellent, none of those dreadful face or body shadows that SL does so well. I've found that I rarely buy things that haven't been photographed well because I can't make that jump to visualising it on me if it looks dull and boring in the pic.

There are some excellent product shots around that imply a "lifestyle" and that's what grabs people. Go round the main creators' stores in your field and look at the way they display their items, the kind of "feeling" they evoke. What do you want your pics to say? Where does your item fit? Who wears/uses it? What else are they likely to buy?

Isobel

I tend to do my ads with a slight coloring effect in the background, and I put info on the ad it's self
however I do not put the price on the ad, that way if I change my prices or have a sale, the price doesn't need to be changed on the ad

I find that there are so many different ways it can be done, and so many ways that look good

for shoes I do like to see them being worn, this gives me an idea how they fit on the avatars foot.

furniture is nice when shown set up in a full room setting, and with an avatar in the pic for size relation

I am not a SL photographer, but I have managed to come up with very eye pleasing photos in SL that give several photographers a run for their money. + I always run them through an image conversion program, and clean them up in Photoshop. Give me a holler in world or IM me here....I am seriously thinking about helping in the area of photography in SL as well as my other art related venture I am just beginning.

I played a bit with lighting today but haven't got exactly what I want yet. You can see my attempts at http://s300.photobucket.com/albums/nn17/sungeek/

S.

I think these suggestions are crucial. Looking at the current batch of pics, it's actually kind of difficult to "read" the shape of the chair, particularly the seating surface, because the inside and outside aren't that distinct. I think some more dramatic lighting, from multiple sources, possibly with different light colors, will help bring out the shape better.

Also, if your graphics card can handle it, turning on anti-aliasing in Hardware Options might be worth a try (just for the product shoot, unless you have a real monster of a graphics card).

But, just out of curiousity: where will these be used? If in-world, you need to worry about keeping the ultimate resolution manageable, but if they're for one of the web stores, you can use more pixels, so following Oryx's suggestion, having one of the pics in an appealing setting in the company of an appealing female avatar...

/me has a "sizzle" moment.

Getting the viewer to see a concave surface is difficult because the brain wants to see a convex one. Take a look at moon photos and you see the craters look like bumps. I like the idea of different lighting colors.

Some of the images will be used in-world and some out. Once I figure out lighting I'll work on some 'action' sets and make a hot female alt . Perhaps I should take my shirt off for the ladies?


S.

Not perfect but a lot better . Thanks for all your help.