The before and afters of my photo's.This blog post is a sneaky peak, behind the scenes kind of post to show the importance of photo's within an online shop and a little message to all other small business sellers that a little editing can go a long way when it comes to sales.
I love other people to make sales in their online shops, because for me, it's just no fun when people don't feel they can get involved with the community as much and it makes me feel happy to see everyone making their fair share, even in this climate.
Although I am no expert or professional at selling and I still have a lot to learn myself the one thing we can all do easily is review our photographs.
I often feel that the one thing that holds sellers back from making their first, second or third sale is their photographs and effectively under-selling themselves and their products.
We have to remember that the challenge to selling online is making that first impression without actually meeting or greeting the customer. We also need to remember that the photographs are the only way the viewer can see the item they might purchase and this is what will get them to stay in our shops for long enough to potentially buy something.
For me, my photo's are vital in continuing my She Draws brand throughout my shop and making my shop look far more professional than just little old me working from home, but I can tell you it took me a long time to get into the swing of my brand and to make photographs that were suitable and caught the eye.
My photo's are in no way fantastic, but for me they tick the right boxes:
1.Clear
2.Simple
3.Eye catching
4.In keeping with She Draws
I am fortunate enough to have editing software such as photoshop and although I am aware not everyone has this, I hear through the grape vine that there are free editing softwares for you to get going with. All I have done with the "before & after" photo examples above are, crop, brightened and altered the contrast and I hope you can see they make a massive difference!
I hope that this sneak peak has given you some inspiration for your own shops and while the sun is coming out i'd get out there and get snapping!
Really helpful post, couldn't agree more! After losing Photoshop when my computer crashed, I use online tools now. Mostly I use Picnik for crop / exposure / saturation but sometimes I use Fotoflexer if I need to do background removal or layers etc.
ReplyDeleteYep you definitely don't need to buy photoshop - crop, brighten and contrast are available for free with your windows photo gallery - you just need to click 'fix' when looking at any photo - there's also an option to crop to a square which is very useful for folksy.
ReplyDeleteGood post!
ReplyDeleteMy pictures are all Photoshopped to whithin an inch of their life...I photograph my stained glass on a lightbox (so I don't get my back garden in every single picture) then have to do fairly major adjustments to white out the background and get the colours true to daylight. Bit of time and effort but so worth it.
Thank you so much for this! I always find your photos look really good and it's helpful to see the process that you go through before getting to that point.
ReplyDeleteI have to say, I am still learning ALOT, and am rarely satisfied with my photographs, though they have been getting a little better.
What I find really hard is getting the light equal for each photograph (when using a white background) so that in my shop it doesn't look too blotchy. Any tips for that? Xx
Very good post, that's what I do with my pictures in Microsoft picture manager. By the way your blog looks really good.
ReplyDeletea great post, I find the photography the most difficult. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteWow what a useful post! So rare that you get to see people's before pictures and very reassuring to know how much you can improve them with little effort. I worry about my photos constantly. Any help is very much appreciated!
ReplyDeleteHello, great post! By the way I still do not have my tags. Lost the link and then changed the banner and started making different things!!
ReplyDeleteWell said, you don't need to be another Richard Avedon to take clear and informative images. Paint.net (http://www.getpaint.net/) is a great free resource for those who lack any paid program but are tired of relying on paint or can't be doing with the fussiness of The GIMP.
ReplyDelete