Images – Utilizing Photoshop to Enhance Images

Have you snapped a photo of someone posing with your handmade item and realized the shot isn’t so great once it’s on your screen?  Here are some tips to help bring the focus to your hand-crafted items utilizing Adobe Photoshop:

Step 1:  Our team met a jeweler that makes her beautiful jewelry at her home in California.  She was lucky enough to snap a shot of someone wearing her jewelry at a star-studded event.  When she got home, she called her website designer team to see what they could do to take her picture from decent to attention-grabbing.

Step 2:  The first thing the design team did was to identify what they did not like in the photograph.   What is taking the viewer’s attention away from the jewelry?  There were a number of distractions in the photograph, including the guy in the background and the logos of other brands.

Step 3:  Utilizing Photoshop’s “Crop” tool, the team was able to single out the focus area of the photograph.  To crop the image, simple use the crop tool to highlight the area you want for the focus area, then click the check mark at the top.  Don’t worry about your image having the shape of a photograph when it is for display on the Internet.  If the image isn’t a perfect rectangle like a normal printed photograph would be, that’s ok!

Step 4:  Now that the focus area was determined, the jeweler’s team made adjustments to the image.  When working with Photoshop, always start with the “Auto Adjust” feature under the “Image” drop down menu.  Another idea the team used was to adjustment the “Exposure” (found under “Images”, then “Adjustments”).  Photoshop has interesting tools to explore and try – have fun with perfecting the image!

Step 5:  Next, the team utilized the “dodge” feature, which can be found on the left column of the Photoshop program.  The “dodge” and “burn” tools are all about bright & dark   This tool is great for Etsy sellers, as you can utilize the feature to really bring attention to the item, which is the most important part of the photograph!  The “burn” tool darkens and the “dodge” tool lightens.  Just burn out the things you don’t like and dodge the things you do!

The jeweler found that using this Photoshop tool made the image fun and appealed to her target market.  Her target market is “young Hollywood”, so utilizing unique and interesting effects fit with her handmade jewelry photographs.

Step 6:   Check out how using the “burn” feature makes the crowd disappear!  Voila – focus on the necklace, not on the other event guests!

Step 7:  The jeweler’s design team took a look at special effects next.  Under the “Filter” menu, play around with different effects to the image.  For this image, the team chose the “lenses flare” feature, which creates a great lighting effect.  As with the other steps, play around with your image and find a unique way to make your photograph stand out among the other handmade sellers.

Step 8:  As a final look through, the team make sure the image was safe for the Internet.  Photoshop will default to 600 pixels, which is a great size for the Internet.  Resolution should be set at 72 – anything more than that is too complex.  However, if you are planning to print the image for print advertising, the resolution should be set higher.  As a final note, make sure to save the image in a “.jpg” format, which is found under the “Save As” file type.

Happy Photoshopping!