Flat Garment Photography

jenesaispas · Sep 19, 2014

Hello

I signed up for this forum because I've been trying to figure out how to do professional flat garment photography for a while now. I hope you can help me solve the mystery.

Basically I am wondering about the results below, and how they where done. I sort of know how the lightning is set up with these photos, but what baffles me is their styling. They manage to have absolute a minimal of creases, and the creases that are visible look good. Also the positioning of the garments is insanely consistent. As it is photography for a webshop, that is quite important. Please take a look at the following images and reveal the secret on how they look the way they do.

Thank you so much for any tips

Thanks Saro

tirediron · Sep 19, 2014

Welcome to the forum. I have removed the images from your posts as TPF rules do not permit the posting of images to which you do not hold rights. You may post LINKS to example images if you wish.

astroNikon · Sep 19, 2014

Are these your photos ?

This is all about lighting. For a concise guide on lighting purchase this book --> Light Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting: Fil Hunter, Steven Biver, Paul Fuqua: 9780240812250: Amazon.com: Books

In essence, you have a seamless white background so that it doesn't really show in the photos as a background. This could easily be put over a table top, which is probably the case.

THe lighting, if you look at the red shirt as it has alot of creases with some small shadows. The angle of the shadows makes me think that they had 2 (probably ) continuous lights more towards the top of the shirts from above at probably a 45 degree angle, and positioned at the corners. This positioning also would allow them to change out the clothing fairly quickly.

The camera can be positioned from above the clothing easily by use of a fixed system or even a tripod that has an arm on it like the ones made by Vanguard,

I'm not a pro at it, but that is what I see.

jenesaispas · Sep 19, 2014

Thanks for the answer astroNikon and sorry tirediron about posting those pictures. I will link to them next time

Basically i'm interested in how they styled the products at this store. Especially the ones with the longer sleeves, and how they get to do it so consistently. Doing it by hand would take forever (i know by experience).

I use a cardboard myself and style it around it, see picture below (mine). But it takes way too much time, and I was wondering if you guys had any idea on how they did it so consistently at the supreme store.

Supreme

astroNikon · Sep 19, 2014

I would think they are used to it.
When I watch people at those clothing stores fold clothes it's like instantaneous. It takes me about 4 minutes a shirt to fold them like they do in 5 seconds.

Start with the main body, make it flat .. or close to flat like the pictures then work on the sleeves.
They are clearly folded/creased by hand at the elbows to give it some curvature. And nothing is perfectly flat in the photos. I would think it would be easy to recreate like that.

jenesaispas · Sep 19, 2014

There is no way they are used to it. I've photographed over 500 garments and it still takes me at least 15 minutes styling each garment with a ruler. The way the clothing is set up there is even more complex, they must have some kind of mould or something like that.

Check out this picture that I did, it's near but not as perfect and takes me way too much time.

The_Traveler · Sep 19, 2014

Must it be flat?

astroNikon · Sep 19, 2014

^^^ or as Lew pointed out .. it could be handing

I understand.
But maybe they had a process

For instance, when I did some shirts for a clothing company, you want to spend as little time as possible.
So for the body of the shirt I used a display board cardboard rectangle in which I put the shirt over and pulled it over the edges to get the defined edges like you have. Time to do that ... just a few seconds. Sometimes I had to steam iron the shirts too but after doing that for well over 30 years that only adds a bit more to it (and don't iron out to the sides as then you have to deal with squared off edges.

That cardboard would also allow you to tuck the sleeved under it like you have

a fairly quick process.

jenesaispas · Sep 19, 2014

Thanks for the tips everyone.

I don't like the way it looks hanged, or at least, i prefer flat a lot.

That's exactly how I do it now astroNikon, but I am still looking for a better/faster solution. For example a plastic prop where you could iron and stretch it over the edges. And I was curious to how the Supreme store did it, since the long sleeves are always in the same position.

Look at how this store does it for example, makes me wonder.

VIVASTUDIO

astroNikon · Sep 19, 2014

if you notice the long sleeves being in the same position had one thing in common.

The space shape between the body and the sleeve and the "kink" and buildup of material at the elbow area.
If you look around the house/apt/etc for something triangular. Then put it in the position and kinda wrap/bend the sleeve around it. Then pull it out. Then you would have a consistent template for all shirts. It's just positioning it at the sleeve joint all the time.

The other store had the sleeves and a long curvature from the neck line all the way down. That would take more time.

astroNikon · Sep 19, 2014

go get an ironing board and cut it to a short length but that would be too think

instead of cardboard then think a plastic sheet. It's thinner and is adverse to steaming (water) and flexible.

ooh .. one thing I did .. I went to a fancy clothing store and asked for a couple minute lesson on folding clothes (when they weren't busy and were restocking the displays). It's amazing what you can learn that you can't explain.