Photography for an online clothing boutique....

stringmusic24 · Jun 13, 2013

Ok, I'm still working away at this. I missed out on the Alien Bees, so I'm going to wait it out until another good deal comes along. I have been playing around with Lightroom some tonight. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I was having some color temperature issues due to the fact that I'm using incandescent bulbs. Everything looks real warm and kind of yellowed (some are worse than the image above). So I've corrected the white balance in Lightroom and this is what I'm ending up with.

Thoughts? Is this something I could potentially correct on the camera (d5100)? It feels like another step in the right directions, but that's just to my untrained eye.

tirediron · Jun 13, 2013

Again, definite progress. Yes, I'd say you were definitely having WB issues. You can either account for that in-camera by using a product like the Expo disc to set a custom WB in-camera, or use a grey card so that you can accurately set your WB in post. Either will work well.

stringmusic24 · Jul 22, 2013

Well, I bought some lights and they have made a world of difference. I got two Alien Bees B800s and a Giant Softbox. I'm using a foam core bounce card opposite the soft box to soften the shadows. What do you think? Do y'all see anything that looks askew? I've corrected the dark spot at lower right.

tirediron · Jul 22, 2013

Looks MUCH better; good exposure, 'though I might try boosting the saturation just a tad, but I think you're miles ahead of where you started.

stringmusic24 · Jul 22, 2013

tirediron said:
Looks MUCH better; good exposure, 'though I might try boosting the saturation just a tad, but I think you're miles ahead of where you started.

Thanks! I'll give that a try.

nycphotography · Jul 23, 2013

stringmusic24 said:
tirediron said:

Looks MUCH better; good exposure, 'though I might try boosting the saturation just a tad, but I think you're miles ahead of where you started.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I'll give that a try.

Much much better. You're definitely on the right track.

Rather than say 'boost the saturation', I might suggest you look at the dress and then look at the picture, and decide if you'd be disappointed if you ordered it based on the picture that the dress doesn't match either in color or saturation. For all I know, you already have too much saturation. Or maybe too little. Or maybe it's not orange enough. Or who knows ;-)

Now that you have flat even lighting, the next step is to start learning how to put directional light back into it to get structure and definition. For example, to show style lines and seam details.

Also, you can start working capturing any fabric textures that may be relevant. For example, if that dress is a loose crepe, you'll want to do a close up of the fabric to show it. That shot will almost certainly require some side lighting.