a friendly tip...

hey fellow etsians! in looking for some local sellers for my latest shop local post, i noticed that some photographs were, well let's just say, less than perfect.  photography is probably the number one thing that can get you noticed, or send people away from your shop, so it's uber important to make sure they look as good as possible.

the first step is getting a great, sharp image with nice even lighting.  see my light box post for tips on getting a great shot!

Another relatively easy way to get your photo to pop is to make sure the color and contrast is perfect.  I have a great way to do this in photoshop.  first, open your image, and size it accordingly (image -> image size), you only need a resolution of 72!  i'm going to use this photo for this tutorial (the iphone cozy that i personally use!)

notice how dull and dark it is?  we need to brighten this puppy up!

First, go to the layers palette and click on the little half black, half white circle and choose "levels."

A dialogue box will open up with a histogram.  it might look something like this:

Click where it says "channel" and choose "red."  You'll see the histogram shift slightly.  Now you're only working with the red-cyan channel of your photograph.  You'll see a small black arrow on either end of the histogram.  drag each arrow to where the histogram starts.  continue this for the remaining channels.  now, go back to the RGB channel.  your photograph might look something like this now:

see how the image has more contrast?  this is great!  now we just need to bright this guy up a little bit, and your photo will be ready for posting.  take the middle arrow and slide it to the left until the image looks nice and bright.  then, click "ok," flatten the image, and save as a jpg.  my picture ended up looking something like this:

better, right?

now, i would probably create a mask and make that background super white, but let's save that for another post! feel free to contact me if you have any questions about levels in photoshop!