Selling On-line - How to Take Good Jewelry Photos

First and foremost, to sell or promote your jewelry on-line, you will need good photographs of your jewelry.  Since people can't touch your jewelry and try it on before buying it on-line, it is really important to use good images.  You can't sell jewelry on-line from a grainy or poor quality image--trust me.  Using bad images gives a bad impression to your customers.  You are selling jewelry as your brand image, so take the time to get a good photo and it will pay off!  Just make the investment to set yourself up to take good photos, and you will not regret it as it will pay off during the entire course of your career on-line.  You do not have to spend a fortune to take good photos of jewelry, you just need a little know-how.  And, practice makes perfect--after a few photos you will have the hang of it.

Lighting

Use a digital camera and take photos under bright, but diffuse lighting.  If possible, you want to avoid using the flash and just have enough lighting around the jewelry.  If you are having a difficult time taking a good image, you can purchase something called a "cloud dome" or a photo tent as that will help you take bright photos without stark glare or reflections bouncing off shiny jewelry and gemstones.  It isn't absolutely necessary to use a dome or tent, but if you will be doing a lot of jewelry photos on-line, it is nice to have.  You can search for a "cloud dome" or "photo tent" on eBay. You can also make your own version, if you are on a limited budget.  A cut open bleach container (see this article to see how one person made one) or a box lined with white paper, or even a bright light shone through a bed sheet--are good potential options for creating good diffuse lighting and photographing the jewelry to avoid harsh reflections.  Another option is bright natural daylight, as long as you can avoid stark shadows.  I try to take many of my photos outdoors under natural diffuse daylight if possible, because it's just easier that way.  If you have the room to set your photo station up (box, tent, or dome) permanently on a table in a corner of your home, this won't be an issue for you.  You may also want an inexpensive tripod to attach your camera and hold it steady (optional, but nice to have).

If you don't own a digital camera, your other option is to print a regular photo, then scan it so you will have a file that can be uploaded to your computer.  Or, some people just lay the jewelry right on the scanner bed and scan the jewelry directly.  This somewhat limits how you can display it, however, since your only option is flat on the scanner.  The price of a scanner and a digital camera may now be much the same, and I find it is easier to just use a digital camera in the first place.

Props

Invest in a single good jewelry display or necklace bust, as it makes a huge difference in how nice your jewelry looks, and adds a level of professionalism to your images.  This is certainly an optional expense, but my own jewelry sold a lot better once I started using one for my photos.  Again, I search for "jewelry display" on eBay to find the best deals. You can also just drape your jewelry on a nice soft white or neutral colored cloth, black velvet (although difficult to photograph unless you have the bright diffuse light), or a lightly patterned craft paper.  I also like to hang my jewelry from plants or tree branches, although you don't want too much competition detracting attention away from the jewelry itself.

Preparing Image Files for Upload

Next, you will want to edit and crop your photos, as well as size them down for on-line viewing.  Most photo image files are very large, and that can make both uploading time, as well as viewing times, too slow on-line.  In fact, most people don't know that video resolution on monitors (for website viewing) only requires that images be set to 72dpi resolution (dpi stands for dots per inch, and 72dpi is generally listed as the maximum resolution visible on a typical computer monitor).  Because most monitors won't allow you to view anything any clearer above more than a 72dpi image anyway, you can shrink down any image files that you will use on-line, to 72 dpi quality.  So, you can actually shrink down the size of your files by changing the resolution (number of DPI or pixels per inch) on your image file.  However, do keep in mind that if you plan to use your photo image files for other uses (like printing, creating a catalog, or making slides), you will want to maintain the larger, high quality version of the file to use for those other purposes, as well.  So, keep two versions of each image (high resolution, and lower resolution).  To do that, just save your smaller resolution file with a new name that is different from the original higher resolution file name: for example, lowresimage.jpg and highresimage.jpg.

So, what if you don't have video editing software?  While there are plenty of high-end programs for this sort of thing, there are a couple of perfectly acceptable, free software programs that I can recommend.  Most digital cameras will come with basic editing software.  But if you don't have it, or yours is hard to use, to edit files such as cropping and enhancing the image (brightening the exposure of a too-dark image, for example), download this free program from Kodak, called Kodak Easyshare (you do not have to use a Kodak camera, it will edit any standard image files).

Also, there is a great free software program for editing any images (including photos) called Paint.Net.  Go download it, here.  To use Paint.Net to resize an image, open the file, then choose Image, then Resize from the menu, and change the photo size and resolution to 72dpi.  Then just save the photo with the new name.

Here is another option: to shrink your image files, you can just go to this website, www.shrinkpictures.com, and upload your image files, and shrink them down for free.  If you want to re-size whole batches of photos at once, they recommend this product: BatchPhoto.

Now that your photos are ready to share with the world, you will need to "host" or store your images someplace on the internet where people will be able to see them.  This means that instead of being saved on your own computer, they need to be saved on a web server that is viewable to people surfing the net.  If you already have a website, you can upload your image files to your web server.  But if you don't have a website, or aren't a technical person, or you don't want to use all your web server disk space up for storing images, just use a free on-line photo hosting service.  Even if you have a website, I still prefer using one of these services because lots of people are on there browsing photos, and it can get you even more exposure to your jewelry.

I recommend Photobucket.com, or Flickr.com for this purpose.  Just go sign up for a free account and follow their easy instructions to upload your images.  If you find that you need extra storage beyond what they offer for a free account, for a small annual fee you can buy more storage.  (If you are doing business on-line, this can be a business expense!)  Photobucket now has the ability to edit and re-size your images on-line.  However, since you still need to upload them in the first place, to save time I would still suggest you re-size your images to make them smaller before you upload them to Photobucket.  This is especially true if you don't want to sit around all day waiting to upload files over a slow internet connection. 

If you plan to do business on-line I highly recommend you get a broadband (high speed) internet connection if at all possible.  Look into DSL or cable modem or whatever you can afford; a dial-up connection will be annoying slow when uploading lots of files, and the time that you don't waste on-line due to a slow connection will pay itself back to you time and again.  (Again, if you are doing your business on-line, some of the expense of your broadband connection can likely be a business expense, just check with your tax preparer or accountant for guidelines.)

Adding Images to a Web Site

So now that you've uploaded images to the web, how on earth do you put them onto a web page, like your own website, or this website, for example?  It's actually quite easy!  Both Photobucket and Flickr will give you a link to your image file.  Follow their instructions to share your photos or post them on a website.  All you have to do is cut and paste the link for that image file (which is a URL that is a direct link to your photo file) right into the web page where you want your photos to appear.  When someone loads your web page, the photo is loaded from Photobucket where it can be viewed right on your website.

That's pretty much all there is to getting your photos on-line.  If you are new to this, I know it sounds like a lot of work, and the truth is that photos can be one of the most time consuming parts of your jewelry business.  But, once you get the hang of it, it becomes a lot easier and you will be glad you spent the time investment to represent yourself well on-line.  Good luck, and post any questions you have about this topic in the forum.