Introduction

It is important that your photographs depict your object as accurately as possible.  Many objects are small and difficult to photograph effectively.  This document will share some of the techniques that work for me so you can  present your objects in their best light.

Preparation

Before you try to photograph your own object you should have the following things prepared and ready.

• You need a good digital camera.  Most cameras sold today have plenty of resolution to reveal the finest detail of your object.  Cameras on your cell phone or PDA may not have adequate resolution.  Use a good camera.  You can use normal to low resolution since the web requires a small file size anyway.
  
• You must have a space to photograph where you can control the lighting.  Outside is usually a good  place and provides the best color balance for you photographs.
  
• It is best if you have a software tool that will let you prepare your original digital photos for the web.  I use the open source tool Gimp.  Photoshop is a good product but pricey.
  
• You are encouraged to organize you photos in a single directory (with sub-directories if needed) on your local PC.  It just makes things easier when you go to upload them.
  

How to Photograph Your Yulem Objects

Here are a few principles to follow:

• Get close to your subject.  It should nearly fill the frame.
• Use a tripod if at all possible.  It will make your pictures more sharp and allow easier framing of the subject.
• Make sure the camera is focused.  Fuzzy pictures just waste your time.  It is usually pointless to try and "sharpen" them with software.  Most cameras will "auto-focus."  If they really do then it's fine.  If not then focus manually.
  
• Evenly light your subject.  Avoid bright light from a single source.  It will result in shadows and strong highlights.  (Shooting outside avoids this automatically unless you're in the direct sun so don't be.)  If you're indoors and using normal lighting you will have to "color balance" your photos with software later.  Incandescent light will make you photographs too red and fluorescent lights will make them too blue-green.  Some digital cameras will balance these light sources for you.  Check your camera's capabilities.
  
• Find a good "background" for you objects that is a light, neutral color.  An off-white is fine.  One of the best I have found is a cardboard-backed piece of thin foam used to ship glass plates.  The color is perfect; the foam provides enough friction so you can tilt the whole thing for better angles; it has a fold already so it serves as base and background with no seam.    A white piece of thin poster pager will work too.  The foam looks like this.

•  Finally, allow yourself enough time to do a careful job of photographing your objects.  It takes a little bit of time to do a good job.

How to Prepare your Photos for the Web

Your goal is to craft photographs with the following characteristics:

• Cropped to eliminate wasted pixels and disk space.
• Resized to be viewable but small enough to download.
  
• Converted to a web friendly format.
• Improved image quality with software, if needed.
  

So let's get our pictures ready.  Most digital cameras create pictures NOT ready for use on a web site.  Typically they are:

• Too large for the web:  Big files look great but take too long to load.  A good compromise for yulem.com object pictures is a 200-500K image.  This is big for someone who still uses a dialup connection but is OK for highspeed connections.
• Not "cleaned up" for the web:  Not cleaned up means:
• • Image is not optimally "cropped."   Select only the portion of the camera's image you want and eliminate any excess.  This also allows you to make all your images a uniform size.  The image does not have to be perfectly square. 
    
  • Image is to big.  Resize it to around 500 x 500 pixels;  please, no larger than 800 x 800 pixels.  Yulem.com will automatically resize your uploaded image to display thumbnails properly on the web, and will retain your original image for detailed viewing.
    
  • Image is not color balanced.  Color balance is too big to discuss here but usually your camera or a tool like Gimp will let you automatically balance your colors.  If you do color balancing make sure your monitor is calibrated.  (ZoneZero.com is a good, simple site.)
  • Image is not proper brightness or contrast.  
    

• In a proprietary image format:  You will want your photos in "GIF" or "JPEG" formats. Once your image is ready for the web you must save it in the best format.  Which format to use depends on your image.  The general rule is:
• For large solid blocks of same color use GIF, 128 bit color or higher.
• For detailed, continuous tone colors us JPEG, minimum 75% 24bit.
  

Once you have saved your files then you can upload them to your own space on the Yulem.com site.  For instructions go to How to Add Your Own Objects.   Have fun.