Tips for photographing Louis Vuitton: A Beginner's Guide
1 - The most important thing is to take the photo in good natural light: my favorite place to shoot purses and accessories is near a window. You have indirect soft lighting. Look for a day where it is bright outside, not heavy overcast so you have enough incoming light. If you prefer take outdoor shots of your items, you want cloud cover, not super heavy, but some clouds to diffuse the light.
2 - No flash. Do whatever you can to avoid flash. It changes the color and texture of the items, especially the leather and the hardware on purses.
3 - Think macro. If you use an SLR, consider investing in a Macro lens. If you use a Point and Shoot Camera, use the flower icon, which is the macro setting. This will allow you to get close to the details like heat stamping and detail on the brass, etc.
4 - Pick a non-distracting background. Choose a background or environment that compliments the piece you are photographing. For most photos you want a very simple background, a wood floor, carpet, white board, black counter top, etc. You can also shoot against something busier if you blur the background.
5 - Consider your Depth of Field. When doing product shots, you can control your aperture when shooting in manual. Some point and shoots will allow this, but they will not do nearly as good a job as an SLR. You want to shoot close to "wide open" if you desire to focus on one small area. Wide open means the low number - so an aperture of 2.8 as an example, versus f11. If this is confusing, and you have an SLR, post a comment here and I can explain more. If you are capturing a whole purse or accessory and want the entire item in focus, then you would not shoot "wide open" - say maybe f5.6. But the settings also vary based on your distance to the object and the distance of the object to other things. I personally shoot most handbags and accessories at 2.8 to 4.0.
6 - Use an editing program. Once you take the photos off the camera, use an editing program, like Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. There are probably some other ones for free out there too, but I personally use Photoshop. Use levels, curves or brightness/contrast, to make the photo brighter or darker as needed, and add contrast if the photo looks washed out. Also sharpen, using whatever tools are available in your program. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY is to make the photo look like it did in real life - so not a lot darker or lighter - and not more or less detail. Often editing is needed to achieve this, since cameras can play tricks.
5 - White balance. If your camera has the choice, shoot RAW, so you can adjust the white balance easily. If using a point and shoot that does not have this option, choose the setting closest to what you are shooing in - for example daylight, shade, etc. If your photos come out super yellow or with strong purple/blue casts, your camera is guessing white balance wrong in auto.
*** This is just a small starter list ***
I will add more tips to this thread in the future.
