I’ve received some great feedback about the handmade jewellery photographs on the Nisha Halo jewellery website and a number of people even asked if I hired a professional photographer. The answer is no, I took the photographs myself and I don’t have any photographic training.
1. You Don’t Have To Use An Expensive Camera
I did a lot of research on how to photograph jewellery and it can be challenging as you are dealing with reflecting, tiny products and you really want to show them at their best and as accurately as possible for the customer.
For my jewellery photography for my website, instead of using expensive camera equipment I used my smart phone – YES, a smartphone camera. I personally prefer Samsung for the quality of the smartphone cameras and I prefer Android as I like multitasking between apps and picking my own level of customization, but there are some great Smartphone Cameras right across the board that are serious contenders for some of the best digital cameras on the market.
2. You Need Good Lighting for Product Photography
Product photography needs to take place in a room with plenty of natural light. I also used an LED photography lightbox that cost £13 (size 9 inches by 9 inches) – but you can buy larger light boxes for larger products and these are easily found on Amazon or Ebay. I initially attempted to build my own lightbox, but I could not get the consistent light that I needed with the various bulbs I tried, but some people have been very successful building their own photography lightbox.
3. Think About Your Product Quality and Background
To prepare the products before photographing I spent a lot of time cleaning and polishing the jewellery pieces (the more perfect the product is, the less retouching later!) The majority of my jewellery pieces were photographed against a white background – this background displays the product clearly and your products are more likely to be approved for Google Shopping other third party sales sites, if you are using these.
4. What About Photograph File Size and Quality?
The file size and dimensions of your images can certainly slow your website down if they are too large but you need to have a good enough image size for a quality photograph. I do not use image files less than 500KB for the best visual results and no more than 20 MB, and I use images between 1500 and 2500 pixels wide (images smaller than 1500 pixels may appear blurry or pixelated when they stretch to fill larger ‘container spaces’ such as website banners). I also never enlarge as small image as it can appear pixelated on the screen.
5. Retouching Images is Key
Retouching photographs can be time-consuming dependant on the quality of the photograph (so always take plenty of photographs to choose from,) however, retouching can be inexpensive - I used a free version of Photoshop Express to retouch the product images where necessary and brighten them up. With model images Photoshop Express is a saviour, you can edit out blemishes, add filters, change background, and add overlays for depth and interest.
6. Total Cost and Effort of Website Product Photography
All in all, I spent £13 on the lightbox and a lot of time - a month in all - photographing the models and images for 85 pieces of jewellery, and retouching and uploading them to my website with alternative (alt) text for images, before I launched Nisha Halo in July 2020.
I have just finished making my new jewellery products for the next season, so the photographic process is going to restart. Yes, there is always going to room for improvement when you start doing your own product photography but with practise you do get better at this and faster. It is possible to photograph and edit your product images yourself, on a budget and with a smartphone camera, you just need plenty of time.
