One or two good photos are all that an internet-based sale requires. Photos of your jewelry items should be large enough. Keep in mind that decorative graphics and photos that have nothing to do with products for sale, or fuzzy photos, are considered questionable and negative because they cause a potential buyer to question whether or not the seller has something to hide. In other words sometime the viewing public will actually think you are not what you say you are just because a picture has a flaw! It makes no sense but that’s the way it is. So we have to do our best to make sure that everything about our website and photos screams out:

I AM A PRO!

But you DO need to show what you want to sell. I usually use just one picture, but I make sure that the size of the photo is large enough to see detail and grasp the overall nature and condition of the product. Once people have indicated an interest in a particular product, they may ask for additional photos.

Before choosing to hire a professional photographer for your jewelry first how much of your inventory you need photographed?

If your sample line is vast, will you photograph hundreds of items? This can be expensive. Could you start with photographing just the essence of your collection at the beginning, make some sales with those images, recover some of your initial investment, and get more images later? The technique of PII (progressive inventory imaging) is a practical way to acquire great looking images on a limited budget. Do you plan to advertise your jewelry online? The cost of getting people to an online store is not a negligible amount! The more striking images you display on your site, the greater the chances for customers to come back for more!

Don’t be afraid to experiment in taking photos. Try using different techniques for taking your photographs. Use a different camera angle, different lighting, rotate the object of the photograph, try different background colors, and try different exposure values for your photographs. You will never know what will or will not work unless you try using different techniques in your photography. You may be surprised at how well a new technique that you used actually makes your photographs turn out.

Even inexpensive software like Photoshop Elements or ACDSee can make your product photography much easier. It may seem like it’s faster to use an image exactly as it was shot. But in reality, it is difficult to shoot an image precisely how you would like to appear in its final form. Image editing software allows you to crop an image, adjust it’s exposure, sharpen the image and then resize it, often in less than 60 seconds. The biggest difference between an amateur’s product snapshot and a professional’s product image are sharpness and lighting. Steps 1,2, and 3 will improve the sharpness of your images while Step 4 will improve your lighting. A minute spent editing an image will improve it further. Because these few steps seem so basic, it’s tempting to ignore them. However, if you take time to follow them, you will see a huge improvement in the quality of your photos.