Professional Photography?
I have a Nikon D5100 and some nice lenses. I'm trying to take some product photos for a friend and perhaps a model. I have no idea what I'm doing! Any help with lighting or how good photoshopping techniques to make it look professional?
You can't always use photoshop to fix your own short-comings…
do yourself a favour and learn photography basics and about the abilities/limitations of your camera.,
learn about composition, angle, light, position, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focal length, etc…
read up on product photography… Read about lighting (www.strobist.com),
then you can take good shots first time, everytime.
For small items a light tent is the answer to product shots, they illuminate the subject evenly and with few (if any) shadows. They give you an image of the subject 'floating' against a pure white background that is easy to select and cut out in post processing.
Plenty of cheap ones on eBay, you illuminate them from the outside of the tent with a couple of cheap flashguns or with continuous light. Flash has the advantage of easy colour balance and the flash duration is so short camera shake is not an issue. Continuous light might sound easier, but the light level will (usually) be less, so you will need a tripod (not a bad idea anyway) and the colour balance of the lamps would need sorting out either in camera or post processing, there can also be heat issues. Flash is just simpler and faster to use.
Three little words - "Use your eyes". Get it almost right in the camera, only use Photoshop to touch up an already good photo. Lighting techniques depend on the type of product. With inanimate products you can at least experiment at leisure.
What kind of product? - that would have helped. Many product shots csn be done on a table top. You will need a good tripod and a light source and background, behind the product. A short telephoto lens often works good, that focuses close. A remote shutter release helps, Nikon has a great wireless unit.
Soft light usually works best as a base coat of light. Go to Amazon a search for ( CFL umbrella lights ) and you can low priced soft light with stands, buy a couple of those if you like. Get them in close to your product. Office supply stores sell large sheets of flexable cardboard, useful a a background behind the product on the table. Put the table against a wall and tape the cardboard down to the front edge of the table and curve it up the wall forming ehat is called a cyc.
Another option is something called Mystudio Complete Tabletop Photo Studio - search on Amazon for it. The tsble stuff and lighting is only part of the problem - knowing how to compose the photo is also important of course. Have fun.
Aperture, ISO and shutter speeds < takes a while to get the hang of but thats what you need to know.
And depends on what Photoshop you have, adobe elements 9 does a guided edit which is really handy for beginners.portrait photographys- re touch edit, make a new layer- then surface blur… Etc.search on google and everything you need to no will come up… Below is a few websites about iso, aperture and shutter speeds. Hope i've helped a little. Have fun.