This weekend has been full of fun at the Folksy Summer School. I had a blast, said hello to lots of crafters and picked up a few tips along the way.
As they always do nearly every speaker said: Remember to take good photographs. I agree it is so important when you sell online. The customer needs to know exactly what they get and you need to supply the feel of the piece since they cannot touch it before they buy. This is a tricky thing to do, so I went back home to practise some more.
One thing I have noticed both in myself and others is that we like to turn a piece over in the hand, but quite a few sellers neglect to show pictures of the back of the pieces. Are you one of those who turn the item over even though you know that side will never be seen by anyone but the wearer?
I'd like to make the back just as interesting although I haven't done that much in the past.Especially since I like when people play with their jewellery, warm it in their hands or absent-mindedly turn a ring while they think. Another thing to improve upon :o)
When you're selling online, the photographs you take of your designs is a really BIG deal. After all they are the only thing besides a wordy description that the buyer has to judge from before deciding what to buy.
I am always looking to improve my shots as a consequence, plus a client of mine expressed surprised at the colour of the earrings she received the other day. While she still loved them, it wasn't what she expected.
I'd really like to avoid surprises like that.
So here I am again looking at backgrounds. I have more or less decided to now only shoot in natural light - an easy promise in summer. So now it would be good to find some background that not only complement the jewellery, but also helps the client judge the colour.
Etsy recommends always having at least one image of every item on a completely white background - that both suits the treasury makers and the magazines - it is so much easier for them to fit in your item amongst other featured things - and you want to encourage that.
But isn't plain white just a bit boring and rather stark? I'd like an alternative. The test here to the left I did to try out some variations. You can see where the camera has difficulty in getting the colour and contrast right. Too light a background and the details in the recessed areas just go all dark. Some of the colours also fools the camera in to making the silver appear yellow. Not sure why that is.
I think for the copper I've decided on the bottom paper. It's darker and so helps the details in the trees and it's not too green which helps the copper colour stay true. A bright green would really make the copper appear to orange-red.
The silver is a whole new issue. I've only recently started doing silver and the background I have so far have really not done the pieces justice.
I tried white, parchment and warm wood. Out of those the parchment shows the truest colour of the silver. I can adjust the others on the pc to make it better, but less work is after all less work :o)
Now rather confused, I went on Etsy to spy what other people do as a solution. So much silver on Etsy!
But most of them have white or grey backgrounds. There was a few which looks exceptionally nice on some kind of slate. I might see if I can get me some of that.
So it seems that it might be best not to use too much colour which overshadows the delicate greys of silver.
Off I was doing more test. Here's my new sheet:
I actually like most of these, but I'm not sure I can decide. Can you help me? Please let me know if you have a definite favourite.
