Excellent post, Kristie! I know that my business, Pixie's Pocket, went crazy online once I moved in with a professional photographer who was happy to practice her product photography with my honey! :) I've learned the importance of a good image for online sales.
Thank you so much Kristie!! I love this article!
I really recommend that everyone get on Poppy Swap and "surf"! Spend a few minutes simply refreshing the homepage and see how different images look as they come up. See what attracts and draws your eye. We want a clean, crisp and fresh look for our shoppers.
So take a look at light, content, backgrounds etc and compare/contrast what you see. Its easy when we turn our creativity on to want to add a bunch of extra elements to the image but simple seems to have the best representation for the web.
Thanks again Kristie, this is great!!
Member
Posts: 22
Hi Amber~
Thanks so much for your feedback and relaying your experience of what happened for you when you improved your photos. SCORE on the professional photographer roommate! That was something I also intended to mention to folks was to look around/within your own community for a person who LOVES photography. Perhaps you can do a trade of products for photos. This is something I did. It was a lovely experience.
Amber, do you have a store here on Poppy Swap? I looked for you real quick and didn't find you. If not, would LOVE to have you join us with your beautiful products as well. If you do have a store here on the Swap, you might want to consider adding/replacing your signature here on the forum with your personalized Poppy Swap web address. Visitors who are here on the forum and want to check out your products may like to stay here 'within' Poppy Swap and not be taken outside the site, so to speak, like me!
Hope you are well and delighting in your beautiful honey-making blissness!
Kristie
Member
Posts: 86
Kristie, I remember the first time I found your shop on etsy- it was a picture that caught my eye. Such a simple, vibrant photograph with rich color and a clear view of your product. Then I read your product description and was so moved by your passion and love for your plants. Finally, I read your ingredient listing, and I was smitten, so much so that I just had to write and tell you. Silly, I know, but I absolutely love to communicate from my heart and generally don't hold back.
Great ideas for photography. Might I add using a bold pop of color or a theme that touches a deep fancy or evokes an emotional response.
For those who cannot afford a professional photographer, I think this post has some really spot on ideas for making your pictures really pop.
♥
Member
Posts: 118
I want to add this from my experience as a graphic designer for whatever it is worth. I am an amateur photographer, not a pro, but have had a lot of experience in photo editing and designing with photos.
Light and Shadow - These play such an important role that I think they deserve further consideration. So, imagine you have your product in place on your chosen background with a spot light on it. Looks pleasing? You shoot and find that your spot lighting has created deep shadows and unwanted glare. So, what I suggest is to set up additional spot lights at different angles to soften the shadows (eliminating them is not always possible or desirable). Shoot again. Compare the photos. Perhaps the additional lighting has also reduced the glare? or added more? Softened the shadows or added more? Ask yourself, is this better or worse? Carry on in this critical mode, working with all the variables you can think of ...distance between object and light source, relative position (above, below, on one side or other), colors of lights (warm or cool), diffusion and dispersion of the light, and position (angle) of the camera. By feeling free to experiment and rejecting poor results, you can arrive at a much more pleasing result. It does take time and effort..cultivate patience and enjoy the process, or hire a pro!
In addition to all the great tips Kristie offered, I hope you'll find this piece useful. This is the process I am working through in my effort to make product photos for our shop. Lighting has been the big sticking point, the camera is so unforgiving! So, I'll be honest, I have dozens of photos that don't quite make it! But I am gaining ground, so I'll keep working at it, asking myself these kind of questions until I am satisfied that my photo shows everything about my product that I love!
With all of our local (real world) marketing efforts over the years, it has been so easy to just show our products directly to customers. Poppyswapping requires good photography from us, also.
Member
Posts: 86
Aline,
I have just taken a look at your shop, and it is sooo beautiful. I love your shop's aesthetic! Combined with the love and the wonderful product you are selling, it is quite lovely!!♥
I'm glad you mentioned lighting, because I have struggled with lighting for years. Finally, I have found that the best lighting that I was able to achieve (because I'm working without any kind of equipment) was rain or fog. Indoor light always seems to change the color of my products or comes out too dark or grainy, and sunlight always creates a glare or distorts the colors. I get up early in the morning while its still foggy or I wait for the rainy season to do my picture taking. I don't take my pictures outside in the rain (well, sometimes I do), but I have access to a building with windows that don't have screens, so I use that building and take my pictures right next to the window. I don't know if this tip will help anyone living in an area that doesn't get fog or a lot of rain, but it has helped me.
It has been said a few times already, but I would like to reiterate that most photographers take hundreds of pictures and choose their favorite few from the lot. I tend to do the same thing. I will take hundreds of pictures getting every angle that I can, every close up, every combination of color. Then, I go home and check it all out. Usually there will be a small handful of pictures that jump out at me.
Just a few suggetions for what its worth.
Member
Posts: 22
Hello again!
It's follow up Friday and I'm checkin' in with y'all on your photos! How are they coming along? Would you like a little supportive critique? Feel free to post a link to one of your products where you would like a little photo review. Trust me, it won't hurt!
Kristie
Member
Posts: 118
Thanks for prompting me to reply, Kristie. I worked on my site over the weekend adding listings for our flower and edible seeds, descriptive content to our storefront and completed my first round of editing the entire thing...it's become like a book with many pages!
Also, I abandoned the camera in favor of the scanner for my seed packet photos. I just mention this to suggest a third alternative for images, in addition to DIY or "hire a pro". Since my product is nearly flat, the scans are more legible than the photos because they lack glare.
I learned from Kiki how to take my images from my desktop, upload to aviary.com for image markup and URL, then make them appear on my storefront or listings! I have Photoshop, so I can do my own photo editing, but for those who don't- aviary.com has image editing for free. Many thanks to Kiki for her guidance!
Would you like to look at my storefront, or any listing for a photo review? I'm not completely satisfied with the images and am open to suggestions.
Gwendolyn, I greatly appreciate your kind and generous compliments on my work, and all your contributions to this post and forum! I am reading your replies more than once and taking them to heart. I also use cloudy days for photography, which are plentiful here in Oregon. The bright sun just washes away the brilliance of plant & flower colors, makes dark shadows and leaves generally too much contrast. I'm going to try your not quite indoor, not quite outdoor idea! I welcome your critique, too, if you are willing? I could do the same for you?
Aline
Member
Posts: 86
Thank you so much, Aline. My honest feedback is this: I went to PoppySwap and entered "seeds" in the search engine. The shops whose pictures most caught my eye were the photographs of the plants. I think I am naturally inclined to be most responsive to images of live plants. I do like your botanical images- they are miniature works of art. I think that you should absolutely have images of your seed packages which are very lovely, so that your shoppers know exactly what they are buying. I also think your product decriptions are very good, because they are information and engaging and not too long, however I would change it up a tiny bit.
You write:
ASHWAGANDA SEED PACKET Withania somnifera minimum 40 seeds
Ashwaganda, also known as Indian Ginseng, is a useful tonic herb from the Ayurvedic tradition of India. It is a tropical, tender perennial of the solanaceae family. Here in Oregon we grow ashwaganda as an annual summer crop, harvesting roots in the fall after collecting the berries for seeds.
For best results, sow these seeds before July 2012.
I would tweak it just a bit:
Ashwaganda, also known as Indian Ginseng, is a useful tonic herb from the Ayurvedic tradition of India. It is a tropical, tender perennial of the solanaceae family. Here in Oregon we grow ashwaganda as an annual summer crop, harvesting roots in the fall after collecting the berries for seeds.
ASHWAGANDA SEED PACKET Withania somnifera minimum 40 seeds
For best results, sow these seeds before July 2012.
My reason for tweaking it is that according to Kristie, there are some people who don't read through the entire product description. I would put the most colorful information first where it can grab the attention, then I would put the dry details further along, for anyone whose interest is still maintained.
That's just my two cents, as I am not a trained professional. I would appreciate your feedback ANYTIME. Communication is right in line with my feminine nature, and exchanging feedback falls right in line with my creative nature, so any forum that fosters honest communication and feedback is most certainly something I welcome and hope to encourage through participation. Right now I am definitely going through a creative process, rumaging through all my ideas, tweaking and refining. I have also opened a second shop, so I am in the midst of developing a new aesthetic for this shop, planning new informative blog posts to accompany my products, and doing a lot of rewriting and research. Excuse me as I ramble!! LOL but the point is... feedback, anytime!
Member
Posts: 22
I'm so happy we are chattin' it up here on the forum! First I wanted to mention that rules are meant to be broken! :-) One of my clients is a seed company and I've worked with them for the last few years immersing myself in the seed industry. It is standard practice (for seeds!) to put that dry info up front and center. As many seed people are horticulturists (SO NOT ME!) it is relatively normal to have the botanical name along side the common name as the first order of business with a description. With seed count.
Breakin' the rules, breakin' the rules...!
Photos:
I think your botancial illustrations are great. I also like how your 2nd photo is of the actual seed packet. I think people appreciate getting to see what they are going to get... There are multiple seed companies who utilize illustrations such as Botanical Interests and Renee's Gardens. I personally love them and it gives me the 'personal' feel/touch.
Thanks!
Kristie
Member
Posts: 86
Breakin' the rules.... that's cute, Kristie! I guess its not exactly breaking the rules. It seems a different set of rules apply to seeds. Good thing it came up.
Aline, I would like to reiterate how much I appreciate what you said in your earlier post. Thank you so much.
Member
Posts: 118
Thanks to you! You brought up some valuable points which I'll try to address...
About "dry info", this is the most important piece I give, and this is why. Botanical identification thru the use of Latin names in addition to common names is akin to speaking a universal language about plants. Common names are not specific (the root word here being species) , and can easily be misconstrued. For instance, pot marigold is commonly used for Calendula officinalis, which as you know is not a true marigold (Tagetes species) at all. So, when I buy organic seeds, I want to know the species and variety, and how many seeds I will be getting. This tells me how many packets I will need to order.
This is coming from a seedperson, but as a user of herbs, I also want to know what species I am getting.
Kristie, I love what you wrote about my illustrations, and product photos. In my art, I've been inspired by the woodcuts done by Mary Azarian for The Cooks Garden seed catalogue and the work of Judith Ann Griffith for Seed Savers Exchange.
I'm also pleased to get this statement from Gwendolyn: "your product decriptions are very good, because they are information and engaging and not too long" I took my descriptions from my package labels, and these are necessarily brief to fit the small packet. I was afraid that I hadn't said enough. I guess we can agree that no tweaking is needed after getting Kristie's post.
About the use of photos verses illustrations, I agree with Kristie, and here's why.
1) I'm an artist, and this is my chosen "media" and so for me it's a form of self expression. I began drawing every image by hand. Now, that I've gained Photoshop skills, I often start with a photo, then transform it to look like my drawings.
2) We are a small seed company, so my unique illustrations help us stand out from the crowd. You won't find these on any other product. Or anywhere else on the internet for that matter.
3) With illustrations, I can show multiple attributes in one image, which I could never do with the camera. For example, my sunflower illustration combines blossoms from 5 plants which were separated in time and space.
If my poppyswap gallery serves to showcase my "miniature works of art", I am in good company with all of you other creatives. But I also am here to sell our seeds online, and am learning from these discussions how to do just that. Thank you all so much!
Aline
p.s. I read Gwedolyn's reply last night around 9 pm, but it was dated with today's date? Am I in a time warp or are you in a different time zone? Or is this a Y2K type of phenomena?
Member
Posts: 86
Aline, your miniature works of art are beautiful. They are reminiscent of my childhood fantasy to draw botanical images. Perhaps you should mention that the artwork is yours somewhere in your "About Seller" page. I love that you have a strong sense of what you are doing and the direction you want to take. It means that I can offer you honest feedback and that you will use it to support your creative process regardless of whether or not you make use of what I say. I think, for me, that is the beauty of a forum like this. I definitely appreciate the opportunity to "air out" different thoughts, insights, and ideas because the thoughts that bounce back have the potential to change and inspire in unexpected ways. I love that you use your seed packages to express yourself. I can relate to that very much. Every detail of my shop is in some way an expression of my passion or my personality.
This is a bit off topic and is directed towards anyone who cares, but I was remembering my experience on myspace last night. Before I was introduced to myspace, which was about 7 years ago, I was still so shy that I couldn't lift my head or look anyone in the eye, and I always stuttered or spaced out when I tried to verbally communicate. When I started to become active on myspace, it was mostly to design my page. I spent hours learning codes, playing with fonts, images, colors, and writing in my blog. Over the course of two years, I noticed that the creative processing that I did on myspace helped me feel more confident socially- better able to verbally communicate. Somehow, pre-thinking my ideas and thoughts in a medium that was colorful, challenging, change-able, and instantaneous turned out to be very therapeutic. I think that the last two years I spent developing the aesthetic for my shop was, unconsciously to me, another such process, because now I feel compelled to take my work into a real-life forum. I also feel compelled to develop a new aesthetic.
My first aesthetic, I have only just come to realize, was inspired by the fantasies of my youth: English country gardens, the French countryside, Jane Austin, Green Peace, the Peace Corps, Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, The Secret Garden, Little Women, Hans Christian Anderson, John William Waterhouse, as well as 80's pop culture as influenced by a California beach town. It became a way to express that love born of my innocence. Photography became a channel back to the creative flow of my childhood. When I start taking pictures I go into a zone. It is a very joyful experience that developed over time.
Now, my second aesthetic I think is inspired by who I have become. Many influences are at play: my life on a 3500 acre ranch, four years of isolation in a wilderness, interaction with plants, interaction with my Mexican neighbors who also work on this ranch, healing as a direct result of plant medicine, and a more active participation in the herbal community. These influences all come together in a sort of mingling of humility and deep gratitude as I begin to more seriously interact with plants. I am so excited to explore this new side of myself through my work. The happiness is such that it brings tears to my eyes every time I think about it.
I know this is a long post, but please bear with me. In my head, all of these things feel somehow related. Yesterday, I took my three and half year old to visit with a speech pathologist because she has a speech disorder which she likely inherited from me. She absolutely loves meeting with this woman who is giving her an opportunity to develop her communication skills in a setting that is nurturing, challenging, stimulating, and fun. I saw something interesting yesterday. While in my meeting with this woman she was always very much in control, her tone measured, her words carefully chosen. She has a cool sense of restraint about her. My daughter finally gave in to her curiosity and ran to see what some of the other children were up to, and this woman followed after her. I gathered my papers and ran to catch up. What I saw was a woman on her knees, using the most tender voice, with a softness and kindness in her face as she interacted with my little daughter. I saw a woman who LOVES little children, and seems to have a soft spot in her heart for children with speech disorders. When she's meeting with me, she feels a responsibility to keep this love hidden. But when she's alone with the child, she feels free to be open with her love. I don't know, but I thought that was interesting. When she caught my eye, she began to restrain herself again, but when I smiled at her she relaxed and smiled back.
Sorry for the long story. But if its true that statistics state most people only read 20% of the written word, then this post is written for the few stragglers who enjoy reading. 
Member
Posts: 86
Thank you!
Member
Posts: 118
I'm planning to add garden photos to my listings when I find some time, so I am gradually sifting through my images and preparing them for the web in photoshop. But before I do, I need an answer to this conundrum...
My question is about sizing my images, and has to do with your script re-sizing them. No matter which size I upload, your script is re-sizing my product photos to display at 4 inches by 4 inches. When I uploaded all of my product photos last year, I intended to present them at a size which would allow folks to see and read the entire label. I was not able to acheive this due to the re-sizing. Kiki told me that the site didn't have the capacity to display the images at full size (6 x 6 inches).
However, I am seeing much larger images being displayed in other swappers stores, up to the 790 x 592 Kiki mentioned here. I would love to have my product photos be (at least) legible to customers! So, I thought maybe the script has been changed to allow this? I just tried again with my echinacea listing. I loaded an image with dimensions 750 x 750, but I got the same result. You can see what I mean at this link: http://www.poppyswap.com/detail.asp?id=3386&n=Echinacea-Purple-Coneflower-E-purpurea-40-seeds
What's the story?
Puzzled Aline
Moderator
Posts: 126
Hi Aline,
I'm not sure I'm understanding your question correctly...because I just went to your listing here and played around with it. I added my own photo and the size looks like the 'other galleries' you reference that seem to have the larger photos you aren't able to achieve in your own gallery. (by the way, that is Bernie!) :-) Additionally, the photo you have in position 1 appears to be visually larger than the other photos in your gallery. This leads me to believe that it is the photos you are uploading that are sized to small. I wouldn't bother with resizing. My recommendation is do what I do: upload the original file size into the gallery. Allow Poppy Swap automatic re-sizing to happen and your photos will be larger. Often the photos I am uploading are 500k to 1mb in size. Hope this helps.
http://www.poppyswap.com/detail.asp?id=1832
Bernie is in position 6. ha!
Kristie
Member
Posts: 118
Hey Kristie,
Thanks for taking a stab at this problem, but no, it is still not resolved. Bernie looks great, what a sweetheart!
You looked at a listing where, yes, the images are small to begin with. This is not the problem area, although, I would like the #1 image to display larger. Please look at the echinacea listing photos #2, 3 & 4 to see the results I am getting with 3 different file sizes. These are all Jpegs from the same original, but submitted to poppyswap at different sizes.
# 2 was 78kb, 469x469, poppyswap re-sized to 41kb, 320x320
#3 was 331kb, 750x750. poppyswap re-sized to 43kb, 320x320
#4 was 2,171kb, 1875x1875, poppyswap re-sized to 43kb, 320x320
These 3 are all being re-sized to the same (too small) dimensions. I'm stuck again. What am I doing wrong?
Truly puzzled again,
Love, Aline
Moderator
Posts: 126
Hi Aline,
I just added a photo to the echinacea listing and it looks just fine. I have no idea what is happening for you and why the images are showing up small.
Do you want to send me your photos for the echinacea listing and I can upload them from here and see what happens?
Member
Posts: 118
This is the original file at full size. The seed packet displays at its actual size and the text is legible. This is how I would ideally like to see the product images on all my listings.
I emailed this to Kristie, and she forwarded it to Kiki for troubleshooting. I'm hoping she'll look into it, soon?
I updated all the plugins on my browser this morning, and I'm using Firefox 12.0 as my browser. I then tried uploading this again to my listing and I'm still getting the same result as before.
What else can I do? Should I try another browser? Am I the only one who has encountered this issue?
Aline
Member
Posts: 118
I got a reply from Aaron this week, and here's what he had to say:
I really love the scrolling image feature because I know I can see this better and read the label, if I just click on it. Here's what I get, thanks to Elk Feather Herbs. (you'll only see part of this one, due to forum size limitation)
Aaron went on to explain..."You noticed that other swappers have large images; this is because they uploaded their photos prior to the new resizing routines going into effect. This happened a few months ago, to my knowledge."
Aaron, I don't know when this lip balm image was uploaded, but mine were uploaded 8 months ago, as we were working thru Kristie's Marketing Monday lessons. She had instructed us to "get up close and personal" and this is my intention, to show my product as it really is. I want folks to read my label just like they could if they had it in their hand.
Aaron, you also wrote "when things are "standardized", there are always a few people for which the new standards do not work. We'll try to figure something out together." I could accept this "new standard" more easily if I could see at least one other store on the swap which is limited in this way. Every store I have seen has large photos when the thumbnails are opened with the scrolling feature, and they flow great! I can't help but feel that the new standard is a double standard, which is the last thing I wish for from my beloved poppyswap community.
To his credit, Aaron offers this solution: "Once the image is uploaded online, you could link to it from the "Detailed description" area of the Poppy Swap listing editor. You could even insert a smaller thumbnail of the image directly into the "Detailed description" editor, and link that thumbnail to the full size image. I would recommend setting it up to open in a new window, so that users don't get navigated away from your listing."
I had already done something like this with the first listing which Kristie pulled up on this thread. I was able to insert the full size photo rather than a link or thumbnail as Aaron suggested. So, yes, I can do as you ask, but I feel intimidated by the extra work and time involved in uploading all 37 images to my blog, and then editing these into my 37 poppyswap listings.
I'm not convinced that this is a fair solution, yet. I put Bernie's photo back on the Echinacea listing, so that other readers might see the distinction I am making. I didn't have any trouble getting his image to display at it's full size, which, by the way, is roughly the same file size as my product details. I wish these could be big enough for everyone to read, don't you? Am I asking too much?
Aline
Moderator
Posts: 126
Hi Aline~
Aaron will be emailing you soon and we will do our best to get everything situated!
~Kristie
Moderator
Posts: 126
Swappers!
I wanted to share with you a cool, FREE, photo filter software tool that is like Instagram except it is NOT about social sharing. It is just about improving and having fun with photos. It's super easy to use and I highly recommend.
Let me know if you have questions.
xo Kristie
Member
Posts: 118
We did it! 4 heads are better than one!
I ultimately got the best result by starting fresh with my photo at the "optimal size" Kiki suggested. Here's the new link to my echinacea detail. We can read the label!
I've rarely been faulted for being "too square", but for the interface here, square images are sized up, then rescaled down...ultimately making them display too small. All the previous discussion about "new" standards must have been a misunderstanding. Aaron offered to work on this programming glitch to get better scaling on square images, also. Until then, they'll be too rectangular!
So, I recommend starting at 790 x 592, to make the most of this great scrolling feature!
Love, Aline
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You don’t take a photograph, you make it. -Ansel Adams
You’ve spent countless hours creating your beautiful herbal product. From creating the medicine on the inside, to the label and the packaging on the outside. But how much thought have you given to your product photo? Photos of your products have an important function and role online. Remember, a customer can’t smell, touch, or sample online. They don’t get to meet you like they would at your market. The first impression a customer has will be their only impression. Your store, your products and you are represented in your photos.
If your photos are dark, fuzzy, busy, overexposed or have a glare you might want to consider doing a re-shoot. You’ll thank yourself when you see the impact it has on your success!
Here are 7 easy and practical tips for better photos.
A few things to remember::
Don’t have the time or the interest to take your own photos? There are professional photographers who will do it for you! Here are two of my favorite photographers who I’ve worked with:
Melissa Morelli Photography
ViaU! Photography
For tips on taking good photos check out these blogs and helpful online guides:
http://www.viauphotography.com/blog/
http://www.handmadespark.com/blog/finding-your-spark-product-photography-the-big-no-for-your-product-photos/
http://meylah.com/meylah/the-anatomy-of-a-great-product-shot
And remember to stay tuned! We have more tips coming next Monday!
About the author:: Would you like just a little bit of support to expand your herbal and business efforts? Kristie Nackord, fellow swapper and the ‘herb girl’ behind Spirit Horse Herbals, is also an independent marketing consultant available to support you with your business. For more information click here!
Marketing Consultant~
http://www.KristieNackord.com