So much work..

I looked some of my older listings and realized how horrible their pictures were, so I've been redoing a ton of pictures for the past two days. When I took them I didn't have a camera, and had to use an iphone. They look so much better now, but it was a lot of work. I still need to take pictures for a few more of them, but at least everything has a good first picture. Here is a before and after for one of them.

Yikes I can't believe I had photos that bad O.o

Here's a few tips for taking photos of small items. 

1. On your camera there should be a setting for macro, super macro, or small objects. It depends on the type of camera you have, but make sure you have it set to something like that. It helps a lot.
2. Natural lighting is the best. If you can go outside to take pictures. If you can't go outside, try taking pictures next to a window. If you have to use indoor lighting try using a light bulb that gives off soft light. A good bulb to use for it is "Reveal" light bulbs from General Electric. You should be able to get them at Walmart.
3. If you have shaky hands get a small tripod. I got mine at Walmart. I don't remember how much it was, but it was pretty cheap. You can also set up a tripod and use the timer on your camera to take the picture for you. 
4. When setting up backgrounds you might consider using fabric and pinning it to a chair. You can get cheap scrap fabric from Walmart, Hobby Lobby, and most craft stores. It's a cheap way to get different background colors. If the fabric has too many creases, and you don't feel like breaking out the iron, crinkle up the fabric before you take the picture.  I did this for my steampunk cinderella jewelry, steampunk peter pan necklace, and my unlock my steampunk jewelry if you want to check it out.  If you want a plain white background you might consider making a light box. It diffuses the light so you don't get a shadow. 
5. Another thing that helps is editing your pictures a bit. I use photobucket.com. It helps to crop your photo, adjust the brightness, contrast, and sharpness a bit. You probably don't want to add borders. As you can see in the before picture it makes it rather messy. You can also want to make sure your photo's orientation is correct. On some photo's it will look like it is right side up because your photo viewer corrected it, but when you add it to other sites it will be wrong. You can fix this on photobucket as well. 

I hope this helps, and if you have any questions just leave a comment :) 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/RandomWish