Photo editing on a budget!

After receiving repeated request for this, I thought I'd better turn my reply into a blog:)

This is a little tutorial for those of us who do not have expensive cameras, great studio space, studio set up facilities, daily sunshine, etc.  In fact, this is just my take on making the best of the pictures you have.

A lot of the time, I see what is most likely the most beautiful jewellery BUT the pictures do not do it justice and as a result it does not get noticed.  In these modern times where online presence is important, where pictures DO get you noticed, I wanted to help with these few simple tricks.  Nothing fancy and above all, free and quick.

There is a lot you can do with some photo editing to make your pictures more attractive.
As I am using Photoshop & PaintshopPro for my own works, (not bragging here.. just have had these programs since I was a toddler, so to speak), and I am aware that not everyone wants to fork out money on a program they will use only sporadically, I went on a search to find a free editing program which allows lighting effects.

There are plenty of free editing programs around but most of them do allow you to do just the basics which you can as well do in "Paint".  Others are geared towards special or fun effects.. which is great when you want to spice up your kid's pictures but not when you want to produce good pictures of your jewellery.

I found Picnik, BUT, as they are closing in April and will become part of Google+, I did not venture there. (may do so when they are integrated to see how that works).

I then finally stumbled upon PiXL : http://pixlr.com/editor/ and decided that this is the one I will use for this exercice. No need to download at all, ... you click on it, open the picture you want to work on, and save it on your computer again. Easy peasy.. and FREE!

So let's take a look:

Bracelet, picture taken inside, near window, not so sunny day.

The white space around the bracelet is not evenly spaced and there is a bit of desk showing in the left hand corner. Also, the picture is PLAIN.  We are going to change this in only a few easy steps.

Opened PIXLR.com and went to the image on my computer.

Clicked on the crop tool to crop the space around the bracelet.

Applied the crop tool and you can see that the bracelet is now centred.

I wanted to brighten the picture a bit so opened the
Brightness and contrast Tab, from the ADJUSTMENT menu,
and increased the brightness a bit.

Then I went into the FILTER menu, chose the Vignet option.

The Vignet filter places a "halo" around your item
forcing your eye to the centre.
It is standard set to black.

The finished look in a few steps :)

You can change it to get another colour instead.
Click on the colour box, then play around with the
dots on the colour wheel, your chosen colour will appear
under the original black. When you are happy, click OK.
I opted for white.

You can see that I had the increase the white border to
make it have an effect.  You can choose any colour
you like.  It is fun to experiment!!

The white Vignet result.

Original on the left, white Vignet in the middle, black Vignet on the right

Same bracelet on different background, same effects as above

The final picture pulls the eye to the bracelet and increases interest.

Same treatment for this blue necklace

I just decided on the white version for the final looks.

Different pendant, same treatment

See the dramatic difference?  ONLY 1 effect added.. the black vignet :)

I could give loads of other tips on how to arrange your jewellery in a different way, or how to use props and such, but that has already been covered by heaps of other people so I will just leave it at this for now.

I hope this simple tool will help you get more out of your pictures :)


Have a wonderful week!
Chris