A few weeks ago, I was privileged to present a photography workshop at MJSA ConFab. Even though I don't necessarily like to be known as "The Jewelry Photography Guy," I seem to be gaining that reputation. After all, this was the 4th time I've enjoyed teaching jewelry photography techniques at an MJSA event.
I'm always being asked the same few questions about photography, which usually includes questions about macro lenses, lighting, and ... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
This is Part 8 of my annual special Daily Golden Nugget "Holiday Run-Up" series packed with tactics to help you during November and December this year. I started this series with an overview of the marketing strategies that have worked over the last 12 months and have been expanding on each idea every day since.
I angst a lot over the poor photo quality I often see used on jewelry websites and in print ads. Someone will never know the detail of intricate fine jewelry unless they are holding it in their hand or looking at a perfect quality photo.
I have a simple idea of a perfect quality photo: just be in focus and properly lit.
I like to use photos with interesting backgrounds to attract attention and then high definition photos with pure white backgrounds on the product det... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
In today's #ThrowbackThursday, I'm jumping back to April 2011 when I wrote about image sizes. You can read the old Gold Nugget here. This is still a very relevant topic today that's worth revisiting.
In this age of high speed internet, there are many times when you can get a faster connection through the 4G on your smartphone than through the wired connection y... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Apparently Google is turning a few more heads with its recent search engine ranking algorithm changes again. I'm not talking about Mobilegeddon, which will happen on April 21, 2015, but their latest announcement about e-commerce product images.
Google has put a lot of effort into improving how it understands images and the types of images that people would like to se... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Good photography of your products is the only way you can sell your products online. Even if your website is ugly, good photography and good customer service will always sell jewelry.
However, there is a point of diminishing returns when it comes to your photography, and it has to do with the file sizes.
A typical jewelry product catalog will show a ring in 3 different sizes: 1. As a thumbnail on the browsing pages. 2. As a medium size image on the product description page. 3. As a large image when you want to zoom in to see details.
The lazy web programmer will use the same image for all 3 purposes, but there's a serious drawback to this. You would need to use the largest image, that is image #3, for all locations. Except that large image can be 600KB or more, and we've even seen images as large as 3MB.VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Photos and images can really spice up a website, well, that is they can spice up a website if they are done correctly.
Jewelry websites are especially vulnerable to poor quality product photos since jewelry photography is actually pretty tough.
We have a skewed opinion of jewelry photography, in that we believe it should be true to the item and not photo retouched. You don't want the customer opening their eagerly awaited online jewelry purchase to be met with disappointment because your photography was too good.
It's especially important to include some type of scaling comparison in your photography, like a coin or a pencil for example. Avoid using a real hand unless you actually hire a "hand model."
A professional photographer will charge anywhere from $25 to $200 per item photographed. It all depends on h... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Determining the correct size of an image to use on your website can be tricky. Your website probably has a standard image size setting, and if you learn to size your images correctly your users will have a quality visual experience and a pleasant browsing experience.
The first thing you need to understand about website images is that no two web designers use the same terminology. Some designers will ask the "size" of an image when they want to know the pixel dimensions as they appear in the web browser; whereas the "size" for someone else actually refers to the kilobyte size of the file saved on the hard drive.
Jewelry photography is very difficult. You won't sell anything online or attract attention to your store if your photos are too small to see detail, of if the images are too grainy. Grainy images are also referre... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
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