Introductory Tips to Photographing Clothing Apparel

Good clothing photography can be boiled down to doing certain things and walking around the pitfalls and traps. Guidelines can stifle your creative spark, so we try not to draw out guidelines. Like with writing, occasionally, the rules were made to be broken, and photography leans heavily on the best presentation of the photos.

Tips for Photographing Clothing Apparel - Shootfactory

#1: Prepare and Present Your Garment

Before you even attempt to start shooting, try to prepare your garment well. For example, iron the clothing and present it in a way that looks attractive. The ultimate goal of making the sale should always be front and center. Preparation might only entail a small investment of energy, but you will see a big difference. Post-processing and photography will smoothen out and save you cash and time.

#2: Avoid Flopping it Carelessly on the Floor

Clothing apparel photography takes one golden key from salesmanship. That key is that you should always present your clothing well when shooting. With clothing photography, most of the time, the goal is to sell it anyway. You want to convince customers to buy your garment, so you shouldn’t recklessly throw it on the floor and snap a picture. You want to pay careful attention to how the camera snaps a photo of both the inside and the outside of the garment. It might sound obvious, but you also want to remove the price tags and stickers from the garment as you snap a picture of it. While you can remove the stickers during the post-processing of the photos, you can avoid the extra effort and preparation of the garment through a simple removal. You want everything to look natural and presented in a clean fashion.

#3: Smooth out the Unnatural Shapes and Folds

You want the photo to have some symmetry when you present it for the photo. For example, you don’t want unnatural looking folds. Make it look as good as possible on the mannequin or model. The more natural it looks, the more beautiful it will appear, and you won’t have to do as much post-processing. To add to the naturalness, tools like pins, pegs and needles can help with it. You might have to restyle it to shape it well. These tools are easy to come by, and the end result will almost always look better than if you had sloppily dressed the mannequin.

#4: Dress a Model or Mannequin

Should you pay a model or buy a mannequin for your photos? The big difference between the two comes down to the budget. A professional model will cost you more, and you might not have the budget for one. If you don’t think that you will gain back your cash from paying a model, then you may want to buy a mannequin instead. Another problem with hiring a model is how you will only have a limited amount of time to where you can snap those photos, but a mannequin gives you an unlimited amount of time, and you don’t have to worry about paying more. Practice with a mannequin gives you more time to practice your clothing photography skills.

Once you have taken the photos, you can apply Photoshop to your photos to make them look better. For example, you can use a feature called “ghost mannequin,” which are photo editing technique. The end result gives you a realistic looking 3D shape. Meanwhile, the mannequin goes into ghost mode, hence the reason for the name.

#5: Good Lighting and the Right Camera Perspective

You’d feel surprised at what great lighting and excellent camera angles can do for your picture. Whether you choose to buy a mannequin or hire a professional model for your clothing, the bottom line is that it converts to sales. You have two key elements in a good photo: the right camera perspective and good enough lighting. Professional photographers will have access to a broad range of photography tools to assemble the best setup. However, as an amateur photographer, you might not have the budget to invest, and even if you did, you still wouldn’t have the same skill.

For a non-professional, you begin with the natural lighting. As you improve, you might start to invest in different tools like external lighting kits and other great items to bring up the quality of your photography. For those without the external lighting kits, you will first need to remain patient because you will depend on natural lighting. You will also need to know the settings on your camera. Play with them a bit to learn what produces the best images. If shooting outdoors, for example, it would be best to use the natural lighting setting on the camera to produce crisp and colourful images. Next, you have camera perspective. Not enough people pay much attention to this element. You have to pay close attention to the positioning of the camera based on how it looks in comparison to the mannequin. This will help you to achieve the perfect result. In some cases, a simple rotation of the camera will solve the problem. The biggest problem will occur when you don’t set the camera to be perpendicular to the mannequin. If you want to get the perfect camera perspective, then you should invest in a tripod. It will lower the post-processing.

Clothing Apparel Photography Tips - Shootfactory

#6: Every Detail Matters

A lot of people cast aside the small details. In fact, these are the things that you should pay the most attention to because they add up to the big things. Look at the settings, the lighting, the camera perspective and background. When you focus too much on the subject itself, it can be all too easy to forget about the things inside the frame. With clothing apparel photography, it has become common to take out the background and choose a consistent colour. While not all websites choose to put the photo on a white background, it has become common. The reason photographers eliminate the background on photos is that they want to give it some consistency. In most cases, it will be white, but you have plenty of other people who have chosen light gray. Choose a background that won’t clash with the colour of your garment to make it look its best.

Another one of the reasons companies choose to present their products with a white background is because it gets rid of the mess with the presentation of the product. It looks more professional.

An infinity curve, also sometimes called an infinity cove, is used to create a stage with a plain, single-colour background. This approach serves several purposes. It’s popular with product photographers because it allows them to clearly define the subject of an image by remove the appearance of a background of any kind. It’s also a commonly used approach among photographers who want to be able to easily mask objects during post-production work in Photoshop, and special effects designers often prefer to use it, too. Portrait photographers also like to use this method to create the appearance of an ethereal, almost heavenly space around a subject.

Tip #7: Use sRGB for the Color Model

Photographers have sometimes chosen everything else for consistency, but they also have to look at how their garments will look when published across different platforms. You have to ask yourself how it will look on all internet browsers, and you want to guarantee the colour quality the best that you can. Which colour model will display the photos in the best light possible? You can choose from three different models RGB, CMYK and sRGB. With e-commerce or a publication in mind, you will want to skip the CMYK colour model. RGB has set a new standard for most cameras, and you will see a broader spectrum of colours, which will work better for the associated post-processing and the photography. Meanwhile, you won’t see a big loss in the quality of the pictures.

The thing to understand is that sRGB has a more limited colour spectrum. Why should you use this over RGB for each publication? When looking at print, you may truly want RBG, but sRGB lets you play it safe with your e-commerce site. We recommend using sRGB because that’s the most common colour model that you will find with apps, computers and internet browsers. One thing to realise with the selection of a colour model is that once you have chosen one, you cannot go back. That’s why you should choose the sRGB model only once you have picked up the final export of the photos. In this way, you don’t limit the post-processing and the photo quality. When you finally adjust the colour in Photoshop, you will guarantee the best colour in the presentation of your e-commerce site.

#8: Pay Special Attention to the Buttons

You should first check to make sure that all the buttons show up in the photo. Make your garment look as simple as possible, but don’t overlook the buttons in the fashion sense. Before the shoot, you may even want someone else to check out the minute details of the shoot.

#9: What Do the Ties Look Like?

Before you begin, you want to check to see that the ties have been styled neatly before you begin the shoot. You can find several great videos on Youtube about creating the perfect knot for a tie. Plan in advance to make sure the shoot will go as intended, and it will also ensure that you don’t waste your time during the photoshoot.

#10: How Should You Present Collars?

Before you iron the rest of your garment, you should always iron the collar. This serves as the most visible part of the shirt, and the collar will frame the face. To iron the collar, pop it up and begin with the underside of it. You will slowly and gently press the iron from one side of the collar to the next. Then, flip the shirt over to iron the outside of it. You want the collar to look flat and straight because this will enhance the quality of the photo and help it to sell more. Wrinkled collars will make the garment look unrefined and unattractive.

#11: Say No to Wrinkles

The garment should look as wrinkle-free as possible if you want to showcase its best characteristics in the photo. With some clothing articles, ironing it out completely might be difficult because of the unique stitching. When this happens, you should look at all the options available to you. You want to bring as much creativity to the shoot as possible because you will often have the most fun and your clothing will look better this way too. Use another kind of fold or shoot the photo from an angle that will emphasise the better qualities of the garment.

#12: The Rule on Sleeves

In all of the photographs, you should fold the sleeves consistently because this will make it look neater. You may also want the sleeves to appear more symmetrical so that your customers believe it will fit when they put it on. Position the sleeves in the downward position. In this way, the customer can’t see down them, and the photo will look more professional.

While it appears to be a simple list, you shouldn’t underestimate the power of these techniques. You might also draw up a checklist and take it frame by frame to get the best clothing photos. Practice makes perfect, and you might forget some of these things on occasion, but with ongoing reminders, you will eventually graduate to the level of pro. These are some of the introductory tips that can help you to sell more clothing.

 

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