How to Use FotoFuze for Easy Product Photography

USE THIS FREE RESOURCE TO GET A WHITE BACKGROUND IN YOUR PHOTOS

First off, Happy 2019! I hope you had a fun and hangover-free New Year’s. I am proud to say I stayed awake until midnight *pat on the back*. And let’s dive in!

Today’s blog is about amping up your product photography with a simple technique for getting a white background in your product photos.

While I am a painter I also really enjoy photography and recently started turning my artwork into jewelry. Listing a piece of artwork online is a bit different than listing a necklace and I had to learn very quickly how to photograph my jewelry.

I’m still learning, but I’m going to share a product photography tool that gave me a simple basic photo with a white background. And the best part? You can use your cell phone.

Back in September 2018, I created my first jewelry collection (some pieces are no longer available, but you can view The Psychedelic Collection here: https://jeffcoatart.blog/shop/). As an artist, I go where the wind takes me, but this was the first time I sat down and really thought about what images I wanted to put together. The process was amazing (stressful, yes) but I was FOCUSED.

On my list of things to do was to learn great product photography. Or go down trying!

Now, my idea of taking photos is tramping around in the woods and shooting trees. Nature photography is my jam. It de-stresses me. What is NOT my jam is product photography.

It’s tricky. Your environment can actually “throw” colors onto your products without you even realizing it. Even trees (if you’re outside)! The green of the leaves can affect the color balance making the photos of your product misleading. But that’s a whole other blog post.

While you need artistic and eye-catching photos that include props, you also need the simple straight-forward shot of your product with nothing else around it. And this is how you do it:

What you’ll need:

Smart phone
1 single piece of foam core board
1 piece of bi-fold foam core board (the bigger the better because larger foam core will reflect more white)
A table next to a nice-sized window
Your product

Step 1:

Set up your foam core boards in front of your nice-sized window. Natural light is usually better than artificial light. You want natural DIFFUSED light, not hard light that will throw shadows on your product.

If you’d like to read more about the different types of light, here’s a good article by Digital Photography School: https://digital-photography-school.com/three-types-light-diffused-backlight-reflected-use/

Step 2:

Arrange your product just the way you want it.

Step 3:

Focus your smart phone camera and take your photo (I always like to take a few at varying angles.) This image, without FotoFuze, would be just okay. The shadow in the bottom corner is not ideal. But we don’t have to worry about it when using FotoFuze.

Step 4:

Open FotoFuze https://fotofuze.com

FotoFuze does have a phone app, but I used it on my mac. You may need to create a free account. Upload your best photo by clicking on the blue & white camera icon.

Step 5:

Along the top left corner, you will see a horizontal tool bar. The “magic highlighter” should already be selected. With your cursor, start highlighting the product AND the product’s shadow. You will also see a small black box titled, “Check for errors.” If you see red splotches in this then those are areas that have not been highlighted and probably need to be.

Step 6:

Next, you can adjust your settings by changing the brightness, background clarity, and sensitivity. I don’t like the brightness to be all the way to 100%, but play around with these until you find the results YOU like.

You can also adjust the background style. The default setting will give you a really white white background. This can look a little harsh. Try moving the blue dot around the square and look at how this changes the preview image. Having a little more grey with a natural background (instead of flat) might look better with your products.

Step 7:

Click the Finish button. Your album homepage will appear and you can now click on your edited photo. A black download screen will appear. Click Download.

Voila!

For this image, I went with a 90% brightness. In the background style square, I moved the blue dot to the middle of the upper half. Right in between natural and flat while not being a super harsh white.

I hope this product photography tutorial helps you in creating easy and pain-free product photos. If you use FotoFuze, I would love to hear any helpful tips you learn. Now get to it! -Christy

Don’t want a white background? Read this article by Tishana Richards at ieTishana for 8 professional-looking alternatives: http://www.ietishana.com/blog/white-background-myth

Tishana also provides helpful photo editing services in case you want to skip the fuss!

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