Guest Poster: Candied Fabrics

Hello there, it’s me again, Candy Glendening, of Candied Fabrics! I was a guest for Robin earlier this Spring, and I’m BACK!

Right now, I’m in the throes of making some new journal covers, and need to take nice pictures of them, so I thought I’d share what I’m doing here!

First, I tried to to some natural light pictures the other day, you can see them here on an earlier post, but here’s an example:

This is probably the best shot of the bunch, because all the light came from the window, thus one direction, I had a really hard time getting details in the shadowy areas. Oh, if you’d like to see where I’m taking the photos, the journals are lying on my new chaise, with a slipcover dyed by me! (To see my frenetic redecorating efforts this month see here, here, and here)…oh and the blinds were all the way open when I was taking these pix):

Anyway, taking pictures of small things can be made easier by making a light box. Google how to make your own and you’ll get a million different versions…but here is mine! (Sorry about the not so good pix here, but as you can see – the good camera is in the shot!

SO, my fancy light box is a big Rubbermaid type plastic box, with a long piece of white paper draped inside the top, back & bottom (I happen to have really long photographers paper given to me, but you could use white posterboard as well – the curving up from the bottom to the back wall is what you want.) Then 2 clip lamps perched precariously shining through the sides of the box…I diffused this light a bit by putting a piece of tissue paper between the light and the box. The lights are huge, “trumpet top” CFLs. I learned about them here: (this is a GREAT resource about photographing quilts!) These 2 were the only lights used.

I then turned off the flash, set my white balance and started clicking. I was much happier with my shots. I still had to tweak a little in Photoshop, but much less than I had before. Mostly I just played with the levels to get the whites whiter. Kathy Mack has some awesome tips about tweaking digital photos on her blog, this is the one that talks about levels, but they all are worth a read, and written by a sewist, not a photographer, in language we quilters can understand!!!!!

    The one problem with this setup is that it’s not that big – to get interior photos I had to prop them open on the back wall, then rotate the photo – I think these look weird…is it just me?

And here is the “money shot” – I LOVE this one…what do you think, are these better?    So, I hope you enjoyed my little trip through trying to take better pictures. I’m now off to sew 30 of these babies by…Saturday! Yikes!!!!