Images for products and how to get the best image

[Reflect]

Hi,

Just wanted to check before diving in.

I have a new E-Comm site that I am building. Non of the wholesalers have images of their products. I will have to do this part, no biggie I guess. I am thinking take the image using TIFF format at the highest resolution being, for my camera, around 2000px. I then will cut the image size in 1/2, do a sharpen, cut the image size in 1/2 and do a sharpen. Then save this file as a JPEG. I was also planning on saving the original TIFF.

Is this the best format to use? Is cutting the image in 1/2 in size too big of a jump? Will doing a sharpen twice have bad effects on the image?

I have done a few tests and I think it's all good.

Brian

[kingkelly]

Dont really matter if youre not going to print anything. Use regular jpegs, and you could prolly just cut it down to your ideal size first, then do unsharp mask.

And if youre really cool, you can use PNG instead of JPG ;)

[mivox]

Yeah, there's no reason to start with a huge, high-res TIFF file if you're cutting it down to a 72ppi web image...

I usually take product photos as camera-default 2 megapixel high quality jpgs, cut the background out of the image in Photoshop, sharpen the image, reduce it to the final dimensions I'll be using, then use the Save for Web function to output a a jpg.

I suppose if I was really cool, I'd save them as pngs... ;) Photoshop's built-in png compression doesn't usually work as well as the jpg function though.

[Reflect]

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback.

Mivox, you stated"cut the background out of the image in Photoshop". How would I go about that, I have PS 5.5.

TIA,

Brian

[korkus2000]

Magic wand or lasso to select the background then delete. Always a good idea to take product pictures on a solid color packground without much variation.

[mivox]

I used the lasso tool, zoom in to 200% magnification, and trace carefully around the outside edge of the product... then choose "select inverse" from the select menu at the top of the screen, and delete the background. (If you accidentally delete your product out of the middle, just create a new layer, paste the product in it, and delete the layer with the background in it.)

You can also create a mask from the lasso selection, if you want to hide the background but not delete it completely.

[Reflect]

Thank you both for that tip, I really appreciate it.

Brian

[WibbleWobble]

Is the Extract tool not available in PS5.5? For images against a solid background, I find that to be the best solution.