I'm in the process of re-doing my website at the moment. I really loved the old version which was made using Dream Weaver and Photoshop and was a bit more "arty" than the new one, but I wasn't able to update it without the help of my boyfriend who built the website for me.
(The old version)
The new website uses Joomla, a content management system, that lets me add things to the shop just like listing items on Folksy and publish articles like on blogger, so it should be really easy to use. It'll be great to have everything I've made for sale in one place too.
I've been busy this weekend taking new product photos. I always seem to take hundreds of photos and completely fill up my memory card, then spend hours sorting through them to find one nice one! Not a very good system... I've been thinking of investing in a light tent for some time, so that I don't have to rely on sunny days to take photos, and then I found
this tutorial to make your own.
My attempt went a bit wrong, as the cardboard box I used wasn't exactly structurally sound to start with, and sort of collapsed as soon as I cut the sides out... So I just used three big bits of white card inside to create a white background, and lit it using a lamp from the top of the box. Surprisingly it worked really well!
I also realised that the settings on my camera could help brighten my photos up a lot too. I played around with some different options from the menu and turned up the exposure. Also the level adjust tool on Photoshop is my new favourite thing at the moment, just a small adjustment to the white balance helped me create these crisp white backgrounds.
I'm pretty pleased with the results I've still got a lot to learn, and am definitely going to keep practising and playing around with the settings on my camera.
Can't wait to launch the website, I'll let you know when it's up and running!
