Web Site Photos with wrinkled look?

Hiring a talented product photographer (as opposed to the cheapest, or worse still trying to do it yourself) makes all the difference. Anyone with patience, some sense, and a good camera can take photos that are good enough to use - but if you want catalogue level shots as good as a major company, you have to hire the talent a major company would use.

(although to repeat Monkeylantern's advice - there is plenty of undiscovered talent waiting at your local photography college, just be sure to check a portfolio, as there are also a lot of people who are destined to be the latest and greatest fast food worker)

Thanks for the links Nick - good stuff!!

Di

Ain't nothing to it but to do it... I just threw some shirts down on the driveway during a sunny day, then pulled the shirts out of the pictures with photoshop. I'm sure that I could pay a professional or even a college student to do it, and I'm sure that some people will notice that those product shots were taken by an amateur, but I'm not convinced that my niche market will be that critical.

They're either going to like the designs or not. Of course, my attitude may change once I have real sales data.

My sincere thanks for all the interest and informative responses.. Great appreciated

Whats up everyone,

The technique was actaully pretty simple. You just need to build a "photo tent". This allows you to light indirectly by lighting through fabric. I just went out to a local fabric store bought 4 yards of white fabric and built a tent. You need the shirts to be in a space with only white and then you do your lighting from the outside. I chose reveal light bulbs, and put lamps around the "tent". Then I knelt on top of a bar stool to take the shots. Edited with photoshop, and voila. Let me know if you have any other questions.

~chuggy

Thanks for the great instructions, Adam and :welcome:

I bought a photo tent from eBay, but looks like I could have just made one.

if you are already friends or acquaintances with a photographer, try suggesting a barter too. in exchange for some graphic design work, i got a ton of great pics to use.

I use to work at an isoldit on ebay store and we use to take tons of photos to put on ebay. From time to time people would bring in clothing for us to sell. What we had to get the pictures just right was basically a big piece of white paper that would hang down from the ceiling and then we would us a mankin (that gives you the depth) and we just used a regular digital camera (ours was 5 mp but the amount of mp isn't much of a concern). Then you can take the image into photo shop and adjust the lighting levels (auto adjust option works just fine most of the time) and then it would give the clothing the appearance you are talking about. Oh yea, and we used 2 lamps, one to the left and one to the right that would beam down at an angle on it, that way the wrinkles show up and the white background is easier to adjust in photoshop. Hope that helps.

I am able to get nice crisp good lit pictures of t-shirts. However what I want to be able to see is the wavy vintage look that I have seen pictures of. Is there a way to create this effect in photoshop and if so how. If not does anyone know how this is done?

Thatsmyshirt.com said:

I am able to get nice crisp good lit pictures of t-shirts. However what I want to be able to see is the wavy vintage look that I have seen pictures of. Is there a way to create this effect in photoshop and if so how. If not does anyone know how this is done?

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I'm pretty sure it's not a photoshop effect. They are wrinkling/arranging the shirts before they photograph them. I have seen this done mostly with thin, vintage-type shirts, so if you are using thicker shirts you are not going to have the same results.

Personally I think it's a little overrated - Your customers are going to be happy with clear, sharp pictures of your shirts, wrinkles or no wrinkles. Pictures of your shirts on models are even better.

Thanks. We use models alot and i agree it works the best, however cant always take the time to find and shoot models when we need t-shirt posted quickly.

I had a feeling the shirts were lying flat and crumpled. Here is my question. If the t-shirt is shot lying down how can they flip it so that it looks as if it is standing up. Probably a simple graphic trick but have no idea how to do so.

I know that when I put my t-shirts in the dryer, with lots of other clothes, on high heat they come out really wrinkly. I dont know if that is what they are doing or not..just a thoughs.

You could try throwing a t-shirt in the dryer, with like 15 towels on really high heat, and then snap a picture right after it comes out.

Possibly...although i though drying tees actually worked out the wrinkles. I think its just a matter of taking a pic of it looking crinkled flat and then somehow flipping it so it looks as if its standing up. Thats the part i cant figure out how to do.

Thatsmyshirt.com said:

Possibly...although i though drying tees actually worked out the wrinkles. I think its just a matter of taking a pic of it looking crinkled flat and then somehow flipping it so it looks as if its standing up. Thats the part i cant figure out how to do.

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Can you show us an example of what you're talking about?

I think this is a good example of the "wrinkled" look he might be talking about:
http://www.dustybrand.com/Guyshome_Transition2.asp

Rodney said:

I think this is a good example of the "wrinkled" look he might be talking about:
http://www.dustybrand.com/Guyshome_Transition2.asp

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Thanks Rod.

Brett - To get this kind of effect (looks like the shirt is standing up or hanging in the air), all you have to do to is take a picture of your wrinkled shirt laying on a flat surface. Take the picture from directly above if possible. Then once you get it into your art program, simply "erase" the background with white or another color. There are different ways of doing this, depending on what art program you have, but it should be fairly simple.

It's funny how you wanted to have a wrinkled look while some of the clients i've worked with wanted their shirts perfectly straight. I've spent many hours doing all the little touchups to clean up the wrinkles instead of addding them. Somethings to keep in mind when making these photos is LIGHTING!! Perhaps a lightbulb that emits approx 5000k. Good lighting from one angle will produce shadows in the shirt, thus showing the wrinkles you are looking for. May I also suggest using a tripod to minimize blur and distortion to the shirt. Place the camera directly ontop of the shirt using the tripod will do the job.

If you notice some distortions in the photos. You can use the 'Warp' function in Photoshop CS2. For windows, this option can be selected when you select the shirt layer using ctrl+t. Then right click on the layer and select WARP. Play around with the grid till your happy with your shirt.

Hope this helps.

Yes I guess it varies with customers. We sell alot of vintage tees and have been told that that look makes them more appealing to customers but who knows.

I took the advice and erased the background and used the pic in this link as an example. Its cleaned up but still the t-shirt looks flat. Anyway to get it standing up?

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i214/tonsoftshirts/amodels/mariner1.jpg