Sarah's Tips for Photographing Layouts

I'm by no means an expert, but I thought I would share some tips that have made me much happier with my layouts.  

Rule #1 is that the better the picture comes out of the camera, the better off you are.  So, how to do that?

Rule #2?  Location, location, location.  You want indirect light, not direct sunlight.  I think you will be much happier with your photos if you can at all avoid using the flash.  I used to take my projects out on the deck in the back yard, but it seemed like I was getting glare off the photos regardless of the angle.  Now, I try to take my pictures on the living room floor, usually between 1 and 3 pm (well, partly because that's naptime).  By that point, the sun is up high enough that it's not shining into the living room windows anymore, but there's still enough light to photograph.

This is where I take my pictures.  Yes, I usually have to pull the couch out of the way.  You can see it's pretty bright outside, but the sun isn't shining directly in through the windows.  (If it were, the cats would be sitting right there.)

I set my layouts on the floor a good foot or so from the window.  You can see there are shadows directly underneath the windowsill - - you want to avoid shadows.  But the further away from the window you get, the more the light will vary across your layout.  You'll see this if one side of the layout looks much darker than the other.

Rule #3 - Make sure you stretch, because you're going to have to bend.  You want the center of your lens to be over the center of your LO, and your camera should be parallel to the floor.  The more flat you keep your camera, the more "straight" your layout will be when you try to crop the image.

Rule #4 - Time to shoot!  Fill up as much of the frame as possible.  Try to get your layout parallel along the edge of your picture.  But it's easier to fix if your layout isn't quite straight in this step, than it is to fix the distortion from not being directly over the center of the layout with your camera parallel to the floor in Rule #3.

That's it!  Hopefully just a quick crop and you're done!  We can cover adjustments in iphoto and Photoshop in future tutorials, if there is interest.  Please let me know which programs you're using!

Bonus tips
#1 - Macro shots.  Sometimes it's helpful to include close-ups of details on your layout.  The best way to do this with a point-and-shoot camera is to use the Macro preset - it typically looks like a flower. 

To include macro shots in the gallery, you need to save the images to an offsite photo hosting website.  I put mine on photobucket.  Then, just copy the [IMG] code to the description field of where you upload your layouts.  Voila!

#2 - Photographing dark (or light) LOs on manual with an SLR camera.  I ran into this problem with the following layout.

 

On an automatic setting (most likely "P" on my Canon), the camera sees lots of black and says, "Whoa, there!  It's dark here, so we need to adjust the exposure to get plenty of light in."  And it puts my settings at 1/15th @ F5.6.  Except my black layout starts to look ... gray.

I'm still working on shooting in manual mode more often, and it's MUCH easier to practice shooting in manual on layouts rather than on kids or any other moving target.  

So, here's what I did.  

I cheated.

I took another layout (probably that yellow one above) and pretended to shoot it.  Half pushed the shutter to see what the exposure settings were.  1/50th at F5.6.  That's less than half of the light the camera wanted to use.  Then, switch it over to manual, and use the settings that the camera would have used for the yellow layout.

 

The blacks are much blacker now.

 

Comments

[Rachel M]

thanks, these are great tips

[Adele]

Thanks, Sarah! I needed the info about macro shots in the description.

And about bonus tip #2, DH told me you can use the palm of your hand as a neutral place to get a better exposure. Same idea -- halfway down with the shutter to lock in the exposure, then move the camera to the subject.

[Linda]

How funny .. I take my pics in the same spot in my house :). I recently tried using a tripod and taping my LO on a white door but it didn't work out so well.

[AmyBug]

I think it is a total learning experience/process. If you go back to see my first layout pictures and now there is a big difference. I've learned lots of tricks along the way. Thanks for all your tips. I use Google Picasa for Windows for editing.

[Susie]

I needed this so bad! Thank you!

[Lynn Barwald]

This was great, Sarah! Thanks! I really appreciate your tips about shooting the black layout. I definitely have that problem. I know Linda mentioned taping a layout against a white door.. I always taped my layouts to an upright foam board and used my tripod to get a straight on shot. It was perfectly even that way. However, DH made me see how I can do that same thing on the floor. Just turn your tripod to face down and you're good to go.