Product presentation help needed

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Daniel

Daniel

Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2004
Messages
5,921
Location
Reno, NV, USA.
Well in order to try and make a very complicated idea short and sweet. I need your comments on how well this photo would work for you if you where looking for feathers to make feather pens. Just so you know this is my next idea of where to go with group buys and my other volunteer stuff around here. Basically a data base of feathers and what birds to get them from. It hopefully will become something like a paint pallet for those that want to design and make feather pen blanks. Having been a fly tyer for many years, I know very well that not all feathers are created equal, and then some are nearly impossible to get. much of this knowledge comes only by working with them. but some can be gotten simply by seeing them. as for how this works for you in the way of information that is usable. there is no right or wrong, there is only each person impression. i consider this a work in progress and will continue to post other ideas of how to go about presenting feathers and continue to ask for input as to what is working and what is not. In short look att he photo and ask yourself if you get the impression of wether you could use this feather to make a pen blank and feel like you have a fair amount of certainty as to how it would look if you did. more will be coming. to give even a decent idea of the feathers you can get from a Ring Neck Pheasant alone will require at least 7 more photo at least. then there is showing the various grades of each feather. that will not happen for a while though.
On the subject of quality, I will say this. of course you do not want a feather that is beat up. But less obviously you want one with good color, good color blending, and a correct shape. some of this you will only become familiar with by looking at many many feathers and even then it is a personal what you like best sort of thing. two people may have the favorite color of pink. but one likes pail pink and the other hot pink. For now I am looking to increase this sort of information being conveyed by the photos.

For now this is the
Ring Neck Pheasant Rump Feather (The names do get much more creative) and as you might have guessed they come from the rear end of the Male Ring neck Pheasant.
1_Ringneck_Pheasant_Rump_Feather.jpg
 
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Okay here is number two. Notice I have eincluded more examples of hte feather type. this is to try and show that each feather style does come in a range of sizes and patterns. also notice that the feather on the right is a clear example of a poor quality feather as it is outright damaged.

This is called the:
Ring neck Pheasant Male
Church Window.
1_011.jpg
 
Solid black background. And use a new ruler. ;)

Use photoshop or whatever to kick the levels a bit too... Bring out the colors.
 
Oohh... I just noticed the flare from the ruler. I was looking at that second pic trying to figure out why the middle of it was blue...

Sigh. I'm tired.
 
Yeah I get the flash thing. In fact that photo is cropped to make it not as bad as it really was. Funny but feathers photo better by doing all the no no's of pens.
I am weak on color correcting and such with paint shop Pro. If anyone would like to have the original pictures to play with I will be happy to send them. But I need you to send me back a step by step on how to adjust them. I also did not do a lot of light control for these so there is lots of improvement there as well. softer light. slower shutter usually helps colors come out. I have been a bit rushed tonight so I will try again with this set tomorrow and see if I gain any improvement in accordance with your suggestions.
Only thing I take offense to is the condition of my ruler ;) actually i will try to pass it through my buffer, that might help. maybe get non glare sheet on it as well. I really want the ruler to come in clear and readable. I can try black background but am betting way to much detail on the feathers will get lost.
thanks and keep the comments comeing, anything at all is fare game and I don't take comment personal. My ruler on the other hand is looking for a therapist.
 
Daniel,

I agree with Don about the black background; however, the dark gray works. I would look for a white plastic ruler for the size. That is what a parts supplier to our company uses.

Wes
 
Hmm thought I posted this once but donno where it went.
Anyone know how to do a picture with links within the picture? What I was thinking was one big picture of all the feathers you can get from a male rigneck. then you can click on a group of about half a dozen of a specific feather type and that will show you a larger picture of just those. I might even go as far as making it so you could click on a single feather in that group and get a real close up of just that feather. But I have no idea how you do that segmented photo with links thing.
Alright an actual assignment for the group. get out there and find a link to the supreme ruler to use in my photos. Red or yellow black or white. Just no reflective surfaces. I wonder if a clear one would show up well enough. Makes you want to say Hmmmmmmm. with finger on my cheek. I will start again this afternoon with just the rump feather and different backgrounds. then we can get that issue settled first. No promises on the ruler for today. gotta do some shopping to fix that one.
 
I just did this in photoshop using levels and your posted small pic:

feathers.jpg


Here's what I did in levels. Your proggy may be different.

featherlevels.tiff
 
For the links, you can do it two ways: Slice and Imagemap.

Imagemap is easier. Lots of free tools out there to help. Slice is inherently more difficult. You have to cut the photo up in your photo editor, then use tables to put the pieces back together. Yuck. I've done it, but don't like it.

You could do it elaborately in Flash, but if you knew Flash you wouldn't have asked... ;)
 
I had a friend who is helping me with my mad photo skillz (there see I am from da hood(Sorry coffee hasn't kicked in yet)) and the biggest thing she taught me was to NOT use gray. She said go with black or white. Makes photo editing much much easier.
 
Hey Folks, Just wanted to let you all know I did get a variety of background photos taken last night, got them cropped and resized but I still think my method is destroying to much detail. I did not have time to post all of them but will this afternoon. I am betting that a dull black background takes the prize though. I tossed out about half and will not even show them they are so bad. I just want you all to know that I do appreciate your advice on all this and didn't want you to think I was blowing it off.
 
The only way to really control the final appearance of the images is to take them in RAW and set your own preferences in post-production for appearance, otherwise the camera is making decisions for you on how your image should look. The important part isn't what goes through the lens -- it's what you do with all the data in Photoshop.
OMO
Doug
 
Okay here are the ones that came out focused enough to post
Red Metalic................... Blue Metalic.................... Black Velvet Reversed
1_Red.jpg
1_Blue_Metalic.jpg
1_Black_Velvet_reversed.jpg


Black Velvet........................ Black Felt
1_Black_Velvet.jpg
1_Black_Felt.jpg


White was a total fail
let me know your favorite please.
 
I don't really think the ruler helps. It's distracting. Most folks have a good idea of the size of feathers and you can always add the size in your description. I'd also go with a lighter background. Just my reactions.
 
As for the ruler, I agree. Here's a thought:

You take one photo with the ruler in it for an example of how you determine length. Then with each individual item you can state the length, measured the same way as in the sample.
 
I had also thought about simply listing the range of sizes of a type of feather in it's description. I am not a big fan of things like rulers in photos either but many people have a hard time with a list that says 1.5-3" length also. truth is you can't please everyone all the time and I think I like the list in the description better also.
What I hope to result in all this is that Member A could contact Member B and say hey you got 4 ring neck pheasant church windows 1 inch long. sort of makes it hard to mess up a trade when you can define what you are looking for and everyone has the same material to reference as to what is what. I also like the Black felt for the way it shows the colors. I will be working on getting the detail better and have a lot of things I am not even doing yet. Better light set up. better tripod and figuring out how to edit and not degrade the photo. I had it all figured out on my last photo editor then someone gave me Paint Shop Pro. I simply hit auto fix and if it looks better I use it if not I don't, never have figured out how to do the color mixing stuff at all. I know there has to be a way to correct photos and not loose the details though I will play with some of these and see what I can get the to look like. the originals are very very detailed. I may have to put them on my web site though due to size limits here.
 
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