Pictures Are Worth A 1000 Words

I'm busy in my studio getting ready for the Lexington Avenue Arts & Fun Festival, but I've also been busy putting together applications for fall and early winter shows. One of the hardest parts of selling online and applying for shows is providing good visual representation of my work. I wanted to set aside some time to play with a few photos and improve the quality of my images. My photos are often boring, blurry, and never represent the quality of craftsmanship I'm shooting for (pun totally intended). So, I started playing around with a couple different programs this week, and I've been having some success.

The first is an image of a ring I made this spring. This was one of my first projects, which was inspired by Linda Darty's book The Art of Enameling. I have been exploring enamels for about four months and I wanted to take some pictures that highlighted the enamel work.

Before After

The before shot catches shadows which makes the ring look tarnished or covered in firescale, when in fact, the silver ring has a brushed satin finish. Call it the profectionist in me, but my eye is drawn right to what looks like an imperfection and not the enamel setting.

Using Corel Draw X4 and the mask and lens tools, I was able to select the enamel setting and invert the selection with the mask tool, and then select a black and white lens to remove color from the background. Whalla! A nifty new little way of presenting my work.

Another fantastic little program I found on another blog is Picnik, an online software program for enhancing images. I love this site so much!! It's free, quick, super easy to use, and there's nothing to download except for your pics when you're ready to save the changes.

Before After

Even this blurry photo looks a little better with a little help from Picnik! Now I'm having almost as much fun sprucing up photos as I am at the bench!