Paper ephemera sellers – ways to speed up picture taking/editing

I just thought I’d share with the rest of you paper ephemera sellers on my method of taking and editing pictures. I know that a lot of you use scanners in an effort to obtain high-quality images. While it does give good results… I think it takes a little too much time. I think I’ve found a good alternative that is much faster, and still provides great results. My whole image taking/editing setup probably cost less than $400 (no… I’m not trying to sell you anything…) and saves me TONS of time. Here’s the equipment I use:

a. – a decent low-end digital camera (I use a Fuji FinePix 1400 Zoom) - $100-$150
b. – Copy Stand w/ lights (I use a Testrite CS-1) $75-100
c. – Flourescent 100 Watt daylight lightbulbs (bought at SAM’s for $10-15 a pack)
d. – Adobe PhotoShop Elements - $100

Taking pictures:

To set up the system… I just plugged in the Testrite Copy stand… put in the light bulbs (I used the fluorescent 100 Watt bulbs to give myself the maximum amount of light. The Testrite CS-1 can only handle up to 60 watts… but… since the actual wattage used for the fluorescents is only about 23Watts (yet they display 100Watts)… they work great!) Then, you need to set up your camera. First… turn on the Macro function. Second, you may want to set your cameras exposure compensation (I’ve got mine set at –0.9). Third, turn your cameras flash off. Finally (and this is crucial!) you need to set your cameras white balance setting to compensate for incandescent lighting (otherwise your pictures will look yellow!). Then, just put your camera on your copy stand… and you’re ready to take pictures! My process is to first, get all my items together that I want to shoot. I sell magazine ads that can be different sizes… so I usually group them by size (8.5x11, 6x10, etc…). Then I can set the height of the copy stand once… and take all those sized pictures in a row before adjusting the copy stand height again. All in all, It will probably only take about 10-15 seconds per picture.

Editing Pictures:

After you’ve transferred your pictures to your computer… you can use Adobe PhotoShop Elements to QUICKLY edit your pictures!

Rotate: First… I open up the File Browser (from the menu bar choose File - > Browse). You can select all the pictures that need rotating… and then press the rotate button on the file browser. It will quickly rotate all those pictures in one click!

Crop: Still in the file browser… I click on the ones I want to crop (in most cases there aren’t many… since that’s part of the reason why you use the copy stand!) and then open all of them. I grab my crop tool from the toolbar… and start cropping. Rather than go up to the menu bar… I use the shortcut keys command+s (mac) or ctrl+s (win) to save and command+w (mac) or ctrl+w (win) to close each document.

Renaming: I use a naming convention to help keep my items straight (I put each ad in a plastic bag with the same name as the photo in the auction). I can quickly rename all the files by choosing File -> Batch Processing in Photoshop Elements. This brings up a window. Set your source to be the folder with your images. Then, click on the rename Files box. I put in a letter in the left field + a 3 digit serial number in the right field. (That way it will rename my images like A001, A002, A003, etc…) Choose a separate folder for your finished images (I usually create a new folder called renamed and dump them in there). Press the OK button and it will automatically rename your files.

Watermarking / Resizing / Stripping EXIF data: I found a quick way to Watermark, Resize and Strip EXIF data in one step. (If you’re not familiar with EXIF data… it’s extra info stored in the JPEG format… it can cause viewing problems with some combos of Windows / I.E. versions… and is best if removed). In Photoshop Elements… choose File -> Create Web Photo Gallery. Choose your Renamed folder for the source… and create a new folder (I usually call it upload) for your destination. In the options section… from the drop down menu, choose Security. For content, select “custom text”. Then, you can enter your text for your watermark… set the font style, size, color, opacity, position and rotation. I usually use 36 point for size, a red color and 35% opacity. Next to resize the photos, select Large Images from the drop down menu. Click on the Resize Images box. I usually set my JPEG quality to Medium – 5, constrain: both, and set the resize to a custom of 800 pixels. Then… just press the OK button. It will automatically add the watermark to each of your photos and resize them. It also strips the EXIF data (but you won’t see that happen… you just have to take my word for it!). There will be a bunch of stuff in your Upload folder now. All you’re interested in though, are the files inside the folder “images” inside the Upload folder. This is where all your images are now saved.

I find that the whole process (taking pictures, editing AND uploading) takes me just about 45-60 seconds per picture. Try beating that with a scanner! Anyhow… I just thought I’d share this with other people. It’s not necessarily for the technologically timid… but if you follow the steps… it will save you tons of time! And… time is money! I really hope this helps some of you!