Fleeting Glimpse Images : Visions in words ~ Sagas in light: Presenting

Simple but Effective Product Shots on a Budget

Sat, 24 May 2008 19:34:31 GMT

Or, with no budget…

I have been getting a few questions about techniques in the blog lately. A common question, to paraphrase is: "Rikk, I don't have all that fancy gear. How can I …?" So today, I accepted a self-challenge. With no items other than those found in an office environment, and my son's $ 149.00 point-n-shoot digital camera, create a passable product shot. To make things tougher on myself, I did it in my typical office environment which includes:

Shady side of the building
Fluorescent lighting
Twenty minutes to get it done

I chose these criteria because the web developer or presentation professional often has only a few minutes to incorporate the latest widget into the bosses' presentation or the new web catalog.

Today's Camera Choice

I used my son's Canon A550 to accomplish today's task. It has a macro setting that I used for the picture. I also set the camera to manual, ISO 400 and the flash to 'on' for the image today. These settings were arrived at by trial and error after a few test shots of my subject. Another thing I did was to zoom the camera out to its telephoto setting to minimize perspective issues and control my flash-to-subject distance.

Home-made Diffuser using Transparent Tape

The flash was a little hot on the cellophane window on the box and the background so I needed to soften it up a bit. Using only objects in the office, I tried a couple of experimental items before settling on a double layer of transparent tape. I made a little diffuser over the on-board flash.

The Setup

I found a piece of 13x19 inch inkjet paper to use as a glossy background. I used a second sheet of paper as a reflector to brighten up the side opposite my office window. 11x17 Copier paper would work just as well if you are in an ink-jet-free office. I placed the background on my wine rack (yes, I have a wine rack in my office) and set up the shot.

Pre-editing Image

The resulting exposure created a 7.1 MP JPG for me to take into my image editing program and prep for use in a web page. I rather liked the reflection from the shiny paper but knew that I would be sacrificing it in the editing process. I also had a little bit of background shadow with which to deal. A soft shadow, true-but one that needed removing none-the-less.

Having a box with nice square edges made the masking easy and after plucking it off my background, adding a color to match my web's color scheme, giving it a fountain fill for visual interest, and adding a modest shadow for grounding I ended up with a very passable image.

Post-editing Image

I left a little room for some words across the bottom of the picture but other than the copy, this image is ready to go. Elapsed time from putting my hands on the product to finished image ready for insertion into a web page or presentation was 18 minutes and 15 seconds. (Yes, I did stop-watch myself)

DSLR with Soft Box

Compare this with an image shot yesterday using a Canon 40D and a soft box. This image has not been to an image editor yet but you can see that the budget shot, at this size, is very comparable. The shadow created by the on-camera flash is the largest detractor to the budget shot. But, compare it with the image the client supplied from their old web site and you will see worlds of difference.

Original Product Shot Provided

Final analysis: Assuming I had an inexpensive digital camera available-less than 10 cents. I used two sheets of paper which could be returned to their source and reused, two inches of transparent tape that had to be discarded and 1/100 of the rated use of a set of AA batteries.

For low-resolution use such as a PowerPoint™ presentation or a web site, it is possible to provide a quality product image using a simple digital camera and no lighting equipment.

This doesn't replace professional product photography but on a tight deadline and no budget it will get the salesman out the door or the product on-line.

del.icio.us Tags: flash,product,budget,photography,presentation,web

Presenter's Tip: Leveling Projectors

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:26:24 GMT

Whenever I show up to do a presentation, I find that the surfaces on which the projector must be placed are seldom level, the screen isn't hanging quite level or the two just don't match resulting in a skewed projected image.

The typical presenter rummages through his bag looking for lens caps, folded cardboard, credit cards, magazines, or other flotsam which might be used to shim one of the projectors (typically three) legs. It seems the random articles we find are never quiet the right height and we are always stacking a lens cover on top of a deck of cards or something else to come up with the right combination to square the image with the margins of the screen.

I carry in my bag a little device that makes this practice obsolete.

A small pocket-sized spiral-bound flip notepad will come to your rescue. They are dirt cheap and if you get the kind with the plastic cover like this one shown in the image above, they last a long time. The neat thing about them is they fit in your case, there are even pockets designed for them. They fit in your pocket, your laptop bag, or anywhere else you need to carry materials. What is really cool about them is you can open them up and flip pages until you get the height you need.

Another advantage is that they are small and will slide under the projector nearly completely. A magazine or a board or some other commandeered device will likely stick out and become an obstacle in the dark. If your height is still off, you simple turn a few more or less pages and you are set. When you are done, you flip the notebook closed and store it in your projection bag.

Oh, you can also record notes on them. It is one of the original hand-held devices.

Avoiding Laptop Surprise

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 13:46:53 GMT

The fear of public speaking is deeply ingrained in all our psyches. One of the roots of this fear is that something will go wrong while we are speaking leaving us looking foolish, incompetent, embarrassed or unprofessional.

Laptop computers have a mind of their own and are often a weak link in a presentation, along with projectors, room logistics, and other items. Taking a few minutes to develop a check list of items to turn off, pause, minimize, pre-load and otherwise prep with regard to your laptop, can save you minutes of time, dozens of lost audience members and wads of cash not spent on the psychiatrist's couch mitigating your perceived inadequacies.

The problem with projectors is: to plug or not to plug? Do you plug in before you hit the power button or do you hook live depends upon the sophistication of your set up between laptop and projector. You should always test the partnership first and when satisfied it works, disconnect and prep or prep with the projector on idle so your audience is oblivious to your efforts.

Here are some items from my regiment.

1. Disable Wireless Internet on the laptop unless you are using an email or an Internet connection live during your presentation. This will keep some self-important programs from logging on during your presentation and downloading a service pack, the latest TV schedule, an advertisement or anything else which will distract your audience with a popup.

2. If you must leave your wireless active, close all chat windows and exit their respective programs. Your buddy Fred can say "What's up!" later-not during your stage time.

3. I try to run system updates the day before to ensure that my computer is aware of all the most recent updates even if I chose not to install them. This minimizes all those helpful messages telling you your computer has an update available, it has been months since your last virus scan, or whatever else is might be so urgent you must be interrupted in your work to read. If Windows or any other application have updated recent (read I-tunes) your virus scanner may burp upon launch of an application. Check each application and give that 'changed' file permission to access the net or whatever else it needs.

4. Close every program not essential to your operation. All those cute little applets showing you weather, news, stock quotes and the like are not going to help your performance or your message. Get rid of them before you present.

5. Set your laptop to a reasonable resolution before you present to minimize fooling around time with the projector. 1024x768 will almost always work. 800x600 is bullet proof. Wide Screen Laptop formats don't always work with a projector nicely. Learn your video settings and how to manipulate them to get what you need! Don't count on being able to change res on the fly and match or scale or anything else. Set your laptop up to have a prayer right from the start.

6. Everything you need for your presentation should be in a single folder on the desktop. Clean your desktop of icons and have that folder be one of only a couple of carefully chosen icons available. The materials can live elsewhere but the must be accessible from the desktop. Searching a hard drive for a missing file is tedious to your audience.

7. Pre-load the applications you will be using prior to starting the presentation. If you are teaching with an Image Editing Application, load it. Most of these need to find filters and fonts and if you crank it up ahead of time, your audience will have a much more seamless experience.

8. If you are using presenting software, bounce through every slide first to make sure items load properly. If you are running sound or video, take a moment to allow the sound to play and the video to run so that it caches in memory. This will make sounds and sights seem much smoother.

9. Double check your battery icon before you begin. Have your power cord ready just in case or be plugged in. Questions and digressions can cause you drain more power than you thought you had left. If you are running on AC power, set your laptop power profile to high performance to ensure smoother running presentations.

10. Set your wallpaper to a benign image or better yet-no image. Half your audience won't care for an internet hottie as your background. Too busy a background can make it distracting for your audience too.

11. Disable or increase the time on your screen saver so that you don't have pipes, squiggles or stars distracting your audience if you must pause for a question.

12. Have a backup plan. Your entire presentation and supporting data files should be on a thumb drive or CD. You should have a back up way to move your cursor (mouse, tablet, touch pad). If a laptop goes down or files go missing you should be able to look like a pro.

Make a list of all the things you need to do and carry it as a checklist on a business card sized item in your bag, purse, wallet or whatever and make certain you have all the items marked before you fire up the image on the big screen.