Photographing Knits for pattern writing by Angelika Burles

I will tell you up front and right away, I do not have any formal training in digital photography. You may know more than I do, or you may have relatives or friends that do. On top of that, technology is changing so rapidly that what I may write today, may not be true tomorrow. It is for that reason, that if you read this article and would like to comment, please email me and I will append your notes to this article. But I've written so many emails to designers asking for print quality, my fingers are numb!

It is my goal, with this article, is to help wonderfully talented designers to improve the quality of their photographs. It is unfortunate, but true, that the customer looks at the cover of a pattern and by that cover judges what is inside. It is also true that if the knit is there on display, the cover may not be nearly as important. But no shop has the time to knit and display every single pattern sold in the store. It is up to the designer to know only design and write the pattern, but to also market it effectively. Part of marketing is presentation. A clear photograph of the knit will make or break the popularity of a pattern.

Cameras: There are many different kinds of cameras. I won't go over them all. To pick up the details such as cables and textured stitches, trims and other details we need to look at mid-range or higher quality cameras. Those cameras that more pixels per image, and a "fine" setting will pick up the changes of color in the knits. Picking up stitch definition is merely shadows and light. In a digital camera these are represented by tiny squares of color. The more squares in an inch, the more details and clarity you will get. These squares are called pixels. Pixels per inch (ppi) are very important. Most non-professional cameras shoot 72 ppi (or dpi-dots per inch). But this may be 18" wide, or this may be 6" wide. In an 18" wide picture you will have 1,296 pixels across. In a 6" wide picture you will have only 432 pixels. Again I won't go into detail. The wider the picture the better. We will come back to this when we talk about Software.

Graphics for print: Any pictures you print to go on the cover of your pattern should not be any less than 300dpi (dots per inch). Printers put tiny dots of color down to create color pictures. Some printers today have 600, 900, 1200 and more dpi. Our graphics should be manipulated to take advantage of the quality of our printer. I held off getting a digital camera for many years because they could not compete with the clarity and crispness of my 35mm camera. But cameras and printers are getting better, and while I can still tell the difference, the clarity we can get from the cameras and printers today are excellent and we can show every stitch and purl!

Graphics for web: Pictures for the web are a totally different animal! They need to be a fewer total number of pixels so they travel fast across our internet connections. And our monitors are only 72ppi, so anything greater will be lost. So how do you take such a low grade quality picture and make it so clear on the web? That is the challenge of many new digital photographers and one we will discuss further under the software topic.

Lighting: Strange thing about the flash on a digital camera. It must not be a soft flash, as the shadow produced is so harsh and very distracting. The best light for our knits is outside on a bright, but overcast day. Sunshine casts harsh shadows and washes out color. So does the flash. Set the camera for the highest quality/fine that it is capable of. If you happen to have a room that lots of bright lighting. My store has row upon row of 4 ft, 4 bulb fixtures. At times the flash won't even go off, it is so bright. But occasionally I will allow the flash to be used, just so I can make sure I am choosing the best.

Models: Having garments on real people is wonderful if you have the perfect model and lots of staff to help with the photography session. But since most of us do not have that kind of crew, we have to settle for less. Most of the people I've used for models don't work out well. Sometimes their schedule clashes with mine, sometimes beautiful people just don't photograph well. So, due to my limited time and budget I use dress forms or lay the garment flat on a neutral colored surface. Self published patterns displayed this way, but photographed with great stitch definition, look just as good and sell just as well as those with beautiful models and a full photography staff.

Shooting: Take lots of pictures, from all sorts of angles. Close up of necklines or trim details. These are great to inset on the cover of the pattern. This is not a 24 picture roll of film. What does not photograph well can be deleted. Take twice as many as you think you may need. Once they are on the computer, pick the very best and deleted the others. If you think you need the flash, take extras with the flash. It won't cost you any money, but will save you time if turns out that the flash was needed.

Software: Once the pictures are downloaded into your computer, you need to open it in some sort of graphic program. I use Adobe Photoshop, but it is not necessary to purchase such a high powered program. The programs that come with the camera, I find lacking. Print Shop Pro and a few other mid-range programs appear to work just as well for our needs. A few years ago I was doing some work for a company that had PhotoHouse (I believe) on their computer. I would love to have some feedback on the different softwares you may be using and if you do have the necessary tools I speak of below. These are the tools in the program that I need to do the following:

Change the image size from 18" to 3, 4 or 5", but don't allow the program to keep the ppi at 72. A 72 ppi graphic is 1,296. Change the image from 18" to 4", keeping the 1,296 pixels wide, changes the 72ppi to 324 ppi. A 4" wide graphic, 1,296 pixels wide, printed at photo quality setting will produce a good picture if all other conditions are met. In Photoshop it is Image/Image Size. Turn "resample image" off, make sure constrain proportions is checked, make sure document size is set to inches, change the 18" to 4".

Too dark or light? My pictures are usually too dark, so I have to lighten the picture to bring out more of the details. This may be called lighten in your software. In Photoshop I use Image/Adjust/Levels and move the sliders until I am happy with the changes. You can see the changes as you move the sliders.

Contrast almost always needs to be increased. This is one area that the digitals still can't compete with 35mm cameras. Thankfully the graphics program can help with this. In Adobe Photoshop I use Image/Adjust/Brightness Contrast. Or I will use filter/sharpen/unsharp mask.

Some colors do not show up well. I would recommend not to shoot deeply saturated colors such as reds or dark blues long with white garments. The white will be too bright, and the dark too dark and no stitch definition will be apparent. Photograph them separately, allowing the camera to adjust to the different light levels of each knit. Once in your software program you can layer them all into one picture.

Crop out any excess. Back ground is not what you are selling.

By this time the graphic should be perfect for print purposes. Save in a tif format. Yes, these are large files, but necessary for a presentable pattern graphic. I write my patterns and flyers in a program called Adobe In Design. Because it is an Adobe product and will accept a Photoshop format, I prefer to save my print versions in Photoshop format. If I have to share this print picture, I can always go back to it and do a "save as" to tif. Take you chances emailing a graphic of this size. Check with the recipient that their email address can take that large of a file. Microsoft Publisher is another good program I used for years. It will accept tif files, but not Photoshop files. So I have many pictures from that time in tif format.

Web Format needs to be as few pixels as possible. In my opinion, pictures 200, 300 or 400 pixels wide give us nice big pictures. Anything larger will take up most of the screen of the monitor, unless you have your monitor settings up higher.

Working with the file just saved, the 324ppi needs to be worked down to 72. I usually take it down to 150 ppi first. Check to see if I've lost any clarity, and sharpen if necessary. In Photoshop go into Image/Image size and turn resample image back on, change 324 to 150. Checking the total width of the file this produces before I hit OK. Again I will downsize, this time to 72. Taking it in steps gives me a chance to keep the clarity up. Taking a 1,296 pixel wide, 330 ppi, picture down to 72ppi, brings the width to 288 pixels. If my goal was a 290 pixel wide picture, I change the 288 to 290. This will affect the number of inches wide, but computer monitors don't go by this, they go by ppi. Sharpen the picture if necessary. Now save this picture as a jpg file. You can save with some compression and I do recommend it. Try a medium setting. This is usually an option that pops up when you do a "save as" and select jpg as the format. Anything under 25k will be a fast loading file. If you have anything over 50k, you might want to place a text warning that the picture may take a few seconds to down load, due to the fact that you wanted to retain more clarity.

For each picture that you use you should have 3 different formats.
#1. The original picture that came from the camera. Just in case.
#2. The print version at 300dpi or higher.
#3: The web version at 72dpi, compressed down to travel the internet quickly.

I hope this helps! This is my first version of this article. It is not intended to be a tutorial or to teach you how to use your equipment and software. It is intended as advice on how to market your patterns and a guideline to creating great pictures for your patterns.

I look forward to hearing from those who know more and can add their comments. With individual permissions, I plan to post those emails to the bottom of this article. Thanks!!! Angelika

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