Catalog and delivery

Learning goal

You will be able to shoot hundreds of products coming from many shops so that they look as if in the same light, the same color and the same layout, even when shot on different days. At the start of each session you will shoot a card made of known colors and set all the frames to the same color, and carry a shooting template unchanged across days. By naming the files according to the products' stock codes and angle numbers, you will build an order no one can mix up. By lining up all the frames side by side at a small size, you will catch before delivery the frame whose light, color or size doesn't fit. You will make sure that hands of different skin tones, on different days, stay in their own tones in the same catalog, and you will close the product and food track with a small catalog.

The question

The arcade's tradespeople's association makes its decision: the twelve shops will have a joint online catalog. Tiles, silverware, kilims, copper coffee pots, Turkish delight; over three hundred products. Each shop owner has dropped the photos they have into a folder. Some have a gray background, some a yellowish one, one kilim from above, another from the side; the file names are "IMG_4471", "final version 2", "kilim red new". Your friend agrees to shoot them all again, but this job will take a few weeks and several separate sessions. How do you shoot hundreds of products consistently?

Context

You remember the day you shot the cobalt bowls with a single arrangement written on a piece of paper so that they would line up like a family, that is, the shooting template (Lesson U.1). In file management you saw how giving files names with a single system while importing, and separating folders by a logic, saves an archive (Lesson 15.4). In the editing section you also tried saving a set of settings once and applying it to hundreds of photos together (Lesson 17.8).

Shooting a good frame for a single bowl is a skill; showing three hundred products in the same world is a system. This last step of the track carries the template, the light, the color and the honesty into a job spread over weeks; and in the end, the work changing hands as a complete package.

Simple explanation

How does color stay the same on different days?

Even two sessions shot with the same template, the same light and the same settings can come out a little different from each other: a lamp warming up, a light leaking in from the window, the color of a curtain, even a camera setting changed by mistake. In a catalog of hundreds of products, these small differences make a family of products look unlike each other in frames lined up side by side.

A color checker target is a card with small squares of colors and gray tones measured in advance, put in the product's place and photographed once at the start of each shooting session. The editing program uses the known colors in this frame to set the white balance and the colors in the right place for all the frames of that session; some programs also create a profile specific to that light from the card. While a gray card fixes only the white balance, a color checker target makes the reds, the blues and the skin tones come out the same every day too. Every time the session changes, every time the light is set up again, the card is shot again.

This applies to the hands in the frame too. In the catalog, one day the hand of a dark-skinned jeweler may show, another day the hand of a light-skinned Turkish delight maker. Correcting each session according to its own card keeps both hands in their own true tone; blindly copying one session's settings to another, on the other hand, can shift one of the skin tones toward yellow or gray.

How are the files named?

SKU-based file naming is giving each file a name with the product's stock code, its SKU in the shop, and its angle number: for example, the front view of a tile bowl "CIN-0142-01", its side view "CIN-0142-02", its lifestyle frame "CIN-0142-10". The date or the sequence number the camera gives is useful for an archive; for a catalog, though, the product itself is the key. When the shop owner, the person building the web page and the photographer use the same name, no frame lands on the wrong product's page.

The angle numbers are part of the template too: "01" is always the main image, "02" the side, "03" the detail, "10" the lifestyle frame. So the person building the page finds each product's main image by looking at the file name. The settings are applied to the whole session with a saved preset, and then the frames are reviewed one by one.

What is checked before delivery?

A consistency grid is lining up all the main images in a catalog side by side at a small size and reviewing them together. A frame that looks right when looked at on its own stands out at once among a hundred frames: its background a little grayer, its product a little smaller, its shadow on the other side. Every frame that jumps out in the grid is either corrected or reshot. Whether a product group, for example all the kilims or all the coffee pots, stands at the same scale is also seen here.

Delivery is made with a delivery set prepared according to where the client will use it: main images with a pure white background and a set size for the marketplace, frames in the sRGB color profile and at a suitable long edge for the web page, high-resolution files for a printed brochure. A short delivery note that tells which product, which angle and which use each file belongs to completes the package.

Visual evidence

Your friend turns an empty shop in the arcade into a shooting space for two weeks. They carry over the template they set up at the tile workshop: a single soft light, a white background and two small lights that light the background separately, a fixed table stand height. They photograph the setup and every morning shoot the color checker target as the first frame.

They write the shops' stock codes into a table and name each frame according to that code the moment it is shot. On Tuesday they shoot the jeweler's rings, in his dark brown hand; on Thursday the Turkish delight maker's boxes, in their light-skinned, freckled hand. When they correct each session according to its own card, the jeweler's brown and the Turkish delight maker's pink freckles are both in place. In a test where they had copied Tuesday's settings to Thursday, though, the Turkish delight maker's hand had come out yellowish.

At the end of the two weeks they line up three hundred and twelve main images side by side in a grid at a small size. Nine frames jump out at once: a copper coffee pot's background grayish, two kilims smaller than the others, six Turkish delight boxes with their shadows on the wrong side. They reshoot them. Then they prepare a delivery set of three folders for the marketplace, the web page and the brochure, and a delivery note.

Common mistakes

Summary

Hundreds of products are shot consistently in sessions spread over days by carrying the same shooting template, setting each session to the same color with a color checker target, and naming the files according to their stock codes. Before delivery all the frames are reviewed together in a consistency grid, and the work is handed over with a delivery set prepared according to where it will be used, and a note. Each session's own card keeps hands of different skin tones on different days in their own tones too.

Mini assignment

At the close of the product and food track you will prepare a small eight-frame catalog.

1. Shoot four similar products at home or in a shop with a shooting template, on a white background, on two separate days; at the start of each session shoot a color card, or at least a gray card.
2. Complete the catalog with four frames: a shiny product, a lifestyle frame, a dish, and a venue or ambience frame. If there is a hand in a frame, get its owner's consent.
3. Name each file according to a stock code you make up and an angle number, line up all the frames side by side in a consistency grid and write a one-page delivery note.

Check yourself

• Do the four products shot on two separate days stand in the same world in the grid?
• Looking at the file name, can you tell which product and angle each frame belongs to?
• Are the hands and product colors in the frames close to reality?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. How does a color checker target differ from a gray card?

• A) It fixes only the white balance
• B) It measures the exposure
• C) Besides the white balance, it sets the reds, blues and skin tones in the same place in every session
• D) It whitens the background

2. In a catalog, what are the files named by?

• A) By the product's stock code and angle number
• B) By the sequence number the camera gives
• C) By the time of the shoot
• D) By the photographer's name

3. What does a consistency grid catch?

• A) The sharpness of a single frame
• B) The file size
• C) The usage rights
• D) Frames whose background, size or shadow doesn't match the others when lined up side by side

4. How can blindly copying one session's settings to another day affect a hand in the frame?

• A) It sharpens the hand
• B) Because the light has changed a little, it can shift the skin toward yellow or gray
• C) It enlarges the hand
• D) It has no effect

Answers

1. C — The card's known colors become a reference for the program and all the tones are set by it.
2. A — The product code is the shared key of the page builder, the shop and the photographer.
3. D — A frame that looks right on its own stands out at once among a hundred frames.
4. B — Each session's light is a little different; only its own card corrects that difference.

Summary card

• In a job spread over days, carry the template and record the setup.
• A color checker target at the start of each session; correct the session by its own card.
• File name = stock code + angle number.
• A consistency grid before delivery; reshoot what doesn't fit.
• A delivery set and a delivery note; every hand in its own tone.

Bridge to the next lesson

On the evening the catalog goes live, the jeweler's nephew brings your friend an invitation: they play on the university basketball team and have a game on Saturday. The team wants photos of the season. When your friend walks into the gym, after still bowls and rings they will meet a world where everything runs, jumps and changes in a second. Where is the secret to not missing the moment? The sports and action track opens with exactly this question: a short shutter speed that freezes motion, and continuous focus that follows someone running.