Hi guys-- I was just wondering if anyone has any tips on taking pictures of your cake? I have only done a few, but I can't seem to get the angle and lighting right on any of them. Just wondering what you all do to get these beautiful photos that I love looking at so much??

I don't know how great my cakes look.... but I like to take my pics against a black background. I think it helps the cake to stand out more.

Keep the background around your cake free of clutter!! No one's cake can look good if they take a picture of it on the countertop with the salt shaker and box of cereal and who-knows-what in view. I buy rolls of solid-color gift wrap to use as backdrops. Most of them come from the dollar stores, so I buy lots of colors and use whichever one looks best with the colors of the cakes.

My son is still working on his tutorial on cake photography.... He's thinking he can have it done next week and it will be posted on www.cakedalaska.com when he finishes it. He takes most of my cake portraits.

Deanna

I think that's a wonderful idea, Deanna! I can't wait to read your son's tutorial! I will be checking your website faithfully. Please tell him THANK YOU in advance!!!!!!!!!

I take terrible pictures, but I can usually clean them up using www.picnik.com. It lets you do all sorts of things. I can usually make them look half way decent, because my lighting is usually off. I have a new camera and have not quite figured it out to take good pics.

I take pictures with my cell phone, so they don't come out too great. I use paint shop pro to clean them up before I post them.

I've noticed that even when I take a picture with my camera instead (on the rare occasions that I can find my camera, batteries, and charger all at the same time, which is almost never) a lot of the time the colors on the photo aren't true to the colors on the cake. I almost always have to put some of the color back in.

My sister takes great pictures of my cakes (she took the one of the fruit basket cake in my photos) but she says it's just because she has a much newer camera than I have. She uses paint shop pro too.

I've figured out (at least with my camera) that if I take pictures with the flash on you can't see the detail or colors very well but if I take the flash off they come out blurry. The only way I've been ale to fix this is by placing my cakes in direct sunlight, either near the window or on a table outside (I set them on a TV tray) with the flash turned off. With my mom's camera she is able to use a soft flash and this is nice for wedding cakes that I set up on site.

The problem with flash is that it makes the whole area lit taking away shadows and making the image look flat.

Turning the flash off will mean that you will need to hold the camera still as the camera will take more time to take the photo as it needs to get a certain amount of light to process the photo.

You can get one of the really little table tripods pretty cheaply.

Most cameras will also have some manual settings where you can turn the exposure of the photo down. This will tell the camera that you don't need as much light and will taker a darker but quicker photo.

As above people have said clear out the background as you only want your item in the picture. Put a bit of space between the item and the background.

There are plenty of helpful sites on simple tips for taking photos of items. I remember kodak had a good one for beginners.