Do you have any good tips on how to take good pictures of your cakes? In time I would like to set up a website to go with a future home business, so the plan is to slowly but surely build up a portfolio of cake pictures. I have a good digital camera, but need some tips on how to get the pictues well lit and professional looking.

BakingGirl

I would suggest getting 2-3 large table cloths or pieces of material - neutral colors and one dark. These work great as backgrounds for the cakes. I use chip clips and clip one end to my chandlier (sp?) in my dining room and rest the bottom draped down. That way you have a consistent background. Take lots of photos so you have more to choose from.

Best of luck!

Hey,
Also stand as far back as you can and zoom in on your cake. It desolves some of the "flaws" that might otherwise be shown.

Cheers!

make sure you remove all distractions...ie mixing bowls and cat toys

I like to take my pictures with the flash "off" and on a tripod (otherwise I get a blurry picture) in a well lit area. If you have lights on it, it makes the cakes look yellowish. (you can see some of my earlier ones in my gallery that have the yellow tint) It just looks harsh.

I always use flash in all my pictures. At home I can control the lighting a lot better.
If on location this is more difficult. I just had a wedding and they had nasty tube lighting. Well the majority of the pictures turned out yellow-with and witout flash.
Angles do wonders also. I climb up on the chair and stuff.
And yes remove all "stuff" from the view of the cake. I once saw someone that had cigarettes out of the package scattered on the counter.

And no windows behind the cake. i have one or two!!

One suggestion a digital camera and a nice one at that!!! Also a photo editting software I recommend is a free software download called IrfanView. Google it and download it it's great! You can resize very easily, remove red eye from family photos, and fix bad file names (IE saved as a gif file but it's truely a jpg file it will auto detect and fix this for you when you view it in the viewer).

Also the least amount of clutter possible, no people if possible, and nothing to distract from your cake, cookies, candies, etc. I also agree getting some fabric from say Walmart or any fabric store is a great idea. You can get it rather cheap at thrift shops and consignment shops!!! I'd suggest the same as before black and a few white incase one gets dirty I've yet to purchase some but plan on it after I move.

If you aboslutely can not avoid clutter in the photo make sure it's something that accents the cake or object being photographed.

When placing on a website I suggest doing something as I've done on mine and many others have done on theirs, having a thumbnail view (just like CC has in our photo folders) and when clicked on it will either take you to another page with-in that page (like CC) to a larger view or it will open as a new page with the full sized photo (like my website does). It's very easy and very basic HTML coding to achieve this and I'd be happy to help if needed.

I think that's it... Also I recommend the digital camera to be one that has a printer dock... mine is the Kodak Easy Share with Charging/Printing dock station. It's great for on site delivery photos incase the receiver doesn't have a camera or has had a mishap and dropped or broken or forgotten their camera (had that happen more then once) or their batteries die (had that happen too many times to count lol) You can snap photos of the cake(s) and whatever and print right there on site, and heck can even charge an extra $2.~ to $5.~ a picture (Walmart would cost about the same for instant pics from a disc or memory card).

Good luck and if I can be of any help to anyone on anything feel free to PM and ask away

I go to the dollar store and buy lots of wrapping paper in solid colors. I have about a dozen backdrop colors that way, and I spent very little money on it. You can see on my website the photos that were taken just on my table and the ones with my "professional" backdrop papers.

No clutter in the background! None! And make sure that if there are any props in the photo, like candlesticks or photos on the wall, that they don't interfere with the cake's moment to shine.

Cakephun is right about backing up and zooming in.

My husband uses a professional flash set-up for most of my cake portraits, but for plain snapshots, I use my cheapie digital camera and turn the flash off.

Deanna

Thank you all for all of your very helpful replies. I am definitively getting some white and dark fabric, and if I can get it some solid colour wrapping paper - I like the effect in your photo's TooMuchCake. I may get back to this thread later once I have had a chance to play around a bit, I will probably have more questions when I have played around with it a bit more. Got a cake due tomorrow so with luck I will have the backgrounds I need to try and get a good picture.

BakingGirl

If you can't get your hands on the stuff in time don't worry about it. You can take great pics on your table top just try to keep other things out of the background. I've seen your pics and they look great the way they are. You could even take a white bed sheet or something very clean and spotless just for a temp fix

I use a black drop cloth 9 actually a black felt blanket. I was having problems with the lighting in my house and always had shadows that made things look wierd - now that I use a black background - I don't have the shadow problem anymore. Also, the digital camera I have has a special mode for taking pictures of food - so the detail of the cake really comes through.

SLK - what camera is it? I'm looking for a new one. Never heard of that setting, tho! How cool is that?


Also, as far as lighting, settings, etc, go to http://groups.msn.com/digitalphotographyforamateurs/general.msnw It's an amateur photog site, but a most of them really should be pro, IMO. Good at all the technical stuff like lighting and manual settings. Post a pic that you have taken along with the technical info - you can find that by going to the folder the ORIGINAL pic is in, right-clicking the thumbnail, go to Properties.

Zmuma - my camera is a Casio Exilim. It says 6.0 Mega Pixels EX-S600 on the side (whatever that means). I really like it, it's the first digital camera I've ever had and it is so very easy to use - it was a bit pricy but my husband's work sells them so we got a discount - that's the only reason I got that one. The "food macro" just sounded cool - I didn't think it would work that well, but when I started using it - it really made my pics look better.

wow I've got a Casio Exilim and I'll have to look to see if I have a cake macro setting on mine. that would be so cool.
I agree with everyone on here, a good camera, back ground setting and just the cake to focus on (no clutter) are the main things to consider.

I'm always lookin for ways to get better photos.

cheers
Jan

Well! I admit I usually just take the picture wherever it is at. I'm bad that way. But after hearing all of this great advise, I will be adding a few more things to my collection of cake items that my family calls 'But what does that have to do with cake? Wait, you do what with it????'

Someone who had great photos suggested to me a while ago to take pictures using natural light, and I think it makes a big difference. I put the cake on my kitchen table or a chair draped with a sheet and open the blinds so the light can stream in on the cake.