# How To Photograph Shirts



## houseofglass5280 (Aug 24, 2011)

Hi Everyone,
This is my first post but I have been reading the forums for quite some time. 

I read through many posts about photographing shirts for web and i just wanted to share how i do mine and maybe it will be easier for some people. 

Items needed:
*Shirt* (Of course) 
*Camera*
*Hanger*
*Wall or door* (with hook or anything sturdy enough to hold shirt)
*Tape* (i use painters tape becuase it's bright blue, but masking or anything that will stick but won't ruin your shirt will do fine)
*Photo Editing Program*

(Optional)
*Black or white paper or sheet* (any solid color works)

if using the optional paper or sheet tape or hang on wall so that you have a nice solid color background that makes your shirt really pop

Simply hang your shirt on the back of a door or on a wall at YOUR eye level. 

Use tape to make sure the shirt looks clean and flat. gravity does most of the work so you should only have to tape the sleeves and the bottom 

take pictures. i always recomend taking a few so that when you get on the computer you don't realize the one picture you took sucks. 
*Lighting*
for lighting i take a few pictures in each lighting setting since each design may have a different affect (glitter, jewels and such)
-standard room lighting
-room lighting with extra lamp directly facing shirt
-flash from camera only in the dark
(different shirts/colors require different lighting settings) so once you figure out what works for certain colors you can elminate the extra pictures

Take photos to your Photo Editing program of choice. if you like the way your photos look on the background you can skip this next part

Use eraser tool or some sore of select option to select and delete all the background. all you want left is the shirt. then take and past your shirt to a solid color background. (I usually use black for all my white and tan apparel. ) 

next, you can add your logo, and any sort of information using the text tool. 

save in desired format

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I think this gives a nice clean look to photos and lets you show exactly what you want the shirt! 

_Above steps can also work on the floor if you have a ladder or something high so you can get a nice even picture_

Good luck 

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## tonygraystone (May 1, 2008)

I find that indoor lighting looks really bad (yellow). Natural daylight looks much better, an overcast day works best, direct sunlight is too much. All dependent on mother nature mind.

Definitely a good idea to try out different setting and lots of different shots at the time, always a pain to to realise you dont have the shot when your all packed away!


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## veedub3 (Mar 29, 2007)

I agree with indoor lighting. I like natural light best. Here is how I take my pictures. I like to take my photos on sunny days but I set up in shaded areas. I do not let the sun hit the garment, especially when taking photos of rhinestone shirts. I use a lot of craft paper around the shop so I just roll some off the roll and lay it on the ground. I stand over the shirt and take a few pics. I then go to the computer and remove the craft paper from the background and add a different background like wood, concrete, tree bark, grass, gradients, etc.....done.


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## bigswiss (Sep 8, 2009)

if you use a professional flash and bounce it off the ceiling your pictures look natural and the lighting fills in all around so there isn't any shadows.


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## Nanny Ogg (Aug 16, 2011)

Thanks for the advice. I have some difficulties when shooting indoors. Mixture of sunlight and lamps made ​​terrible pictures. That's why I stopped trying and now only shoot outdoors in daylight.


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## Dante2004 (Aug 23, 2010)

I'm a professional photographer and still would prefer to just photoshop the artwork onto a stock image of the shirt (with or without a model). It's just faster and I don't think many customers really care... Just my $0.02


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## GarageCotton01 (Sep 6, 2010)

In my experience, you must shoot RAW. Secondly, I much prefer shooting indoors with a three light setup. It's important to be able to control your shadows.

Don't worry about your color temperature to much, this is easily adjusted within your RAW settings.

I also lay my shirts flat to the ground rather then hanging them. It just looks better when your not fighting gravity. Also, do yourself a favor, if your shooting light shirts, shoot on a dark background and vice versa.

In photoshop then just use the magnetic lasso tool and you can trace the shirt very quickly. After you've done that, create a mask.. don't erase. Once you have your mask, select your mask and shift-click it to activate the selection. Then stroke the inside of your selection by a few pixels. This will clean up any of the selection spill you might have missed.

At this point you should have a pretty solid looking shirt. Now depending on your setup you may have to compensate for the angle of the camera (assuming your using a tripod). Use the perspective tool to pinch the bottom of the shirt inwards to make the sides of the shirt parallel.

So far, this has been working for us. Although, I've been trying new things because I'm yet to perfect this.

Good luck guys. It really does take practice.


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## Smerz (Jun 24, 2010)

Thanks GarageCotton. I was having a hard time taking pics of my new shirt last night. The shirt is white with a grayscale image. I place the shirt on a greenscreen thinking I could remove the backgroud easily in photoshop but the green was reflecting all over the place. 

I will try a darker background tonight. I like the lighting on you shirts. What type of lights are you using?


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## designerscounty (Oct 25, 2011)

I like it indoors with indirect sunlight through a window or my own lighting setup as i can control how much lighting.


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## Xin Sheng Huo (Sep 18, 2014)

Hi,
I don't quite understand the tape part. Can you please explain more about it? It is better for me to understand with pictures.
Thanks.


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## JamesBP (Dec 25, 2011)

Adobe Lightroom certainly helps a lot!


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## wardogbobie (Oct 10, 2013)

this has helped me a lot, thank you


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## ClassicAA (Sep 21, 2014)

Dante2004 said:


> I'm a professional photographer and still would prefer to just photoshop the artwork onto a stock image of the shirt (with or without a model). It's just faster and I don't think many customers really care... Just my $0.02


I agree with Dante2004 -
unless I'm shooting designs worn by a model, I use a stock image(with changeable colour option layers), and place my design where I want it.


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## 3roomlab (Sep 18, 2014)

never thought i would see a photography thread in shirts forum  ... 

when you have thousands of designs, dante's method is going to make life easy.

but when you wanna let people know you like to make things look authentic and everything has a kind of hand build quality to it, i would take every piece of shirt i print. model it yourself to save $$$, buy that camera remote or something ... 

i think im amateurish @ photography
here is what i think an electronics bread board should look like  (you just need a solid piece of bread !)
anyway, for those who are observing, the 2 photos are of diff color temperature.

i think photography is not hard, its a matter of keen observation


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## EddieM (Jun 29, 2009)

I use a full photo studio set up back ground lights and front lights in large soft boxs.
I can get any effect i want.

I like to shoot in green or blue screen and replace that with all white or any background image i want at any time then.

Here are two of my green screen images


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