More links for doll photography tips

Recently I referred my readers to a very good article on doll photography, and promised more links and pictures in future installments. Since I'm not quite ready yet with new pictures, here are the promised links.

On About.com there is a fantastic four-part series of articles on doll photography:

Doll Photography Part I — This article aids you in choosing a camera that will take good photographs of dolls. One of the cameras she suggests is a Nikon Coolpix, which I've been using myself (until I caught the doll photography bug, that is). I like the camera very much, and I think it's one of the best point-and-shoot cameras you can get, but it doesn't always pick up the detail as cleanly as I would like — and I am constantly having trouble with the color balance.

Doll Photography Part II — This article discusses the camera requirements for taking close-ups of your dolls. The article claims that most digital cameras can handle this, but I've personally found that my point-and-shoot cameras tend to bleach out my dolls with the flash and/or screw up the color balance on the macro (flower symbol) setting. It is still possible to get a good picture, but you may have to take a lot of shots and upload them all onto your computer in order to find the best one.

I've started practicing a little with my husband's professional-grade Canon digital camera (a gift from his brother), and so far it seems much better than a point-and-shoot. There are a lot of settings to learn how to use, though, so it's not for the technologically clueless!

Doll Photography Part III — This installment gives a lot of good advice about lighting, backgrounds, and focus. This is much more advanced advice, and will make more sense as you become more experienced at photographing your dolls.

Doll Photography Part IV — Even the best cameras may require you to edit your photos a little bit, in order to restore the proper color (white balance) of the doll. The final article reviews a couple of major photo editing programs. I personally use Adobe Photoshop, but as the author of these articles notes, the software is pretty expensive. If you can't afford pricey photo editing software, you can always use Google Picasa for free.

Well, back to practicing with the new digital camera. I'll post some pictures soon so that you can see how I'm doing!