Photos of the Century P2

Hi Everyone!

Last we spoke I was telling you on how to get a GREAT nail photo! Continuing on that post, here is more tips & tricks...

Backgrounds can be more of a preference thing. However, I find your hands/nails will pop more if you have a simple background. If there is too much "noise" in the background, it will only take away from all your hard work. There is no point of taking the photo if you are just going to drown out the work with a bunch of gems, jewels, and other fancy things. As a famous poet - Robert Browning - once said "Less is more," he was onto something with this. If you want more emphasis on your nails you have to have less on everything else.

Cameras are really important as you may have guessed. Things to look for - good shutter speed, able to produce high resolution, and easily adjustable settings. Iphone 6+ should be able to produce a clear enough photo. If you have a more heavy duty camera, power to you, make sure to use it and play with it. Also, keep your lens clean, there is no point in going through all these suggestions and adapting the way you take a photo if you have a big chunk of dust in your photo due to carelessness.

Edit your photos but don't overdo it. A little imperfection here and there is okay to clean up but if you edit it too much it will show. I suggest if you use a filter that you use the same filter for all of your photos. This will make it look more authentic. Don't be scared to sharpen your image, sharpening it 1/3 of the way should suffice. You want the designs to stand out more but having them look fake and cartoonish is in risk by over-using this feature. Use the text option and write the tag for you or your salon, this way if someone is inspired from your work and wants to reuse/repost it, you will more times than not get the shout out you deserve. And let's be honest, your work is going to look so good after these tips that people will want to use your photos.

Lastly, one of the most important things you can do is give some loving to the CUTICLES! Cuticles make a huge difference in pictures, clean them up, moisturize and put them as a priority. You can have one of the nicest sets but if the cuticles are ratchet, you just ruined your picture. Don't underestimate it and try to start looking at other nail tech's photos and their cuticle work, you will see a trend.

Photo Credit: Kenesha Lewis

There is a reason people say a picture is worth a thousand words. Make it count!!

Elise xox