Photographing cards

[Halflap]

I need to photograph some hand made greetings cards for my daughters web site and need some advice..

I thought about making up a light box type of thing out of an old crisp box and lighting it through tracing paper over holes on the side/ top. Would this be the best way to do it or would I be better off using a coloured sheet.

I have a canon 430exII flash and 2 Jessops flashguns that I can use.

Any suggestions appreciated.

The other option would be to scan them.

 

[Nod]

TBH, I would have said that scanning them was the easier option. If the cards are heavily textured or very 3dimensional, the mini-studio would be the way to go. Probably easier to buy one of the commercialy available ones (IIRC, Maplin do one at a reasonable cost) than create one from scratch.

 

[chivers67]

Should be able to bounce the flashes off some polystyrene or card angled at 45% to prevent strong reflections either side, depends on whether you want to stand them up to show them off as cards or just flat/front on?

Failing that an overcast day outside in the garden

 

[mrtoad]

diffused daylight

low contrast...good tonality

 

[Halflap]

Thanks for all the suggestions

We were going to scan them but as they have depth to them I thought they would be better photographed.

I had not even thought about using natural light but now it has been suggested it makes sense as I can use the in camera metering.

Will also look into the light tent idea as I have some ideas for the future that could use it.