Taking pics of your Minis. And how to re-size them.

[ZOG!]

How to Take pics of your Toy Soldiers!

First off, I'd like to say thanks to everyone who has helped me take pics of minis. Especially Max_Dammit Cheers mate your simple guide HERE is what has helped me the most.

Right how do we do it?
Get a camera get a Mini take a pic right?... Wrong! If only it was that simple.
I will keep it brief and to the point (i hope!)
First things first where are you taking the pic? where is the light source? how good is the camera?
The best place to take a pic is outside on a nice sunny day with the sun at your back.
(yeah right i live in the black country in England how much chance of that have i got?... Zero to nil!)
So its indoors then... heres my set up. (yes i tidied up ):



Next the positioning of the Mini:


Here you can see the Chaos Dred i want to take pics of.
Its on the Tin with a cork floor tile behind it. Why? well as you can see from the pic my camera is on a mini tripod (stops or reduces blurry pics dontcha know?) so i need to bring the model up to take a pic of it. The background is for focusing (these dam cameras are getting too smart these days).
I use the cork or off-white back ground as white reflects the light back too much. Just use any old bit of paper/cloth/floor tile/ box whatever. just don't use a white one
You will notice I've positioned my desk lamp to illuminate the front of the model, daylight bulbs work best but I'm a cheapskate and use the normal bulb that came with it

Next taking the Picture:


Well here we go.
First if your camera has a 'Macro mode' turn it on. (I'm lucky here i have macro and super macro) this mode on your camera is shown by a little tulip symbol.
Also you may like to turn your Flash off. it probably wont go off but its a pain if it does.
Now on most cameras I've used they have a 2 stage button.
Whats he on about i hear you say?
Well i really ain't going mad...Honest!
Push the button slowly and the picture will come into focus, carry on and the picture will be taken. See 2 stages. Focus. Take pic!
Now repeat the process for all the angles/other models you wish to take pics of.
heres the pics of the Dred.





There you go i hope this helps anyone who needs it.
Next how to crop images or 'does my mini look big in this?

How to Resize Images.

Right now we have these wonderful pictures, what we gonna do with em?
Post em! Well thats all well and good but.... they are the size of the screen at your local cinema! and you cant see the whole pic.
So its all been a waste of time and we should just pack up the mini's and take up golf instead right?
Wrong.
You can do something about it.
We all have a little under-rated program called paint (if you run windows) and its all you need.
So here you go this is how you do it.

Step 1:
Upload the pic from your camera to your PC.
Open the image in Paint.
Heres the pic I'm gonna resize.

As you can see its WAAAAAY too big to see the entirety of it.
Stage 2:
Click on the 'Image' menu at the top and come down to 'Stretch/Skew' Click this option.

Which brings up this lovely menu you can see below

Step 3:
Change the 'Stretch' percentage In both Horizontal AND Vertical to (well that depends on how big the image is, you can always 'undo' the change.) in my case 38% to fit it on the screen (this works out to about 800 x 600 pixels in my case)
As shown below

Now the image can be seen on a 15.4 inch monitor rather than be seen from space
Save your changes to your image and Voilà!
get em uploaded and posted on the forum.

Hope this helps
Cheers

Zog.

[ZOG!]

Comments :

That's a good run through - well done. The one thing I think should also be taken into account is white balance. Most cameras have an automode which in most casas work fine. If you do have tho option to set it your self, try to play around abit to see if you can get your colors more irl-true. Because of white balance you should also avoid different types of lightsource. Meaning either the sun or your lamp, so if using your lamp, curtains please. If using several lamps, same lightbulp in all of them.

Also, if your camera has a timer - use it. There will be even less chance of blur if you aren't even holding the camera at the time the shot is taken

[badfang]

And, specially for Bob, if you are using a tripod and your camera has got 'Aperture Priority', select it and use the highest aperture number you can get if you're taking a pic of a large 'mini' or mob shot (increases 'depth of field' - the spread of stuff that's in focus).

[Max_Dammit]

Thats a good one, ill have to look in to that, thanx Badfang

[Harkon Greywolf]

LOL