Aesthetically pleasing and professional looking photos are key to selling flipped furniture fast! You don’t need a professional photographer or fancy camera. Learning these FREE simple photography tips will help you sell your refinishing furniture.
Clear, professional photos of your furniture to sell are the key to marketing yourself, building a brand, and ultimately selling your products faster!
Here, I will share the best kept FREE photo and editing secrets for taking pictures of furniture to sell. These are all things you can use straight from your phone! If you’re looking how to edit photos of furniture for free, just keep scrolling.
I’ve even fooled some professionals with these furniture photography and editing techniques.
First, check out my blog post “10 Staging Tips to Sell Flipped Furniture Fast”. Styling and staging your furniture are step one. Photographing furniture and editing come second.
DISCLAIMER – I have absolutely no formal training on photography or editing. Despite my lack of instruction on the matter, I think I do a pretty good job achieving clear, aesthetically pleasing photos with the use of just my iphone13 Pro and FREE editing software from my phone. (Excuse the humble brag). My aim here is to highlight free mobile editing apps and maximize the use of the phone you already own.
Furniture Photography Tips:
Use Camera Grid
First, align the subject – in this case the furniture you’re photographing- in the center of the frame. Ensure all the lines of the drawers, baseboards, etc. are as close to parallel or perpendicular as possible. A catty-wampus layout is distracting to the eye and takes away from your masterpiece. You don’t want to start with a pictures of the furniture that looks like your 5 year old took it. Straighten it up!
What Angle Should I Photograph Furniture?
Get on your furniture’s level. Find yourself a nearby chair if you’re old like me, or squat in front of the furniture. This will get you the best angles and accurately capture the piece. Keep in mind these are just the basics.
Feel free to have fun with your angles! In other words, capture a side view, top down shot or even get fancy in portrait mode for a closet up. Keep in mind, typically the best photos to truly capture your subject accurately start from the hip level.
What’s the Best Lighting for Staging Furniture?
Most importantly, ALL NATURAL light is the best lighting for staging furniture. I mentioned this in my staging tips blog, but I cannot emphasize it enough. The colors will come across more accurately and you’ll avoid awkward shadows. If you have harsh shadows from the natural source consider hanging a very thin curtain or sheet to diffuse the light.
PRO TIP: If you really are lacking in natural light in your staging space and are in a financial position to make a small investment, I highly recommend a soft box. You can purchase one on Amazon for about $40. Lighting is so crucial for good photos. Therefore, it’s an investment worth making if needed. I promise, everything else in this post will be free to stay true to the title.
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Photographing Furniture Editing Tips:
When it comes to free mobile photo editing I use the Snapseed app. It was very important to me when starting my furniture refinishing side business not to spend money in areas where it wasn’t necessary. For instance, spending money on photoshop software or fancy cameras before I could comfortably afford it. These are the features I use and in this order.
How to Align Furniture in Photos?
Rotate Tool
Do your best aligning all lines on the grid of your camera when shooting, but don’t worry about being perfect. The rotation tool will pick up the slightest rotation and self-correct. It easily refines alignment that even your naked eye may not pickup.
Crop Tool
Eliminate any excess negative space and ensure the subject (aka the furniture product being photographed) is centered in the frame. Keep in mind, you want some negative space if you plan to add a logo later. Now is a good time to plan ahead for that necessary space.
How Fix Imperfections in Staged Furniture Photos?
Healing Tool
The healing tool is perhaps the most magical tool of all! It seriously saves my photos when staging furniture in my not so picture perfect garage. When dealing with unsightly nail holes, dings in the floor, or perhaps debris you forgot to vacuum before the shoot (GUILTY), the healing tool with save you. You can even remove light switches and outlets – one of my big pet peeves. (See a few examples below)
Here you can see how I removed 1 (and a half) outlets.
[Blog post on how to replace background in mirror coming soon…]
This was taken in my garage with large dings and imperfections in the wall. After healing you’d never be able to tell!
Selection
The Selection stool is another tool that is an absolute must use for editing furniture photography. This feature allows you to select specific areas you wish to brighten or soften. I use the selection tool mainly on the background walls to eliminate shadows and other distractions. I focus on the brightness, saturation and structure options. Select the area you wish to edit. After that, zoom in or out to adjust the size. By scrolling your finger up and down on the screen you’ll see the letters B, C, S, S.
B = brightness,
C= contrast (I usually don’t adjust this)
S= saturation,
S= structure.
Once you’ve selected the editing option, next scroll your finger left to right to adjust. My go to approach is to brighten any shadows just slightly. After that, reduce the saturation and structure about 50% across the whole wall. This keeps the background bright white, soft and smooth.
Brush
This tool isn’t always required, but the photo edit below is a great example of when to utilize it. For example, the interior of the bar cabinet is quite a bit darker than the rest of the picture. I wanted the funky eye paper to really POP, and by using the brush tool in the exposure selection I was able to accomplish just that! Simply draw over the area you wish to brighten, adjusting the width of the tool as needed. Check out that before and after!
How to Brighten Furniture Photo?
Curve Tool
Curve tool is the perfect finishing touch to your furniture photo edit. Adjust the curve slightly upward to give your picture one last boost of brightness.
Adding Logo to Product Photo:
Using yet another free tool, eZy Watermark app, I add in my transparent logo to my furniture photo. Don’t have a transparent logo? You can easily make any design transparent in Canva. Another option is to type out your name and save it as a transparent picture from Canva (this is what I’ve always done). Alternatively, eZy watermark also has the option of adding text to the photo right there in the app.
I hope you found this furniture refinishers guide to photographing furniture to sell helpful! You don’t need fancy equipment to achieve a professional look. I personally find it so fun taking pictures of furniture to sell! Eventually, upgrading to an actual camera for photographing and photoshop membership may be an option, but until my business has me rolling in the dough like Scrooge McDuck himself, I’ll stick with this approach.
Girl Behind the Blog
I’m Jess, the creator of Oak & Grain. A mid-west girl at heart who now resides in Raleigh, NC. I love finding old things and giving them new purpose by way of refinishing or incorporating unexpected, overlooked thrift store finds in the modern home. I work full-time in medicine and I love dipping into my creative side and in the process, keeping my sanity. Follow me on Instagram and YouTube to see more behind the scenes action.