10.25.2011

31 Days: Day 25

Some of my favorite blog posts are DIY tutorials. Even if I don't want to try the project myself, it's so neat to see how someone tackled a challenge! In my humble opinion, the best tutorials have TONS of pictures. Well how do you take good pictures for tutorials?

I'd like to pass on a couple of tips I've learned from seeing many tutorials in great blogs.

1. Use a background: although your house may be a wreck from your project, taking a little time to make your tutorial pretty makes a huge difference. One great technique is to use a background for your pictures. I learned this from Smile and Wave. Rachel often puts a pretty fabric on her table as a backdrop to her DIYs. It makes things look so much better!

Here's how it looked when I tried that technique...

It's bright and fun AND you can see everything really clearly! Of course, you may have to lock up the kitties to pull this off...


I ironed this fabric and it totally didn't matter...

2. Stage your pics a little: the DIY process isn't always pretty, but your pictures don't have to be totally honest... I think it's ok to be a little tricky and stage your tutorial pics. In the picture above, you get the idea that I'm measuring to find the middle of that block of wood from how I laid everything out. My hands and sloppy pencil marks don't even need to be a part of it.

3. Number your pictures: Let's be honest, a lot of people skim pictures instead of reading all the text. Might as well make them as clear as possible by adding numbers. Don't want anyone to get lost after all...


4. Pretend your clueless: Never forget that the person reading your tutorial might have no clue of how to do what you've done - which is exactly why you've made a tutorial! Be sure to cover all of the important steps AND less important steps. There's nothing more frustrating than getting lost in a tutorial you'd really like to try.

One DIY I'm particularly proud of is my Scrabble Tile project. I'm so happy with how it's turned out and that it was even picked up by Apartment Therapy! Well, I was so excited when I did it that I didn't take ANY tutorial pictures - bummer... Today (for this post), I recreated those steps and I can update my tutorial with pictures!! Hopefully I'll be able to share the new version with you tomorrow - a live action version of pics for tutorials! Keep an eye out...

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