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Taking good quality pictures of clothing can be tricky.  The battle to eliminate or control harsh shadows can seem endless, and soft, even lighting can be a real problem. However, there are some simple techniques which even amateur photographers can use to obtain excellent results with minimal effort.  The following examples show the basic setup that should allow anyone to achieve results they can be proud of.

The easiest technique to learn and have success with, is shooting clothing flat. Some great examples of flat or folded clothing photography can be seen online at GAP kids and L.L.Bean webstores. This is the technique we will focus on in this tutorial. Keep in mind that these companies hire experienced photo clothing stylists to spend countless hours fussing over the tiniest layout details. A great deal can be learned from studying their final layout selections.

To provide soft, even lighting we used TableTop Studio's Kuhl Lite120 lights with the front diffusion panels in place. The Kuhl Lites use four daylight color compact fluorescent bulbs each. They are a pleasure to work with, as they do not produce the intense heat of the more commonly used  tungsten or halogen bulbs but do provide true daylight color so little or no color correction is needed.

There are some basic limitations worth considering using this technique. Because we are shooting from "above", we have limits as to how high we can raise our camera safely, using a horizontal tripod. If the clothing is large the edges will be cropped from the camera view if the camera is too low. For a dress you may need to raise the camera to a height of 6' to 8'; although by 6' you may find you need a small step ladder to see through the viewfinder. Large chains ie. L.L.Bean have tall, sturdy scissor lifts, with large format cameras mounted on them specifically made for this purpose. These allow the camera to be raised to almost any height.

Now lets look at some specific situations.

How to get started shooting clothing for the web.

Let's begin with a packaged, folded product since this is how many of you will begin. After removing the shirt from the package we used a good quality hand-held travel size steamer to remove the wrinkles.

Once the shirt is removed from the package it's covered in wrinkles. The wrinkles, if left unaddressed will really detract from the final image.

The best thing to do is to iron or steam the wrinkles out.

We used a highly rated hand held travel steamer. This little travel size Jiffy Esteam worked like a champ, and the wrinkles were gone in a flash.

Steaming the wrinkles out

Softboxes provide soft, even lighting for clothing.

Flat art photography inherently poses certain lighting challenges. The lights used need to provide smooth, even lighting over a very large, broad, flat surface.

To achieve balanced, even lighting we will use two large 20" softboxes {Kuhl Lite120's}. The set shown here included optional diffusion panels that can be attached to the front to soften the light.

Since our items are flat, it's fine to position two equal light sources on opposite sides of the clothing. Normally this flattens an image. But our items are truly flat; like a poster, so flat lighting is fine.

The large size of the soft boxes complements the large size of the clothing to provide very smooth, even coverage.

Shirt on white foam board

Position the camera on a horizontal tripod,
for a birds eye view of each article

Use a camera that has a short focal length {wide angle} lens. This will allow you to see a larger area of your subject; the entire piece of clothing.

A wide angle lens views a larger "wider" area  vs. a zoom or macro lens that narrows the view to a smaller section of space.

In this case, the wide angle lens fits the entire pair of jeans into view. We used a 18-55mm lens for this photo, and it worked well.

Your camera should be positioned directly above the clothing. If the tripod is raised up high, use a small step ladder to safely look through your cameras viewfinder.

 Remove the shirt from the package & use a hand-held steamer or iron to remove the wrinkles. Then add a bit of cotton batting for nice neckline depth and shadow as shown left.

 The wrinkles, if left unaddressed will really detract from the final image.

The steamed shirt shown below looked very nice. However with a small amount of cotton batting we added fullness to the shirt body and gave the final image a more finished look.

The cotton batting that was stuffed beneath the neckline edge, produced a very nice separation of the shirt front from the back.

Steamed shirt

Even amateur photographers can obtain dramatic results with minimal effort.
Below images were taken using a Canon Digital Rebel camera with a wide angle lens