How to photograph your knife
Using the photo, I will trace an outline of your knife and build a cover. If the photo is bad, my cover might not fit.
What you need
- One sheet of plain white printer paper.
- A flat surface darker than the paper — a worktop, a table, the floor.
- Daylight, or any soft, even light. No flash.
- Your phone.
Step by step
- Lay the paper on a darker surface, flat and uncreased, with the long edge running left to right.
- Lay the knife flat on the paper, handle hanging off the edge.
- Check the whole blade is on the paper.
- Check the entire paper is in the photo.
- Stand over it and shoot straight down. Hold the phone level, directly above the middle of the blade.
- Turn the flash off.
- Fill the frame with the paper and the knife. No zoom.
- One knife per photo.
Good and bad, side by side
The first is what we want. The rest require retaking.
Blade fully inside the frame on a clean sheet, handle off the edge, shot from straight above in soft light. This is the one we can measure.
If any part of the blade is outside the picture, there is no outline to cut — we have to come back and ask for another photo.
Flash blows out the steel and throws a hard shadow off the spine. Both edges of the blade disappear into white or into black.
From the side, the blade looks narrower than it is and the cover comes out tight. Get the camera directly over it.
On a worktop or a cutting board there is no clean line between blade and background, so the outline has to be guessed.
A shadow reads as an edge. Turn so your own shadow is not falling over the sheet.