I saw a portfolio today of a friend of mines mom. All it was a little photo album that you can get for like a buck from the Wal-mart photo lab...I was wanting to know how all of you do your portfolios. Do you do them like a scrapbook?? just a regular photo album?? and also...how long did it take you to make a big enough portfolio to show people. People are wanting to see some photos of mine but I really don't have anything or enough photos in my opinion to give them a selection to look at and get an idea of what I can actually do for them....helppppp please!!!

By the way this is my 200th post!!!!!!!! WAHOOO!!!

i have a 6x6 album, but so far it's not very impressive for people who want wedding cakes. I've only done 2 anniversary cakes for sale. so mostly what's in mine are my kids birthday cakes and Christening cakes.

I also have a scrapbook and found pretty wedding paper for the scrapbook paper. I have about 20 or so photos I show, mainly wedding cakes and fancy baptisms, and formal cakes. A couple of whimsical cakes in there. Its in a very eligant scrapbook cover, not the plain vinyl ones.

I also have a laptop where I have put a screenshow on it of all my cakes, and it just flips through the cakes on a table, in the background, during consultations.

But for none consultations, I refer everyone to my web site...

I have a scrapbook album that I started after I took all three Wilton courses. Every time I do a cake I add a page to my book. It started out very small, but grew very quickly, and as I get better and addmore cakes, I take out some of the older "beginner" cakes. I am not licensed, so right now I am just showing family and friends but I tried to think ahead with the idea that someday I might be doing this as a business and want myportfolio to be veryprofessional looking. It's also been very cool to see how I have improved .

I have an album of 3 sections for Traditional, Non-Traditional & Celebration Cakes...divided just like my website is. It's faster to look up photos that way. There are 4 photos per page.

If you are just starting out and your album is smaller, why not use other items on the page with the cake photo...like a scrap of ribbon used on the cake, or the invitation that inspired a cake's design, or even a thank you note from the client? As you make and photograph more and more cakes, these items can come out to make more room for all your new photos!

great information, I will keep this in my mind when I get to that stage

I carry a small photo album with me in my purse to show people who ask about my cakes, but I also scrapbook my pictures in a bigger album to showcase them better when people are here at my home who want to see my cakes.

I carry a photo album around usually... I only have about 25 cakes so far and many of them are repeats because I needed to "practice" before the actual ones... I've heard you can get wallet sized photo albums at Hobby Lobby... I need to look into that... I think the scrapbook idea is really good as well, I'll need to get one of those for Christmas! I've never had anyone come to the house to discuss a cake... that'll be happening for the first time next weekend actually

This is great - my mom's always telling me I need to make a portfolio - I just feel that my pictures are so icky - there's the kitchen table in the background or something's fuzzy or it's too dark... my question is...

HOW do you take a good picture of your cakes??? I have a digital camera (okay my parents do) and I've tried moving my cakes around to dif. places in our house to get better lighting - I've tried using "natural lighting" from the windows and turning the other lights in the house off..... but no matter what I do I still think the pic comes out looking pretty crappy. I know the professionals probably have a professional photographer come out and take some pictures - but I'm not a professional yet! I'd still like to have some nice looking pictures though!!

Anyone have some tips on taking great pictures for your portfolio??

Oh btw - I do know how to use photoshop - but sometimes I think an object that you cut out and put onto a background can look like it's "floating" and I want it to look real - not like something I copied from someone's site and cut out and put a new background on - I've never done anything like that w/ my cakes but I don't want people to THINK I've done that either..... okay enough - obviously I need help with this!

Some quick tips for reducing the "floating cake" effect in Photoshop: (I use the full version, I don't know if these options are available in the version you can get for $100 or that comes with printers)

Sometimes helpful:
1. When clipping around the cake, set a "feather" on the laso tool, between 1 and 3 pixels depending on your file resolution. Put cake on its own new layer.
2. Create the new background layer below the cake layer
3. Add a drop shadow to the cake layer. This takes practice. You can try the defaults and play around a little bit.

If you're planning on clipping out the cakes, try to photograph against a solid background that contrasts with the colors of the cake.

OR, you could use the same tablecloth, sheet or poster board to photograph all of your cakes against, in the similar lighting if possible. You'll get natural shadows without having to clip anything. Just some minor color adjustments if you want, and you'll be all done!

I've recently found that the flash makes cakes look greasy and every flaw shows up!! AHHH. So I'm trying to photograph new cakes without a flash. I always like those pics better.

I have heard of people taking a large box.....cutting the front panel out and spray painting the entire inside of the box black just for photographing their cake photos ( I always plan on doing it, just never got around to it) Then if you want to add anything to the background you pretty much have a blank slate......you could also drape materials of complimentary colors in the background if you don't want black. Buying some cake dummies would also be a good way to practice different skills and would give you a "finished product" to take photos of for your portfolio.

I have them on my laptop at home but another idea is burning a CD of all your pictures. You can take it with you and if you trust the person interested, let them borrow it or give it to them with a nice label of your business logo. Remember, I read here on CC one time that if you are not "legal" you should just put your name and phone number so it can't be mistaken as business.

I really like the mini portfolio in the purse and the CD idea! Coming here has helped me TONS with getting ideas of how to get this off the ground.

My problem is that I didn't take photos of many of my cakes. I'm gonna have to do a bunch of dummy cakes to show some variety of what I can do I think. Cookies are easier. I'll photograph them and then donate them!

Getting excited here! Now, I hope I don't fall flat on my face!

melissa