Photoshop Photo Effects

Question

Hello,
I design and sell digital products such as wedding invitations and business cards. I have been trying for weeks to photograph clear, beautiful product photos but despite my online research on how to achieve this (the DIY route because I don't have the money to spend on top-notch photography equipment) I still am not able to achieve the perfect product photo. Is there a photoshop effect, or several effects that I can use to make my product pictures (the final design in .jpg format) look as if they have been photographed when they have not? Or should I be using another Adobe program such as Lightroom?
Any help, suggestions, guidance, etc. would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

Answer 1

Photoshop does have a new tool for removing camera blur. But that is only when the camera moves not out of focus or subject movement. Since you are taking pictures of products, the camera should be on a tripod anyways, which makes that tool moot.
You can find fairly cheap cameras that have additional controls above and beyond point and shoot. It needs a dial on it that allows you to go from the full automatic mode to the aperture, shutter or manual modes you will be fine. A camera that can use multiple lenses or has a see through viewer (normally called an SLR) is not all that necessary when shooting still objects. Since it can not move, you are free to take as many pictures as necessary until you find the right distance and position for doing more shoots.
What the Aperture and shutter features do is allow you to specify how long the capture should take (shutter priority) and how much light should enter the camera (aperture priority) Manual is a combination of both.
When you can set the aperture to a smaller setting (a higher number) to allow a longer capture time the more objects are in focus. A larger aperture which captures the image at a faster rate puts more of the image out of focus.
Shutter priority on the other hand, tells the camera how long to capture an image. The longer the capture time, the brighter the image (and more of a blur on moving objects), the shorter amount of time gives a darker image (and will capture moving objects making them to appear still).
The aperture and shutter are tied to each other, when one changes, the other must change to have a proper exposure.
Manual lets you set these separate from each other, allowing you to change the exposure.
If the camera is on a tripod, that allows the camera to stay still which in turn allows the camera to have a slower shutter speed which in turn allows the aperture to have a smaller diameter (a higher number). The allows more objects to be in focus and have a proper exposer. If the camera was hand held, it is possible to see a blur and have a dark image. In other words for it to be hand held in low light, the exposure needs to be darker to have less blur. The correct exposure would likely create a highly blurred image.