How do you take the photos on this site?

Or, the long version of the question:

I found your site because I was looking for more info after attending one of Jack Houck's PK parties. I guess I did a pretty good job. If you want to see, I have a mini-gallery at http://dach.smugmug.com/gallery/247021

Alas, my pictures are not nearly as neat as yours. Yours have this really creepy, old-fashioned look to them. It looks like you're doing something more to them than just a black background, but I can't quite figure out what. I would understand if you want to keep the secret to yourself. if so, then just take this e-mail as a note of appreciation to your photographic skills. But, if you could give me some useful tips to take better pictures (other than "get a better camera!"), I'd appreciate it.

Now if only Cafe Press had black T-shirts...

SINcerely,

| Archpope Däch, host, "Closed Caskets for the Living Impaired"
_|_ Saturdays 10pm-12am KUCI 88.9FM, Irvine CA http://closedcaskets.com
(_) Listen live during the show, or pre-recorded during the week!

The trick is that they're NOT photos. They're direct flat-bed scans. I keep an ancient clunky 5" high no-name parallel-port scanner just for the purpose. It has excellent depth-of-field compared with modern scanners. I just lay the pieces on the glass, cover them up with a piece of heavy black velvet and then scan. I use PSP to clean up the background a little, but that's it. I used the same technique for most of the Barbie-doll pics on ubermole.com.

So no, I won't tell you to get a better camera - I'm telling you to get a crappier scanner :P

meow & ciao,

kat =^..^=

Now, if you've read all of these and have something NOT answered here (or just want to say Hi) then you can email me.

I get a LOT of email and don't have much time to answer it, sorry.