How to photograph slabs for a digital catalogue

Most fabricators photograph slabs the way they photograph anything else in the yard: phone out, arm up, one shot from wherever they happen to be standing. That is fine for a stock record.

It is not fine for a catalogue a customer buys from, because the two things a photograph has to carry — the true colour and the movement of the veining — are exactly what a casual snap loses first.

Stand square to the face, centred, far enough back that the whole slab fits with a little room around it. An angled shot foreshortens the veining, so a stone with long sweeping movement reads as short and busy. It also introduces perspective distortion that any rendering step then has to fight.

If the slab is on an A-frame, shoot it on the frame rather than laying it down. Vertical slabs are lit more evenly than horizontal ones, which pick up reflections of whatever is above them — usually a roof, a light fitting, or you.

Direct sun is the enemy. It blows out the pale parts of a marble, deepens the shadows in the veining, and lays a hard colour cast across the face. Overcast daylight is close to ideal. Inside a shed with a big opening is better still: soft light from one side, no direct beam.

• Bright, overcast (ideal)
• Even indoor light (good)
• Harsh sunlight (avoid)

• Shoot morning or late afternoon if you must be outdoors in summer.
• Never mix sunlight and fluorescent light in one frame — the two halves of the slab will not match.
• On a phone, tap the darkest part of the slab to set exposure, then brighten slightly.

The most common fault in a slab catalogue is a yellow cast from warehouse lighting. It makes every white marble look cream.

A customer who chose “cream” on screen and receives white will remember that conversation, and so will everyone they tell. If your phone has a white balance setting, set it to daylight rather than auto — auto chases whatever is dominant in the frame, which on a dark granite is the light itself.

Crop to the slab itself. A photograph with a forklift, a pallet or a strip of concrete floor in it gives a visualiser edges to confuse with the stone, and gives a customer something else to look at. The frame should be stone and nothing else.

Leave the whole face visible rather than cropping into one attractive corner. A close-up of the most dramatic vein sells a stone the customer will not recognise when the slab arrives.

Twenty slabs shot in twenty different lighting conditions look like twenty different qualities of stone. Pick one spot in the yard, one time of day and one phone, and shoot the whole catalogue there.

Consistency matters more than any individual photograph being perfect, because a customer compares them side by side and reads the differences as differences in the stone.

• The whole slab face, square on, filling the frame.
• Soft indirect daylight, no hard shadows, no colour cast.
• Colour on screen that matches the slab when you look up from the phone.
• Sharp enough that the veining has edges when you zoom in.
• Dust and water spots wiped off first.
• The same treatment as every other slab in your catalogue.

If your slab photographs only ever appear as thumbnails, a mediocre one costs you a little. If they are being installed into a photograph of somebody’s actual kitchen, a mediocre one costs you the sale — because the render inherits every fault in the source. A yellow cast becomes a yellow worktop. Soft focus becomes a worktop that looks painted on.