When you're selling your items, people like to look at good, clear photos, and not blurry, out of focus pictures, so I've devised some beginners tips for taking a nice photo.

Make sure that the lighting is right and bright. Put the paperweight on a piece of thick white (or black) A3 size paper, balance the camera on a book, or some CD covers, until the height and angle are right and then click, but make sure you've got the flower icon on in the camera, so it does nice closeups. Putting the camera on the CD covers stops any slight hand movement and creates a clear picture. Don't use the camera flash when photographing your paperweights, the best results come from bright lighting.

I use photoshop to take off the yellow colour cast, then trim the picture, so the edge of the paperweight is close to the edge of the picture. After that I sharpen it 3 times, reduce it to 400 pixels and sharpen it again, then save the result.

This same technique can be used to photograph other smaller objects, and can be adapted to photograph larger ones, like vases, although when photographing vases, especially glass ones, make sure there's enough natural daylight, and use the flash on the camera, even if it's a sunny day, which will give the glass vase the right 3-D reflections.