The two most important tricks in "glamour" photograpy – the kind of photography we panty-girls are doing to show off our wares – are exposure and lighting.  They’re actually different aspects of the same thing.  Basically, the goal is to fill your pictures with as much light, from as many different directions, as you can.  Flooding the scene with light makes small irregularities in skin tone & texture disappear; and it imparts that lovely warm radiance that looks so inviting.

Exposure means how long the camera’s shutter stays open while taking the picture.  In film photography a slower shutter speed means the film is exposed to the light for longer, and thus the picture is brighter.  I couldn’t tell you how it works technically in digital pictures, but the result is the same – a slower shutter speed will fill your pictures with more light.  Your digital camera may not allow you to set the shutter speed, but it almost certainly has a shade, indoor, or cloudy setting.  These settings will give you that slower shutter speed. 

(I’m not going to talk about focus, because all the digital cameras are self-focusing, but keep in mind that a slower shutter speed will exaggerate any motion.  In other words, you need to hold extra still for the shots and if you’ve got another person taking the pics they probably ought to use a tripod.)

You also want to get as much light on yourself as possible.  Always take your pictures in the daytime.  Open the curtains if you possibly can.  Turn on all the lights in the room you’re in, and ALSO in any adjoining rooms.  You may not notice the difference, but the camera will and the side-light you get from the next room may make the difference between a decent picture and one that really sparkles.  If you haven’t got much light where you take your pics look into getting a couple of those cheap clip-on worklights, the kind guys use to see their car engines.  The camera doesn’t care if you have expensive photographic equipment; it likes an incandescent bulb just as well.

And yes, even if you’ve got every light in the house on you STILL want to use the shade setting on the camera.  Using that setting in good light will trick the camera into making all the colors just a smidge warmer, and YOU will glow like a star.

Posing

Next to good lighting, good posing is the most key element in good panty pictures.  The only technical tip I can give here is that not every girl looks good in the same pose.  A skinny siren may not show well in the bent-over-from-behind pose that suits a plump princess.  A phat chica might not look so hot in profile.  Every girl has her assets, and the only way to find out how best to show them off is to experiment with lots of different poses. 

Fortunately, that’s the fun part!  Nearly every girl has entertained the fantasy of being a supermodel, and a lot of us have also imagined being strippers or porn stars.  Well, NOW is your chance to act out those fantasies!  *biiiggrin*  You can dance and prance around like a total diva, and if you start feeling a bit silly just think of this:

Most likely it’s just you and the camera there (or possibly you, the camera and a trusted friend/lover), and you can imagine that camera to be whoever you want.  It can be Tom Cruise, a crowd of money-waving strip club patrons, or the President of the USA.  If that’s what floats your boat ;-D  And more, whoever you imagine watching you through the camera lens can also have exactly the reaction you would want them to have – so if your fantasy is to be leading Mr. Cruise around on a leash, may I suggest a leash as a prop and perhaps something black and shiny in the way of shoes?  It’s like the coolest game of dress-up ever invented, and your exhibitionistic streak (don’t we all have one of those?) will love it.

Background

Good lighting will improve your pictures more than anything else, but there are other things you can do as well.  If you’re taking pictures to send with your panties, or to sell separately, it’d be well worth your while to designate a particular spot in your home as your "studio."  And even if you don’t you should give some thought to your background. 

The best backgrounds, the ones that will show YOU to your best advantage, are usually solid colors; without a clutter of stuff to draw the viewer’s eye away from your lovely self.  A light background has the advantage of reflecting more light back at you, while a dark one can nicely set off pale skin or pastel lingerie.  Whichever you go with though, be sure to pick a color that flatters you!  Almost nobody is going to look good against a chartreuse or magenta background.

For example, I take nearly all of my pics in my bedroom, which was designed with these principles in mind.  I have dark teal walls to pose in front of; and a shiny, reflective gold satin bedspread.  I also have a stash of lengths of fabric which I can throw over the bed or fasten to the wall when I want a change of look.  If you’re not able to paint the walls or even establish a designated picture-taking nook then this is a good alternative – a sheet or a piece of fabric can be taped to the wall behind you for an hour or two, and it can even be thrown over that pile of laundry you don’t want showing in the picture.

Costume & Props

Obviously you’re taking pictures of your panties, but what ELSE are you going to wear?  Putting together a little costume gives you a chance to be playful, and to show a  bit more of your personality – which is what the buyers are looking for really.  Don’t keep it to just lingerie either…maybe try a cute hat, boots, and scarf with your undies, or wear your favorite crocheted duster as a negligee. 

Bring in some props as well.  Your sex toys are obvious choices, but you can
also haul out a chair to pose on, a balloon to play with, a magazine, a mixing bowl, a power tool; whatever works for the mood you’re going for.

And don’t neglect the hair and makeup, even if you don’t mean to show your face.  It’ll give you more confidence and you may just get a beautiful shot where a tantalizing glimpse of your glossy lips are visible.  Guys love that kind of stuff.

Resolution & Editing

The biggest part of editing is just choosing which shots are worth using.  If you have lots of shots to choose from the odds are greater that a few will be beauts, so take LOTS of pictures.  I may take 150 shots in a couple of hours and only wind up using a few dozen of them.

Pictures meant for the web can have quite low resolution, you don’t even need a camera with 1 megapixel to do web-only shots, but if you’re making prints you’ll want to go with at least 1mp (that’s high enough quality for a decent 4×6 print).  There’s another good reason for taking pics with a higher resolution as well – cropping.  Especially if you’re taking the pics yourself with an auto-timer, it can be tough to get a good close-up shot of those pretty panties.  If your pic was taken at a 2 or 3 mp resolution you’ll be able to crop much of it away and still be left with a nice size & quality close-up.  What has worked for me is to take a mix of mostly low-res shots (to fit more on the memory card) and a few hi-res ones (for prints and cropped close-ups) in each session.

And how to do that cropping?  You need to get yourself a decent photo-editing program and get familiar with using it.  I use the Gimp, which is probably as sophisticated as Adobe Photoshop (a commonly used commercial program) but has a much better price tag – it’s free.  There are other free or cheap programs as well.  Whichever program you choose should be able to do cropping, rotating, and resizing and have brightness and color level controls as well; so if you forget to turn on enough lights you can fudge it a bit in the editing stage.  A lot of the programs have extra bells-and-whistles like "aging" or sepia-toning pictures, converting photos to sketches, animation wizards, and stuff like that.  These features are really great when you’re doing stuff like making advertising banners and graphics for your site.

And one final note – the airbrush tool is your friend.  You can’t change your shape with it, or give yourself a new nose or anything, but it’s invaluable for wiping out minor stuff.  The guys probably don’t care about the odd blemish but YOU will feel a lot sexier if you’re not thinking "OMG, will you look at that big honkin’ bruise on my thigh!" every time you look at an otherwise-fabulous picture.