My Experiences of Photographing Silver Jewellery
The process of photographing silver jewellery is difficult, but it can be accomplished with a limited budget. Let me begin by clarifying that when I refer to "on a budget" I am referring to PS700 You can spend much less, but from my experience, it can decrease in the overall quality of your photos. In the overall scheme of things, PS700 is still less expensive than outsourcing the work , and when you sell items it's an investment to make. Let me first explain how I've tried to provide you with an understanding of the experience I've experienced!
I began using an 8MP digital compact camera. Nothing fancy, just an PS80 family camera. I set it up on an PS5 tripod and bought a light box tent on eBay. The light box tent was PS30 and included some lamps. The images I got were decent but nothing extraordinary, they looked amateur. I could stop at this point and then used Photoshop to modify the photos but the website which I had been working on required qualityand I wanted to achieve a better outcome. After a long period of study and lots testing and error,, I achieved some impressive results. Let me show you the process!
Cameras are an important factor to consider and I chose to purchase the PS500 Nikon D3100 DSLR. It was a lavish purchase for a novice, however the results were beyond my expectations. I won't discuss the vast array of cameras available, but it was either the option of either a Cannon or one from Nikon and I decided to go with the Nikon due to the price being just right, and there was no other reason. There's really nothing to distinguish between the beginning DSLR cameras of this class.
Photography of silver jewellery close-up is known as macro photography (the photographing of objects in close proximity) The D3100 features an option to guide me that lets me select macro mode, and not have to deal with all the jargon about shutter speeds as well as aperture settings, among other technical issues. I spent a lot of time learning about various camera settings . I then tried out different options. I personally discovered that using the macro mode without flash was the perfect choice. The only thing I changed was the size of the images I chose to use the best quality, which resulted in the largest size of the file but will yield benefits in the event of editing your images in the future.
The next issue was that I wanted pure white backgrounds. I realized quickly that the best method to achieve this was to use the use of a light tent. I found one for a price of PS150 and two studio lighting and an acrylic riser to put the jewels on. The lights were fluorescent 500k daylight bulbs. Lighting is important in this case and these bulbs worked. The acrylic is an excellent addition as it provides a reflections when you require it.
The tents typically come with backgrounds that are solid colours. I needed put the background in ironing by laying a towel on top of it, and then ironing on at a low temperature, and I also ensured that there was no dust on it because even the tiniest marks are likely to show. I set up the tent on the bottom of a box, so that it could stand up to allow me to position my tripod properly in front and set the lights on either in the opposite direction from the tent. The most important thing to consider when lighting is to make sure that your tent isn't flooded with light placing the lights over the tent. Play around with the distance but you're looking for an equally distributed white light with no reflection, and silver is extremely reflective! There were some photos in which the silver looked almost gold due to the light sources that were too close.
The tents I bought had a cord inside for hanging items, however it was a thin white cord which was difficult to eliminate from Photoshop therefore I made my own with cotton, however the volume of movement was too much to take a decent picture In the end, I decided to use some guitar strings (the "e" string is for those who play guitar) and found it to be perfect. The motion was very minimal and offered a stable and secure way to put earrings on. I used the riser in acrylic to capture the necklaces placing it on its side and then using sticky tape to hold the chains. The necklaces were photographed in a flat position on the riser, which created stunning reflections that added depth to the photos.
While creating a piece of jewellery , I tried experimenting with angles, distance and height so that I had the right images that I could later work on at my computer. It was also necessary to alter the direction of the lights frequently, some of my pendants had Swarovski crystals, and I discovered that it was possible to move the lights to be angled so that some light was getting absorbed into the area in front of the tent, I was able to make sparkling crystals. Bluetack also played a role throughout the day. I used small pieces of bluetack to hold the pendants in the position I wanted. there are some who suggest wax beads are equally effective here however I chose to use the items I had in my possession.
The only other issue I encountered was reflection. The tent I bought featured a flap on the front that you could lower to make sure that the camera was only peeking inside, however you'll be surprised by how much silver can absorb! To cut down on reflections on silver objects made of pure silver, make use of the tent's front flap. Make sure that the light distribution is even You may have to tweak certain images to make them a bit more rounded in Photoshop!
After a long day of shooting photos, I brought hundreds of photos onto my computer to look over. The first thing that stood out to me was the fact that the background was not pure white. It was gray. It's a result of a number of things, but lighting is the one of the main reasons. The best way to create a white background is to launch Photoshop and select the image, adjustments > levels and slide the slider to the right side to the left. The image will dim while the background become whiter and, if you can get the right balance you can edit the image using an eraser tool and cut the grey that remains, leaving white background. There's no shortcuts in this process, it requires a lot of adjustments to get it perfect, but make sure you employ the eraser tool with soft edges instead of the ones with solid edges, it's much easier to work with to eliminate the grey.
Another method I came across was to make sure I was using Photoshop to sharpen the chains of my necklaces. I accomplished this by cutting off the chains and placing them in an additional layer after which I used the sharpen option. This was to ensure that I did not make the pendants alter. The final step was to make use of burning tools to give some of the colour which I had lost due to the adjustments to the level, but go slowly or it'll cause the silver to appear dull. Just a gentle brushing using the burn tool should accomplish the task.
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The final results aren't quite as professional as the professional photographer could achieve however they were perfect for the 640x640 maximum image size I needed to use for the website I had. I am sure that you will get a lot of information on compact cameras or scanners that are suitable for images of second hand jewellery that you sell on eBay. However, when you want to sell jewellery made of silver, you must increase the speed as I discovered after several weeks of testing and playing!
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