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Jewelry Photography
I've been getting lots of Google hits from people searching for tips on jewelry photography, so it's time I pulled together a post about how I do it. You can click on any of the photos to see a larger version. Every artist you talk to will have a different method of taking pictures of their work. Other people use scanners, light boxes, and other methods. This is what works for me, so keep in mind that one way won't work for everyone. My way also happens to be very inexpensive. I use a digital camera to take my photos. Mine is a several-year-old Olympus Camedia. It's a mid-range point-and-shoot digital, but cheaper cameras will work too. I sometimes use a tripod as well - a cheap one from Wal-mart that stands about two feet high. My current setup doesn't have room for it, so it's tucked into a corner until I need it again. Tripods are handy for jewelry photography because they keep the vibration of your hands from making the shot blurry. As far as physical setup, I use two bendy-neck lamps (also cheap and from Wal-mart) and a piece of white fur or fabric. Other than that I use what I have on hand. The whole thing stays on the top of a filing cabinet.  I generally use white necklace and earring stands to support the jewelry, but they all currently happen to be over at the coffeehouse with my consignments. So on this particular shoot, I just laid the necklaces out flat. I still had a bracelet cone around (you can see it at left above) and I used a flat piece of glass (from a picture frame) to hang the earrings on (also above). I use my camera's "Auto" setting and flood the area with as much light as possible. Keeping the camera still and steady is extremely important: unlike artistic shooting, you want every detail to show up clearly. I tend to let pieces build up and do them all at once rather than do a shoot every day. So there's my setup. It's pretty simple, but it works well, and I can use anything I like as a prop. I've used everything from glass to pottery to sand to seashells to feathers to support the jewelry and help create an atmosphere. Now, on to retouching your digital jewelry photography. If you missed the first post on jewelry photography, it's here. As always, click on any picture for a bigger version. There's nothing unethical or dishonest about basic digital retouching. Covering up scratches or making something look nicer than it is isn't a good idea, but simple editing is the best way to give others the closest possible idea of how the item really looks. It also works well for anything you're trying to sell, whether on a website or on Ebay. This will give you a rough idea of how I create jewelry photos for the website and blog. If you need a basic digital photography lesson, this isn't it, but one can be found here. I'm assuming for the purposes of this walkthrough that you're familiar with the basic functions of your digital camera and image software (Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, etc.). I use Corel's (previously Jasc's) Paint Shop Pro X to edit photographs. Photoshop or any number of other programs will work as well, but I'm used to PSP and at $79 for the newest version it's reasonably priced. When you first open up the photo, it looks something like this:  Too dark, sideways and a bit blurry. Also, the earrings are dwarfed by the surrounding white space. After using PSP's Rotation function, I cropped the image down (PSP's Selection tool, then Shift+R) to a useable portion.  I like crisp photos, so I used the Sharpen function to tighten it up. It's still too dark, though, and almost everyone I know who takes jewelry photographs has this problem. Part of the solution, of course, is to light your jewelry as well as possible: the other is to digitally lighten it to give a true representation of the colors. I used to use PSP's brightness and contrast features, but I could never quite get the photos as bright as I wanted, so they looked muddy and unappealing. The main reason I'm crazy about PSP X is that they replicated Photoshop's Curves function, which lets you drag a simple red line around to control the brightness of the picture. Be careful not to lighten it so far you wash out the photo. Here's the same photo after using Curves. Looks much better!  Back to Articles and Tips |
