Example: Spiral Pendant
This piece was photographed on a grey background! and it looks orangey.

If you look at the whitesmithing section, I have a Penannular Broach posted and it is silver. I'm not a fancy photogrpher. I took it with a digital camera under flouresent light on a white peice of computer paper. I do occasionly get pictures with that yellow look and I'm not sure why.

marilyn

Laura,

Get yourself some fairly powerful, daylight spectrum halogen bulbs, something on the order of 50 watts or greater. I would go for 200 watts if possible. You simply cannot have too much light. Next, get yourself some 90% white reflection card stock from the photo supply, a couple of 22"x28" sheets. These will reflect fill light from the sides and/or back to remove harsh shadows.

Usea reasonably neutral background like medium gray, blue or maroon, and avoid black or white as backgrounds. Too much contrast ruins the midtones and makes the image look too harsh. Expewrimetn with placement of lights, trying from every angle until you see what you like - don't forget the reflection cards to soften shadows.

I recommend getting and learning to use Adobe Photoshop. Yes, it has a steep learning curve, but it is the best there is and you can work absolute wonders with it once you learn just a bit of it. Those who are truly proficient with Photoshop can do anything.

Lastly, for highly reflective work such as polished silver or gold, it is sometimes necessary to polarize your floodlights and use a polarizing filter on the camera lens to reduce glare and reflections. For ordinary materials, many industrial photographers use a matte spray to kill reflections, but on polished metal nothing works like a polarizer. With it, you can reduce the reflectins by any amount you want, achieving just the look you desire.

hi, given all the light options i like real light best, ala the sun. try it outdoors on the ground or even on your window sill. remember with digi you don't need to get close close to the object when you can crop the piture. try the telephoto lens setting, 5ft away, with a tripod, and no flash. this will give you the most realistic (not off color) look. I would also try to get a soft grey (or gray) construction paper, towel or matt-board for a background.

david

Here's a couple of comments on the picture you are referencing:

1. never photograph the object on the same plane as the background.  This will give you a diffused background instead of the focused one you have on your photo.
2. setup your photo shoot outdoors on a south facing wall so that you only get northern light which is light with no shadow because it is indirect light. This means the sky will be like a very large soft light reflector.
3. forget trying to use hot lights or flash. It's very hard to remove any kind of shadows which will be cast from the artificial light source.
4. make sure your computer monitor is properly calibrated

I use to be a professional photographer before I got into metalworking. What I have learned is to "keep it simple" works best if you do not have all the pro equipment. This is why I use northern light exposures as I've indicated above. Hope this helps you with your photography.

I shoot my own jewelry. Only do it occasionally though, so lessons learned often don't sink in very well. As has been mentioned, shooting outdoors with diffuse light is a about the easiest way to get a well lit piece, but here in Michigan, going outside to shoot a piece in freezing weather isn't going to happen. When I started with a film camera I would use two or three 250w tungsten daylight bulbs. The light was good, but they were hot as hell. I'd often scorch whatever I was using to diffuse them with. They were too hot to leave on while repositioning pieces. Then, when digital came around I bought a few strobes. They worked OK, but since they were small, without modeling lights, you had to set up, take a shot, adjust, take another, adjust... etc.--zeroing in on a good setup. That was also a pain. Recently I picked up a couple 5000k compact fluorescents. One is 55w and the other is 105w. The light is fairly white, but doesn't seem quite as nice as the tungsten (although I was using film then and I do recall a lot of processing came back weirdly colored) or the strobes, but they are cool and the bulbs can be left on for extended periods. The light is softer, but you'd still want to diffuse it. Something to keep in mind is the distance of your lights to the object. If you move your lights in half the distance, you increase the light on the object 4 times. If you're shooting very small objects, and your bulbs aren't too hot, you can try moving them in very close to your work. As far as backgrounds go--I like white, but I've been thinking about getting a graduated one. I've also seen shots on semi-reflective acrylic that look very nice.

One thing I neglected to mention in my earlier response, and which is important, is that of diffuse lighting. When I was doing protfolio shots of my jewelry years ago, I found a nifty little nylon camping tent of the "dome" style made from white ripstop nylon. It made the perfect photo enclosure for anything that would fit inside it comfortably. The lights were placed outside it, of course, and yielded a beautiful, diffuse white light that was very controllable. Sadly, I no longer have that little tent and no one seems to make them in white anymore - except, naturally, for photography purposes and then they're pretty darn expensive.

I will agree with Enrique that outdoor indirect lighting is provably the best way to go for simplicity, though for reflective pieces I still prefer contolled, polarized lighting. That is an expensive way to go, however, so take enrique's suggestions and work with them to get proficient at it. The greatest thing about digital photography is that you can practice endlessly for free.

hello, i'm an photographer at heart - here's a great shot of jewelry by a real photograper -

http://www.dpchallenge.com/image.php?IMAGE_ID=718132

the photographer has listed how this was created and what camera & lens, etc.

the photo won 3rd place in a jewelry/ad challenge.

i don't shoot small art pieces myself. . .but if i did i'd go straight to the best and ask them. . . .

hope this helps

david

"If everyone is thinking alike then somebody isn't thinking." - George S. Patton