ArtMetal

Laura;

Hello.

I'll try to chime in with a couple of hints.

First. Are you using a mac or PC. Photos judged on a Mac show up darker on a PC (that most people use) than what you see on the Mac. They can be very much darker, like is showing up on mine. There is a setting to display a PC view. But I've noticed that I still have to lighten photos up some to display properly on a PC computer. Not you whole problem but may be a contributing factor.

OK, that out of the way. I'll give a quick primer on lighting. Oh, yeah, I'm more of a hobbiest metal worker who tries to get down into the basement to bash some metal when I can. Which is not enough. My day job is working in video production - more often than not, lighting.

I agree with a contributer that one of your problems is color balance. If you place a white card or paper where you have your piece and white balance off of that, your problems associated with color balance should go away. There should be a color balance option in the camera. Try to do this under a manual setting if possible.

Good idea to use manual setting for everything if you can. Hopefully, you are smarter than the camera. Just remember, a camera want to make everything gray.

A gray background is OK. If you can find a graduated BG - Dark gray bottom graduating to light gray top so much the better. I disagree with never use black or white - use what works. They are harder to work with, but can produce some exceptional images. Using white BGs and lots of light is called high key lighting and can be great for a high tech or futuristic, industrialized feel. Black can give a hanging in space or a very somber or heavy feel. Black will also hide strong shadows and eliminate some ghost shadowing on the piece as it does not reflect any light.

In any respect, the BG should be neutral or very lightly colored unless you are going for a specific effect.

I would avoid like the plague any light that is not color balanced for sunlight (5600 degrees Kelvin) or tungsten (3200 degrees). Temps may vary be a couple hundred degrees and still be OK. Looks like you are using tungsten lights, which is the normal photographic "hot" lights, and gives a orangish cast.

Cameras see different than we do. All white light is not white. But if our brain expects white light, it will make it so. Cameras do not do that - you have to color balance for the lights actual properties.

Polarizers and dulling spray are useful tools, but you have to use them and study the results - they are not magic bullets. If you use dulling spray build it up using several light coats rather than a heavy one. Overuse can suck the life out of a piece.

A polarizier on the camera is a good idea. You can dial your reflections up and down by rotating it. I would stay away from polarizing the lights themselves. Using both could knock out all you light.

I don't know of any gels that would work on the lights. Mr. Waugh, if you know of such a source I'd be interested in it. Using polarized lights is used mostly in scientific imagining.

Which reminds me, jewelry photography is one of the hardest, if not the hardest aspects of photography.

Someone mentioned white cards to bounce light back onto the subject. That is a good and useful comment. But, also use black cards. Sometimes the best thing to do is subtract light rather than add more. Also small cards can be helpful to affect just a portion of hte image.

I normally use 3 or 4 lighting sources on the subject. But 2 can get you by for simplicity - key and fill. A source can be a bounce card rather than another light so one light can work. The more lights you use the more things that can go wrong and the more you have to correct (and not in Photoshop either).

As far as the lights themselves, if you are doing a lot of photos, invest is some fresnels. They produce a hard light, a focused beam, rather than soft light. These lights offer the highest degree of control as the beam can be made broader and softer. I like to use diffusion material on the front of my lights (I may not on all to give a sharp hightlight someplace). This softens the light more than spreading the beam out creating a very soft light. The "soft" light fills in the shadows and makes them not so dark and heavy - which is usually a good thing. Heavy deep shadows add unnecessary weight to the piece and can be distracting. Shadow can be used to hide something though. Diffusion as well as colored gels can be purchased at photographic, theater, and video stores. But, remember, most lights get hot. Hot enough to melt or start things on fire.

Working backwards. Background light. This lights the background only. None of it should fall or spill onto your object. If you are using a white BG, a colored gel can add interest to your BG.

Backlight. This gives a rim of light around your subject. And helps to separate it from the background. It is placed behind the subject, outside the frame and usually above.

Key light. The only one you really need. Usually a fairly hard light, but in jewelry photography I make it diffused to eliminate the hot spots or at least reduce them. It should be placed close to the camera for starters. This is your primary light.

It can also be used as the only source by placing a large source above the object. Heavily defused and at least twice as big as the subject. It works sometimes, kinda like the mentioned clouddome.

Fill light. This is placed on the opposite side of the camera from the key light and its job is to fill in shadows cast from the key. Especially if you are using a hard key. This is usually started at a 45 degree angle from the camera. It is a diffused light.

The real killer to most jewelry is the bright spectral highlights. Do not get these into the overexposed range. Photoshop can not correct for that. All information is burned away and no manipulation can bring it back. If the shadows are dark, PS can open them up. So it's better to underexpose rather than overexpose. Bracketing your photos by a half and full stop of the normal exposure can be a big help also. They can be layered and manipulated in PS.

Metals reflect light and some specteral highlight is expected and will give the metal life. Broad highlights, in my opinion, should be minimized.

A couple of other hints. If possible get the object off of the background by getting some space between it and the paper. Hard to do for small objects like rings and so on, but doable. Just make sure the spacer is not visible.

Another thing that can really help out is changing the angles and position of stuff. Move the camera over or at an angle to the subject. Move the plane that the camera is to the subject. More the camera or subject left or right or up or down. Tilting the subject a little can walk a highlight right off the edge. Raising or lowering the light, moving it in or out from the subject, or left or right can make a big difference too.

Really it's just a balancing act. Patience and getting more experience will make it easier as you go along. Especially the patience.

Work on one problem at a time. Get it to your satisfaction, then go on to the next. Then the next. Sometimes a fix will create another problem too.

If anyone has any questions or anything, I'll be glad to respond to a query.

Peace.

Eric