I wanted to share my knowledge on how to take good photos of jewelry and other small objects. I created a "Photo Box" which is easy to construct and use! I will be posting this in the craft section also... Items you need: 12x12x12 box 14 x 10 piece of plexyglass or glass a knife background paper (scrapbooking paper is great from craft store) velinium paper (scrapbooking section- looks like frosted paper) 60-100 watt light How to put it all together: 1) Take your 12x12x12 box and cut out one side. Keep the bottom of your box intact. 2) (open side you just cut out) Measure 9 inches from the bottom and make a slit all the way to the back of the box on both sides. Do not cut the back of the box. 3) Slide your glass into the slits of the box 4) Take the velinium paper and take it over the light source. The velinium paper is used to defuse the light. 5) Aim the light towards the opening of your box. 6) Lay your background on the bottom of your box as your background. Your camera should focus on the jewelry or small object. The background will be fuzzy due to the distance of the background from the object. Here is an example of a photo I did using this photo box Here is the photo of the photo box... Hope this helps anyone interested in taking good photos for auctions or their website. I still need to redo a bunch of items on my site. Matthew Nix www.createapendant.com
very nice! you can also do a similar box directly on your scanner (everything pointing down of course). the problem with scanning objects is the light source, so leave the box open on the ends & use an additional light source, like a gooseneck lamp, to brighten the interior of the box. I've scanned different objects to create business cards, came out pretty cool. i've never used any kind of backgrounds though, i usually create them on the computer, so i've always done that to create a 'photo object' type of pic. there's a tutorial on scanning objects available at the adobe site.
A friend of mine had to do a professional photo shoot of jewellery and stuff for a company. He used pieces of gravel that were jet black in colour not big gravel but size of a pea, etc, and all jagged. The Gold and Silver jewellery stood out brilliantly against that back ground and it sort of tied in with the product too.
I've tried sugar and rice as backgrounds in the past. It eliminates shadows when you lay your jewely piece in it. I've come to like my setup over the sugar and rice. Matthew
