OK. I have struggled with this for a long time. When I decided to open up my jewelry store, I took horrible pictures! I could not figure out how to take proffesional pictures. I scoured google and read alot of articles. I found products that were over $300+ that guaranteed proffesional pictures! but I did not want to pay that much! And I found services out there that took the pictures for you, all you had to do was mail it to them. BUT, I wanted to learn myself. This is what I found out from hours of research. I know there are other ways of taking proffesional pictures..this is the route I took. Hopefully it will save you some time and money.
1. Get a cheap lightbox or make one yourself! I bought my lightbox from ebay. It cost me $45 total. right now it's on sale for $38. It comes with a 16x16x16 lightbox, 2 lamps, 1 camera stand, portable carrier, and 4 background colors. The lights that are provided heat up very quickly, so you shouldn't leave it on for more than an hour. I placed this in a regular room with regular lights on the floor and that was a bad idea. I did not get enough light and my pictures came out very dark even with the lights that they provided. You need to place this in a well lit room. I put mine in the kitchen. If you want better lighting, I suggest you buy better lights and a 3rd light.
2. So, After setting it up as shown in the picture above. I noticed that even though I had placed this in a well lit room, the pictures were still turning out a little darker than I wanted. SO, if you have a digital camera, you should play around with the settings. I have a Fujifilm Finepix F31fd. I went into the A/S and set my apertures to 4, F4, +1. This is a trial and error procedure. I played around with all the settings until I got what I wanted. REMEMBER to use your MACRO mode! It's perfect for close up pictures! Your jewelry piece won't come out all blurry when shooting it from a close range! it's brilliant!
3. Know how to show off our Jewelry. I still struggle with this today, having a simple white background has worked for me. I have been told to place some of my pieces on darker backgrounds so there is a contrast. I'm still working on it.
So, this is a BEFORE picture (horrible pictures eh?, I'm ashamed to show them, i obvously don't know how to show off my Jewelry properly, I'm still learning)
AFTER HOURS OF PRACTICE AND RESEARCH THIS IS WHAT I HAVE ACCOMPLISHED with this lightbox and camera settings!
I am always learning and wanting to showcase my jewelry differently. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! What do you do to show off your product? Do you place them on rocks, nature elements, water, plates? what are your backgrounds like? I am curious as to what other people do.
Thanks for reading!
