Photographic Inspirations
Part 2 of 3
Jewelry artisans use either natural light or a light tent to take pictures of their work. Stephanie of Crystal Allure Designs and the author of Behind the Designs blog uses a light tent - you can see her set up below. She recently emailed me after searching unsuccessfully on my blog.  She was looking for a way to lighten her pictures of pearls. Light colored pearls are tricky especially on a white background because there isn't enough contrast to make them stand out. 



There was a solution on the internet. The Tabletopstudio.com have all kinds of great tips including how to photography jewelry. Their advice for pearls involves using a light tent and have only one light source above and from one side (see below). This gives the pearls better definition.  As it turns out, Stephanie not only knew about the tip but she had purchased their equipment!


She did what they recommended but still wasn't satisfied with the results - her pearl pictures were too dark for her liking. She thought it could be because she still hadn't figured out her newish camera's settings.

She is constantly trying to upgrade her photography skills and judging from the pictures on her website, she is doing great! She credits her better picture taking results largely to her new camera. So it is worth getting a good one with an excellent macro lens for closeups.

This picture was taken with her old camera :



This picture with her new camera (Canon Rebel XL) before Photoshop:



The picture below is the final rendered effort.  Stephanie has high standards and she reckons it's still not as good as the professional one at the top. Stephanie even tried using two lights on one side instead of 1 but there wasn't a significant difference.  Does anyone have any suggestions?



BTW Thanks Stephanie for sending me your photos and for being the inspiration behind this post!

For more tutorials check out my Jewelry Making Tips

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