Photographing Jewelry - The Saga part 1

The main thing I learned in the past week is that taking quality pictures is a must if you want to sell jewelry online. There is so much to deal with, backgrounds, lighting, detail, and the biggie- no blur. Here begins my journey down the road of photography.

Day1: I took out my trusty digital camera, laid my jewelry on the table and proceeded to take my photos. Not knowing much about photographing jewelry I just took the pictures as is. The result was that there was glare in some parts because of the flash, dark in other parts, the color was off and blur, blur, blur. I didn't know that you should not use a flash when taking pictures of jewelry because it causes glare spots in the photo. The dark spots and off color came from lack of enough light. The blur, which I think is the hardest part, came from not zooming in and my hands shaking. So I asked questions of other sellers, did some web surfing and decided to try again the next day.

Day2: I had read about using a lightbox but being stubborn and inpatient I decided to try again without a lightbox. This time I remembered to turn the flash off and used the macro setting to zoom in. I used more light and thought for sure this would be it. Wrong! There was more light in the photos but they still came out dark, still blurry, and you couldn't see the detail much. So back to more research and of course I also made my lightbox.

Day 3: OK so now I have my lightbox, my lights, my camera with macro setting, no flash, and a different background for photos. The lighting was much better and I could see more detail but the blur was still there. Now I learned the importance of using a tripod. It eliminates the shaking you get from your hands moving when you take a picture which makes the picture blurry.

Day4: Since this was my first time using a tripod, and since I borrowed it with no instructions, it took me a while to figure out how to attach the camera. I still need to work more with the macro setting and adjust sharpness and contrast in my photo editor. The pictures in this post are examples from day 4. Still have a way to go so tune in for part 2.

New Year, New Beginnings

Well, I took the plunge and finally opened a store on etsy. It has been a week and I haven't sold anything yet but that's OK because I'm learning a lot of new things like the importance of tags and clear pictures. The chats and the virtual labs on etsy are a wealth of information. Most people there are pretty friendly and very helpful especially to new sellers. The biggest challenge I have right now is photographing my jewelry. I never knew how difficult it was to do because you want to make sure you show detail without having blurry pictures. All in all it has been a worth while experience.

I also finished my new website. I found a great place online to make a flash website and I love it. It's called Wix and you can also make myspace layouts. Making a photo gallery is so much easier to do with it. If you haven't already, check out my website.