[Jewelry making - Article 00955] - Re: [Orchid] Photographing Jewelry 101

[Leslie Brown]

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    Having responded to one post tonight regarding processing of digital
    images I read back over the weeks worth of posts and I think people
    are jumping in too deeply too quickly. 

    In both Elements and PhotoShop all most people will need up front
    are the basic photo adjustments found under the Image menu (CS2) or
    the Enhance menu (Elements 4.0) or something similar. You do not have
    to use layers. 

    If you're getting anywhere near a decent exposure there should be
    very little digital magic that has to be done. After basic cropping,
    the Levels tool will help the most, maybe the Brightness/contrast
    tool, and, used very gently, the Saturation tool. 

    The best sharpening tool remains, despite comments to the contrary,
    the Unsharp Mask. Set threshold on 1.0, Radius somewhere between.5
    and 1.0, and then adjust the Amount slider until you have an
    acceptable sharpness without unsightly artifacts appearing. You can
    only evaluate sharpness at 100% image size. This means you're looking
    at the actual pixels of your image one for one on the pixels of your
    computer screen. Anything less and you can't tell what you're getting
    because the image has been compressed (read pixels dropped) to fit
    the reduced screen size. If you sharpen until you get halo's you've
    gone way too far. Once you've added the sharpening use the preview
    button to toggle back and forth between your before and after. Adjust
    if necessary. 

    Digital cameras, at heart, are not all that sharp due to the
    infrared filtration that occurs before the image strikes the sensor.
    If you're getting "sharp" jpegs out of your camera it only means that
    your camera is doing the sharpening before you see the image in a
    less sophisticated way than your software can do. Looking at the
    actual image info in RAW format will let you see how far from sharp
    even the best digital images are at 100% viewing. If you're happy
    with what the camera does don't mess with it. If not, turn the
    in-camera sharpening down as far as you can, or shoot RAW, and do the
    sharpening on your computer where, between your head and the
    computer, the best sharpening is to be had. 

    An out of focus picture is just that, you can fake it a little bit
    digitally, but you can't recover what ain't there. 

    In the meantime get out to Borders or Barnes & Noble and look in the
    technical section for the shelf full of books on the various editions
    of PhotoShop and Elements. Look through until you find one that seems
    to present the info in a way you can work with and go from there. 

Les Brown
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