AdornmentCraft

Last week, Barbe over at CraftGossip posted about photographing jewelry “on the cheap.” Since photography is such an important topic for everyone who publishes images of their work on the net, I decided to add a post here about how I’m tackling it these days.

I’ll admit that photography has been one of the most frustrating, and time-consuming, aspects of my online jewelry business. I think part of the reason for that is that I’m too much of a perfectionist; ideally I want everything to look as sharp and clear (and glamorous) as the large-format photos in higher-end print catalogs do.

But the reality, I think, is that online photos never look as crisp and clear as professional print photos - which is probably one of the reasons it’s difficult to sell jewelry online.

If you browse around at other websites that offer jewelry - and I mean the “big” companies - you’ll notice that photography usually fails to do their jewelry justice. Photos often are “burned out,” too low-resolution, or too small to show enough detail.

(To see what I’m talking about, take a print copy of the Sundance catalog and compare its print photos of jewelry with the ones on the Sundance website.)

Now, notwithstanding all of that, it is possible - and worth the effort - to take nice looking pictures of your jewelry. The main challenges that you’ll face involve lighting, color accuracy (actually related to lighting), and resolution.

Professional photographers often use big, filtered, expensive lights, which make it much easier for them to capture nice photos. Some time ago, I experimented with using heavy-duty portable work lights (the ones you’d use to work under your car) with a whitish plastic storage tub as a filter.

I was able to get some nice photos that way, but the results were far too variable - some pictures were great, but many others were useless. Additionally, those shop lights became very hot and were potentially dangerous if left on too long.

After doing more experimenting, I finally decided that in the interest of saving time, I needed to invest in a pre-made system.

I chose the Cloud Dome, which gave me much more consistent results. However, I still had to do a lot of experimenting to discover how best to use it. I talk about the pros and cons of this system in my review of the Cloud Dome over on BellaOnline.com, so take a look there if you’re trying to decide whether to buy one.

Unfortunately, most pre-made systems don’t come with a digital camera. For years I used my original digital camera, a massive Nikon Coolpix with a resolution of about 2 megapixels. I thought that was fine, until I invested in a newer model Coolpix (which was actually less expensive than the first), and realized the difference.

What I’m using now is the Coolpix P4, with 8.1 megapixel resolution. It takes sharper pictures, has an awesome automatic white balace (no more manually setting white balance with a white card), and its macro functionality is just powerful enough to get decent jewelry close-ups.

For me, the new camera was worth the expense. If you’re unsure whether you want to make the same leap, see if you can borrow a friend’s newer, higher-resolution camera for a day or two and test it out on your own designs. Do an “A-B” test by photographing the same jewelry with your old camera and the newer one, and compare the results.

Finally, I use Paint Shop Pro to edit my digital images, but since I purchased the Cloud Dome and new camera, I find that they really don’t need much touching up. I mainly use this program to resize photos and add borders and copyright notices. (Note that I also don’t use white backgrounds for my jewelry, so I avoid having to “brighten up” or erase the background in my photos - which has been a big time saver.)

Keep in mind that you can find lots of excellent tips and tricks for photographing jewelry online. Here are just a few:

• Tips for Photographing Jewelry - Home Jewelry Business Success Tips
• How to Photograph Jewelry - Table Top Studio
• Photographing Jewelry - About.com
• How to Photograph Jewelry - MAKE Magazine
• Simple Steps to Improve your Bead Photography

And here are some links to browse for deals on helpful photog-gear on eBay:

• Photography light tents
• Could Domes
• Nikon Coolpixes
• Ott Lites
• Photography studio lights
  

Interweave Press recently announced the launch of its new “online community” site, Beading Daily, so I paid it a visit.

It’s a really nice-looking site, full of a lot of free projects and ideas. In order to access the project instructions, you need to register on the site with your email address. This makes you a Beading Daily charter member.

Unless you opt out of emails, you will also receive a daily email newsletter that contains blog posts on three days of the week. On the other two days, you’ll receive “cool information about Interweave books, magazines, and events that may be of interest to you” (according to the Beading Daily FAQ page).

For now, all the projects are free of charge, but in the future some will be available for purchase. The project library is a combination of tutorials previously published in Interweave magazines and brand-new projects.

I know that a lot of beaders are always looking for new projects to try (especially free ones!), so I suspect that Beading Daily will become a popular site.

If you knit, you may also be interested in Interweave’s similar site, Knitting Daily, which launched earlier this summer.

I just returned from my trip to Las Vegas, and I thought I’d jot down my impressions of the current jewelry trends on The Strip. I found them to be typical of the trends we’ve seen over the past few years in other parts of the country, with just a touch of extra Las Vegas bling.

First, not surprisingly, glitter and sparkles are everywhere. I saw crystal rhinestone jewelry on display in lots of shops, as well as rhinestone-encrusted other-things, like little boxes and handbags. I didn’t, however, notice too many women actually wearing rhinestone jewelry. (One notable exception was a pop singer performing onstage.)

Big, chunky, faceted, translucent faux-gemstones linked into chains were displayed in most of the boutiques. To me, as a jewelry artisan, most of them (even the expensive ones) looked to be lower quality than necessary.

The most common metals were gold and bronze-tone, although I also noticed some interesting copper-tone pieces and a decent amount of silver-tone.

Layered necklaces and multi-strand beaded bracelets were everywhere, as were multiple, eclectic charms and drops.

Earrings were mostly large and bold, and very-large hoops were especially prominent. I noticed them both in the boutiques and being worn by many of the women wandering The Strip.

Most finger rings featured over-sized, faceted jewels - another trend we’ve seen a lot of in past years.

As for other accessories, I’d say that flip-flops (some with rhinestones, of course!) and over-sized, high-end sunglasses were the biggest must-haves.

By the way, The Strip itself has undergone significant changes in recent years, with big, new, clean casinos and lots of fun boutiques and shops. If you haven’t been there for a while, consider paying a visit. I’m not a big gambler, but I really had fun (and the food was fantastic).

Not too long ago I posted about getting back into crochet, and I even mentioned that I was working on a crochet jewelry project for BellaOnline. Then, I got busy listing liquidations on eBay . . . and working on my tumbler (so I wrote about that instead) . . . and getting ready for my trip to visit family in Las Vegas (tomorrow) . . .

In the meantime, Futuregirl Alice beat me to the punch with this extremely well-done crochet bracelet tutorial!

Notice that you can alter this design by making it wider or more narrow, and you can easily size it to be an anklet or even a choker.

Very cool (and certainly not something found at Walmart).

Thanks, Alice!