I have enjoyed making gemstone beaded bracelets over the last year and while I’ve taken many photographs of them, I’m never quite happy with how they look in the photos. I’ve just assumed that folks on Etsy and jewelry websites must have a professional photographer take their pictures because even tiny details show up clearly. I finally had a chat with a photographer friend who suggested I get a “light box” and just play with light and color to see what works for me. Sure…
Thanks to Amazon, I typed in “light box” and guess what!! Up came quite a few choices. With the price range from cheap to VERY expensive, I ended up with one like this:
It showed jewelry being displayed, so I figured it would work for my bracelets. It was pretty easy to set up but it took me a while to figure out how to begin. The top had a hole to look down at the surface with my phone camera. The plastic color mats fit inside and the light had an extra shield to diffuse the circle of light.
When I looked down from the top, I could see the bracelet I had placed under the light.
The box came with 6 color choices in plastic sheets.
I first needed to remember what I used last year that turned out such lousy photos. I had a piece of light green foam that I thought would work to put each bracelet on. I did that for each of the 120 bracelets I made for the craft sale in July. The photos looked like this:
Frankly…not very exciting. The colors didn’t show up very well. I recently took pictures of the latest bracelets I’ve made and realized the pale green foam did not enhance the look of any of the bracelets!
So, here’s my first attempt at taking a photo under the light in the light box.
I left this picture at full size so you can see how the circular light is reflected in every bead! Ugly and unacceptable!
Next, I chose another bracelet, put it on the black plastic background with the light at the top. This time I put the extra piece of fabric with a hole in it under the light to buffer the light. A little better.
Next, I stood in front of the box and took a picture. That helped eliminate the reflection from the top. However, the black plastic still reflected the light from the silver spacers.
The black plastic background really doesn’t do the bracelet justice. How about the green background?
Ahhhh…nope!
Next, I tried the beige (plastic) background:
Better for the beads, but the plastic still reflected the light.
Finally, I found a piece of beige linen fabric. That did not reflect any light! Yea! Much better. Actually, if I put the fabric on my desktop instead of in the light box, my iPhone camera and flash does a great job with the picture and is much easier to set up! Who knew that worked just as well as the light box!
I still needed to check a few other bracelets that had more subtle colors. This one had only Amber and Citrine. The beads are washed out with the beige background so I tried a piece of white linen.
Beige background:
White background:
When I switched to a white background, the colors showed up much better!
The final bracelet I wanted to check was the one below, because it had both dark and light beads. The beige background worked fine for both.
I feel so much better about taking pictures of my bracelets now. I’ve got until next July to beef up my inventory! Who knows…maybe I’ll have to put out a catalog! Enjoy!