[Jewelry making - Article 00756] - Re: [Orchid] Photographing Jewelry 101

[Alberic]

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Greetings all:

    regarding the highlight/shadow/grey balance eyedroppers in
    Photoshop's Levels & curves pallettes. 

    Kim, watch out, if you peg your 'white' or 'dark' level to something
    that isn't fully bright or dark, everything that's lighter or darker
    than those points will go to either full black or full white, thus
    destroying detail. You need to be *very* careful with the white &
    black eyedroppers. The safest one to use is the middle "grey" one,
    and that works best with a known neutral grey, like a grey card.
    (Depending on your output, you don't really want to chop your
    highlights or shadows using the automatic settings anyway. I almost
    never use those two. You really need to know the dynamic range of
    your output system before you get into messing with the black or
    white points. ) 

    As Rachel mentioned, it's always best to make sure your eyedroppers
    aren't set to sample a single point, but rather at least a 3x3
    average. 

    The thing I've found most useful is a miniature color chart, which
    has a range of greys on it, so that I can set my target neutral, as
    well as evaluating exposure. I've used QP cards, both the 101 (greys)
    and the 201 (colors) with great success. (www.qpcard.se) Normally, I
    keep a small Greytag Macbeth mini-color checker in my camera bag.
    That also has a range of neutral greys, as well as patches of known
    colors that I can use to dial in my color values. These can be
    ordered online through various sources. (amazon & etc) Take a shot
    with the color chart in it, then take another with it out. Use the
    first shot to generate a set of level/curve settings to apply to the
    second. 

    Another resource that I've found handy is a book called 'Preventive
    photoshop' by Douglas Ford Rea. (Amazon, about $12). He explains how
    digital cameras work, and how to get decent pictures out of them in
    the first place, so that you don't have to spend hours mucking about
    in photoshop. (On the assumption that you'd rather be mucking about
    with metal, rather than pixels.) He explains color balancing in great
    detail. 

    If you *really* want to crawl down the rabbit hole, start reading
    Dan Margulis' books. (Professional Photoshop and "LAB Color") Some of
    the definitive works on the subject of photoshop and color
    correction. (But about as dense as Brepohl.) 

HTH.
Brian Meek.

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