Alegandron Roman Republic Denarii - fairly new additions...

Nice pics, the black helps a lot. I prefer it over white.

 

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It is fine to clean up a black background using software but it is easier to start with an even black(ish) background rather than trying to remove junk. I do this with a rolled tube of black foam but black paper or anything tubular will work as long as it shadows the black base. The coin rests on a tall dowel rod or a CD ROM spindle. Currently I'm using a steel rod with an interchangeable dowel top to support various diameter coins. This photo show the tube used with lights I was using in 2011. Every time I take a photo of my set up, I change something so I gave up trying to keep up. In my case, at least half of my changes make some pictures worse and get changed again shortly.



I need to destroy all my photo pages and decide what I really prefer but I can't. Part of me wants to buy more lights to play with but experience suggests my photos would not get better, only different.

Decent cameras make large photos. Learning efficient resizing is critical. When you downsize an image, it will be necessary to apply sharpening ("unsharp mask") with whatever program you use. I use Photoshop Elements 13 at the moment.

 

Gosh, Doug is in WARP Drive compared to my pics! This really helpful for me...(yes, I am starting to read your site, Doug...)

 

Alegandron, Dougsmit is our resident photography expert, you should take on board everything he says. The black background definitely helps in my opinion, but the coin is the main thing to concentrate on.

OK no alcohol, maybe magic mushrooms, erm maybe not. Flowers/coins not so different. Once you are getting decent photos of your coins, you may reconsider her fine detail observations and find something of interest. Time will tell.

My avatar is one of my favourite coins:
http://www.tantaluscoins.com/coins/108694.php

 

Naw, she said sometime that I could try the macro. Just getting time to do ALL of the collection...that is the real issue. Slowly doing a little at a time, then will redo as I get better. I am looking at my short work in my database...LOL, GOING TO REDO THEM ALL!!! Beyond terrible!

 

Great pics and coins . I've got a copy stand and my Sony won't touch your pics . lol

 

Note that this only works with a decent camera. I've tried it with a point and shoot but it messed with the contrast, a LOT. So, if you've got a good camera, you should be taking advantage of this, otherwise stick with the editing.

 

http://www.pbase.com/image/160721449

This thread drove me to produce the above image with labels (see page). Whether it becomes a new photo page remains to be seen. First I need to test it with a handful of sample coins to be sure it works for different types. I'll go to the bank tomorrow and get a few of the usual suspects I suspect will cooperate. The REAL secret to shooting pretty photos is to have pretty subjects.