When photographing your coins, a simple piece of software like Google Picasa 3 or Windows Live Photo Gallery can make your pictures look much better. Load your photo into it, and play around with the settings such as fill light, contrast, shadows, color temperature, etc. Here is a raw photo shot with my camera outside. Here it is after I processed it. There is some noise on the bottom area, but it was cloudy outside.
I like Picasa too. If you want a free program to do more advanced editing look into GIMP. It's something like the open-source alternative to photoshop.
I have picasa but cant figure out how to get my pictures from picasa to this website. Can you tell me how? Thanks
Its not about making your coins look better....its about making the picture accurately represent the coin....editing too much will result in a picture of a great looking coin that does not exist except in imagination.
I am not trying to make my coin look better - I am trying to figure out how to upload it or download it or whatever it is I am supposed to be doing. Wish I was a little more savvy about computers.
Guide for newbies from a newbie. lol I'm sorry but this topic has been covered so many times in the past. The best thing you could have done for newbies is do a search for this topic and copied and pasted the links here. Photoscape is unbeatable IMO. Free program, easy to use, comparable to photoshop. Some good articles have been posted in the past on it. Here's a great 4 page thread with tips posted May, 2011. http://www.cointalk.com/t175157/
Detecto ,first you need proper lighting. rather it be a good flash or studio lighting. you shouldn't have to take your coins outside for them to be photographed.
editing may fix and enhance photos. but a well lit ,well focused photo is a great place to start. we can talk about ISO,white balance,aperture,shutter speed etc... but start with good lighting and well focused photos. then editing will help enhance the photo to your liking. I agree with howboutatrade. if you are photographing a coin for resale then avoid enhancing the photo and try to photograph the coin in its natural state.
