Why are commemoratives so under-appreciated?

You young whippersnapper! Dang thats good!!!!

 

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OK, now how do you get the background black like Cazkaboom did on mine? I guess I should be asking Caz!

 

Okay, so you have it downloaded and everything. While in the editing section there is a "Crop" subsection

So while in the crop subsection, check the "Crop round Image" box

Drag accross and fit coin inside it. Make the background colour black and press crop.

 

OK hang on, let me give it a shot.

 

Love this fellow......

 

Drum Roll again please.......

 

I noticed that I got the pics backwards, but I get the idea now. Wow! I learn something every day. I will have to continue my adventure tomorrow. Thanks Ken and Caz

 

By George I think he's got it......

 

No problem. Practice will get it done well. Just be glad there are others to help. Without Ken, I'd be using paint for this stuff

 

Oh and BTW nice commemoratives there! :thumb:

 

Ok, hang on....one more to come!!!!

 

Paint? Stone age........

And now that we've totally derailed Lance's thread........another pic.

 

Ok, hang on....one more to come!!!!

 

And on this note....its nighty nite!

I need to learn how to edit out that boarder around the MM. Any advise?

 

Yup. Me too. Nitey Nite all. Morning beckons.......

 

Oh will you look at that! It's a commemorative thread. Oops, well I guess I'll help it get back on task
These 70s proof sets were not at all taken care of well. Just no respect to them. Check the red set plastic on the coins themselves:

These are also pretty much another version of the Columbian Expo if you think of it. They minted it two years in a row to meet the demand.

Here's a few silver from the year

 

This is kinda a commemorative....

 

Joe, I built my own template in Photoshop. I prefer the spotlight-from-above look with a dim light appearing under the coin with a shadow suggestively cast from the coin, inside of that spotlight. This all works to suggest the coin is floating in space.

That's your next challenge, try to make your coins appear to float as well as have the desired reflection, a reflection that fades.

The fade allows you to but text there if you like to describe the coin and still be easy to read. I suggest making a careful selection of fonts and how much you allow the text to run over the top of the reflection. Text gets harder and harder to read with image behind it, especially so with the more script (italics) style fonts. A good idea is to identify what fonts are easy to read, what will be the best font size to use it at for this presentation and then to try and stick with using the same size and type of font in all of your image files. This consistency will lend a nice even look and feel to your coins when you show more than one example. If the text is bigger or smaller, bold, regular or italics from one image file to the next it will only distract people from looking at the coins and it may be hard to read given the choice of fonts too.

That's the nice thing about a template, once its established, all you have to do the next time is insert the coin images into the template and adjust the copy to describe the coin.

Coin images like this are also a nice way of presenting coins in online auctions.

It looks like you are well on your way with editing image files to present your coins in a new way. :thumb:

Ken did a great job with that article. I wish I'd read it sooner, even though I have a different method using Photoshop as my tool. Great work Ken.

 

Well, as long as this thread has gone that direction...

Apologies for saying this (and it's probably just me), but does anyone else find these coin templates a little, um, overused?

I think they're great for special cases. E.g., the one below I did for some friends who designed and minted this bullion to circulate in their counter-culture community.

But I must have seen thousands now, some for some pretty ordinary coins. Sort of spoils it for me.
Lance.

 

I'll say that I don't think it's over used, just more common and that's not a bad thing, as it's a very nice or elegant and even professional way to present one's coins. The problem as you pointed out is the 'pearls for swine' cases, when a common coin that's not particularly shot in a dynamic or even clear manner is dropped into this sort of layout. One that's not rate taking the 'spot light'. The same if a cruddy coin of no special merit nor value is plunked into a fine dressing like this, then it becomes a different case. But to each their own, as much of the love of coins is in the eye of the beholder. I get your point though.

The one thing still images no matter how well presented show us is the luster, for that we need video or animated image files. Heritage sometimes uses them for super high end coins and I have seen one person on CT in the past run a test for animated .gif files to show a coins color and luster. Only problem is CT doesn't allow animated .gifs (to my knowledge, anymore) and redirecting someone to another site for such things probably wouldn't be very popular. Not to mention, it takes a lot more work to set up and edit a file to show a individual coin being animated and whatnot.