I have been wondering why the pics I post here all seem to dark compared with other members posts, even though I am using a massive bounce light and reflectors, and have a really nice camera. Well today I discovered that to control black and white points in Lightroom 3, you use the "Exposure" and "Blacks" sliders inconjunction with viewing the histogram. This is different that how it's done in Photoshop and Photoshop elements, etc, where there are dedicated Black, Gray, and White eyedroppers. I used the photos I ALREADY had taken of every coin (for insurance reasons and to post here on cointalk), and just spent about 30 seconds each with only those two sliders. Check out the before and after (in that order). Let me know if you think the pictures are better, worse, about the same, or if my coins still suck, regardless of how good the pictures are. Thanks!
The after images are much better. You still have a bit of a "pink" hue to all of the images, which is a white balance problem. But, for posting here and for insurance reasons, your images are stellar!
Your original photos are underexposed. They're just underexposed as you shoot them, and it would be better to check the histogram while you shoot, and correct the exposure then, rather than adjusting in Lightroom. The new versions look better, but are blown out in a few spots. Dave
I agree with what you guys are saying for new pictures, but the whole point of his post was that he had already taken all of the photos and this was something he could do post-hoc to fix them up a bit. Giving advice for what one "should have" done is not so useful in that case. However, going forward, you can expose the original images correctly to begin with to save yourself the time.
I'm red-green color deficient http://www.colblindor.com/2007/04/17/deuteranopia-red-green-color-blindness/, that might have something to do with the pink hue. Doubt I'm ever gonna get it perfect, since what I see rarely exactly matches what others see, but close enough is what I'm aiming for, and it sounds like I'm getting close. Thanks for replying!
geek - Something off topic but important. Pictures of coins are pretty much useless when it comes to insurance claims. That's because the pictures could be anybody's pictures - pictures do not prove you owned the coin. There is only 1 thing that works for proving you owned a coin to an insurance company - a receipt from when you bought it. Yeah the pictures are nice and they can be used in conjunction with a receipt. But without the receipt, pictures are worthless. You need to remember that.
Yes, I 100% agree. Whatever you can get done in-camera is always better than post-processing. In this case, the camera thinks they are exposused correctly. I am manually setting the shutterspeed and the aperature, and letting the camera bounce around the ISO. I could +1,+2 exposure compensation now that I see I am constantly under-exposed. I think that the predominantly white and one other color photos must trip the camera up. (white and silver = kennedy, white and brown = IHC, etc). The GREAT thing about shooting raw is that even if I only get 80% the way there in-camera, I can dial it in with the LR settings. Changeing color temp, and the rest of the sliders is super easy. I think I will boost exposurer for a few shots, and see if that will help getting to more like 90% there towards the final image. But in this case, I almost think getting it perfect (100%) in LR will take LESS time than getting it perfect in camera, only because the options are more readily available via the mouse and keyboard shortcuts in LR than they are on the D7000. Thanks for replying!
Hmm, never really thought about it like that. I guess I'm happy I have saved most of the eBay "congratulations you won!" emails over the years, and most of the paypal receipt emails. I have very few local store, or printed receipts, but will make a strong point going forward. I always assumed if the cert numbers for the coins I give the insurance company yearly matched the photos, I would be all set. But I supposed people could insure coins they dont own, just to make a latter claim. Thanks for letting me know! :hail:
That's the real trick I need to learn. Get a ton of light on the coin, but not to the point where detail gets blown out. kryptonitecomics (on eBay and here at cointalk I think) seems to manage this perfectly, also gbroke and lehigh96 who posts here. I guess their photos are my ultimate goal.
Print them out, every one of them. And then get in the habit of printing them every time you get another. And ASK for receipts when you buy a coin in person. And should you ever sell any of your coins, or die and leave them to your family. Those receipts will save you, or them, a fortune in taxes
It's fairly easy once you practice it. position your lights just off the coin, around 10 and 2 o'clock and you should get great exposure while not washing 'em out too much. I'm sure if you search around, you'll find some guides to coin photography on here that could help you a ton.
Keep in mind the light meter function though. An in camera light meter, when you're using the camera's computer to set your exposure, is saying "I'm pointing you at something that's 18% gray. Set the exposure such that this subject will be 18% gray in the photo". If you don't happen to be pointing at 18% gray, then the exposure is wrong and EC is your answer. In Manual mode it's the same routine except that rather than setting exposure, the camera is setting the exposure needle from that metering, and rather than EC you're just adjusting shutter speed, ISO or f-stop. So when you say "the camera thinks they are exposed correctly", I'd say "the camera is correctly exposing for 18% gray subjects, based on its metering algorithm". BUT, if your subject isn't 18% gray, then all bets are off, and the camera was "lied to" when it was metering. In the case of silver coins, they are lighter than 18% gray, so the camera's darkening them up; in the case of copper coins, the reverse will happen. Dave
