Amazing how I can take a topic and continue expanding it. Anyway .... After learning to circular crop (finally) I looked at the result and decided the contrast between the coin and a white background was not pleasing. In fact I found it a bit harsh. So I decided to color the background. For a first effort I also decided to match the coin metal color with its digital equivalent. Here's the results for a silver coin (hex code C0C0C0): BEFORE AFTER What is your opinion? If it's generally positive I'll try to come up with copper, gold and nickel.
The industry standard is generally to crop the image but add a drop shadow. Makes for a much more aesthetic transition.
I understand about the shadow but I'm probably going to avoid that unless I REALLY get into the show-and-tell mode.
It's positive here. My suggestion would be to stick to greyscale for backgrounds. Using color will - subconsciously if anything else - distract the viewer from getting an accurate mental image of the coin's actual color. You'll probably find yourself happiest with maximized contrast between coin and background - lighter backgrounds for darker coins and vice versa.
By the way, when you save your cropped file, if you save it as a .png file, the background will be transparent. You can then come in at a later date and drop that .png file on top of a square of any color, and create a new .jpg with a new background. Very handy if you change your mind later on your favorite background. Once you've saved it as a .jpg, it's not as easy to change the background.
Any discussion will involve opinions. CT photo discussions will always cover backgrounds being black or white. I have shot many of both and some steps inbetween but always return to black as my personal choice. Your opinions will vary. I do suggest shooting on the background you choose rather than painting in the results. Shooting on white runs a risk of glare from the background lowering overall image contrast or messing up the color balance of some coins in ways that are hard to correct. Shooting on black sometimes tempts people to process the image with too much contrast. I suggest playing with all the options and seeing which one floats your boat. I do prefer to pick one and stick with it rather than cataloging your collection on a dozen different backgrounds. The coin is, after all, the subject.
I would hope it isn't. It seems to me that adding a drop shadow implies something about the lighting in the photo -- something that generally isn't true.
I guess it's a question of whether our aim is evaluative or simply artistic when choosing presentation, but I can't stand drop shadows even in purely artistic intent.
