Just made this...very basic but I would love to make these for all my coins. Fancy background and stuff. Can I see some pictures of your digital coin templates?
Here's my current one, I like the lights and shadows to help make it look like the coins are hovering over a table.
My two cents' worth: Blue on black is almost the very worst combination for legibility. Red on black is better, but still not good. Try using a lighter, less saturated color for your captions.
Well my images are all done starting with a png of the coin with background erased, an then a php routine I wrote does all the background and "lighting". So it's not really something available to you, I was just giving you an example of a commonly used style for this display.
I would reccomend getting a DSLR with an interchangable lens so you can always buy different lenses for it. Canon and Nikon have some pretty good beginner DSLR's. I use a Nikon D3300 I got a few years back and I am happy with the results and the kit lens that came with it. Been using it for astrophotography as well. Just make sure you do your homework and understand how all the camera settings work and what all the specs mean.
I like that you're trying new things, experimenting a bit. But, in my opinion, you've got *way* too much border and not enough coin. A good template is going to maximize the coin. Robec's template above is superb - simple, elegant, shows all the important information, and highlights the coin above everything else. There isn't a whole lot of wasted space around the coin. As for color, some people prefer dark backgrounds, some people prefer light backgrounds. I go back and forth myself. If you have a silver or gold colored coin, a dark background can look good. But, if you have copper (such as your Lincoln cent, or Bob's gorgeous 20D above), a dark background is going to swallow the coin up. If Bob were to put that dark coin on a dark background, it wouldn't look good because there's no contrast with the background. So, a couple of things to think about as you continue to tweak your design.
I know people do the reflection thing like that, boss, but it doesn't make sense to me. It looks cluttered and busy. The top 2/3rds of that image are more than enough, you don't need to wow us with fancy parlor tricks. It's a nice coin without the reflection.
It's just playing around with photoshop Jason. Whenever I've posted this just to show, there is no reflection. Just posted to show one of the many options of creating your own images.
