I know this picture can look better and give a better representation of the coin. I am very inexperienced with GIMP and photoshop. So if anybody wants to give it a shot editing any of these pictures, thanks!:hail: The second picture is just the same coin at a different angle.
IMO you need a second light source. Position them something like north and southeast of the coin. And as straight above the coin (about 70 degrees) as you can get without the camera being in the way. You want to do as little "after image" manipulation of the picture as possible.
A Single light source is better. You might try adjusting the angle to make the lower part a little higher to get the light to flow to the lower part of the coin. I use a coin ramp to angle the coin. When it is not enough I just add a couple of coins under the back edge to tilt the coin a little bit more. This I find necessary on full coin images under a microscope of Cents. But setting your scanner (If you have one) to a higher DPI you can get great images of full coins. I lso cover the coin on the scanner with a small piece of dark material just enough to cover the coin in a darker material. After my scanner scans the coin, then it crops the coin to the size of the dark material. So there are a couple of approaches to the problem.
Now I may be seeing things, but it looks like there is a faint fingerprint right under the T in Trust, and above the 42, in that area. Maybe it's just the lighting though.
