when im looking at photos of well worn large cents the design almost looks incuse at first. does anyone else get this feeling?
Yours eyes can play tricks on you, especially with macro-photography. If you can play around with the lighting so it casts shadows just right you should be able to discern what is incuse and what is raised.
What Hobo says is true. Your eyes can play tricks on you with the depth of field not only in macro- but microphotography as well. For example, when viewing "LIBERTY" on a Morgan dollar through a microscope, if you didn't already know that it was incuse, you might think that it was raised above the device. Take a step back and think of the old adage, "You can't see the forest for the trees." Chris
Yes, I've had it happen more times than I can count. It is a common occurrence for many people. But it's nothing more than a trick of light and shadow.
In short humans have been "programmed" by sunlight. Sunlight arrives from the "up" direction. So if an image of a coin is taken with lighting coming from the "down" direction (from the bottom or 4 to 8 direction) the brain still tries to interpret the image with light coming from the "up" direction (from the top or 10 to 2 direction). Thus it see highs and lows reversed. It's a LOT more complex than that, but that's the general idea.
I know what you mean -- your eyes can play tricks on you -- but you can "fix" it... The first thing when you look at a photo, try and figure out which way the coin was lit. For instance, in Kanga's avatar picture above, it is clear that the coin was lit from above. Once you figure this out, you can look at virtually any detail on a coin same plane as the light) and tell whether it is incuse or excuse. For instance, using Kanga's avatar again as an example, an excuse feature from 3 to 9 o'clock on the coin would be "light on the top" and "dark on the bottom". Conversely, an incuse feature at the same position on the coin would look "dark on the top" and "light on the bottom". You can think of this as how a valley (incuse) and a mountain (excuse) are seen in the morning and evening hours when the light relatively is low in the sky. The challenge with this technique, you might guess, is if there are multiple lights (particularly 180 degrees opposed), or if some type of axial (or near axial) lighting is used. Otherwise, you can use image context cues to figure out what's really going on in a photo (for instance distinguish between excuse die polishing and incuse hairlines) Hope this helps...Mike
