Post a Toned Coin

What this guy said. (ಠ_ಠ)

 

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You don't seem to every buy coins in singles do ya! Ha ha, nicely done.

 

I'll quote you since krispy wrote a lot.

Anyway, the reason behind using the different colors (and not just white/black/grey) is a site I read that talked about the background color neutralizing the actual colors of the coin, and it turned out (strangely enough) that white isn't really neutral. I would probably use 50% grey if I had that, but I don't. As for why I chose a non-black fill color, no real reason. I liked red for the purpose of comparing the same coin three times.

Beside that, I thought it would be good for people to see that the background color does affect the coin itself.

 

..

 

cup mo..

 

Correct, white isn't neutral at all, it's the prescence of all colors, and black is the opposite, devoid of all color, making a point between them, neutral. 50% neural gray papers sold in large sheets or more rigid mat board (used in framing pictures), can be picked up from an art supply shop or framing shop. Put this behind your coin and give it a try if you like.

White can be quite challenging to shoot some subjects against, particularly light colored metals. White surfaces are very reflective and bounce light all around when surrounding a subject being photographed. The same is true of a single color influencing the color in a shot. It's not impossible nor discouraged to shoot coins against while backgrounds, but it might not be right for what you want out of your shots sometimes.

It all just takes a lot of fiddling and trials, but eventually you'll find what you are most happy working with and I think you've become aware from your trails that we don't just look at the subject matter (the coin or it's toning) but we have to see the qualities of the light and what its role is in representing the subject in a shot.

 

Is the SBA AT? Those colors don't seem to make sense to me.

 

Colors are not suppose to make sense, they are irrational random beings.
I've heard that every 34 years the US mint has a blueberry festival in the mint, so I'd guess someone dropped some blueberrys in the plancet bath,, and another likely retiring employee dumped a few strawberries in the same bath as his going away marker in history. The result is the coin you see and was a direct result of a blueberry and strawberry plancet bath prior to being struck.
Make sense ?

 

Yup. You agree that it's artificial toning.

 

Here's what the three look like with me changing the background to black (in the fill):

 

.. maybe easier to understand.. lol.

 

..cup mor

 

https://picasaweb.google.com/102169...EireAndBritishEmpireCoins#5458652267819115154
https://picasaweb.google.com/102169...EireAndBritishEmpireCoins#5458652254107071858

 

Just changing the filled in background digitally doesn't change the nature of shots, which you originally mentioned shooting against red (raspberry) and blue (cyan) backgrounds.

It does help the presentation, showing toned coins against a black or white ground, but for more accurate images, without the warm and cool color influence of the original backgrounds, you'll need take all new photos of the coins against a black, white or neutral gray background. Do this even if you wish to use a solid black digital fill for your image file.

Also worth noting, be careful with how you crop the coins. Now we can see a sliver of the color background the coins were shot against. It shows between the coin edge and the filled in background in your image file. A neat, clean crop, even of such a tiny detail like this, will help how well your coins appear. If the digital editing tool you use to crop is a perfect circle but your coin isn't, then your camera captured the shot at a slight angle askew to the coin. Some editing software, like Photoshop, allows you to trim away such imperfections while other editing programs may not have such tools featured that let you do this. Hope the tips help. Each step should bring some new features of your coin pics to life for sharing on the forums.

 

I know that the background of the final image doesn't change much. My point was just to set it to black in response to the comment that using a red background detracts from the color in the final output. As for the cropping, I guess a big part of that is laziness, since my photo editor only allows two-dimensional adjustment for ellipses. Yes, I can always use the lasso function, but I really don't like it.

 

@NK

Since I've been talking about coin pics and mentioned some tips on making your digital image files a little more conducive to showing off toners, I wanted to show at least some example of how I like to present my own coins on the forum. I think I've posted this coin before in this thread, some time ago, but I'll share it again for the sake of an illustration.

Some people like a solid background, others like to crop in real close to the coin, either on a white or black background. I like to show mine off in a little "simulated" floating space against a predominantly black background. I leave some space around the coin, and include embedded text in the image file, with info about the coin shown. The coin is cropped out very cleanly from it's original background (in an old ANACS white slab), and all the elements, like the soft shadow and faux reflected coin are all separate layers within a Photoshop image file. No tweaking of the coin image itself has been done from the shot taken with camera. Of course, this is just one way of presenting coins. See what you think and if it helps or inspires any of your own ideas.

 

Some nice nickel toners.

 

Roll find today at work 2000-D

 

LOVE that peso, Krispy! I've been looking for a nice example of that design to add. Thanks for sharing!

 

The 49 D is blazing!