Jewellery on pure black

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Yv

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I am currently trying to shoot various pieces jewellery on black for a friend of mine. She wants some with reflections [and I have a black acrylic riser table arriving today for those, but some without.

Now then, I have a brand new fresh off the roll piece of black velvet, I have 'taped it' to remove any factory dust, but even with some pp fiddling with contrast, levels, curves, etc, you can still tell its velvet and there are still visible dust particles. Yes I could clone them out but so many are silly.

I am using 2 studio lights either side, btw, in softboxes, plus they are going in through the light tent, which in turn has black paper up the back and top to give a balance of white/black reflection and thats working. However, are there better ways of shaping the light appropriately?

So two questions really - for the none reflection ones, is it easier to just clone away the reflection from the acrylic ones rather than faff around with velvet? Anyone done this kind of shoot and found a better technique? I have done plenty of sparkly stuff but always on white :shake:

Also, and this is speculative as I am about to try it anyway, is there a way of adding a light that will add some extra sparkle - a quick google showed one underneath the camera acting as a 'sparkler' but they were just daylight rated lamps, not flash - I am a bit concerned about flare using something more powerful :shrug:
 
My pure guess is that the 'dust' you're seeing in the black velvet is actually reflections from the light. Black velvet, assuming that it's the genuine article and not faux velvet (which is useless for photography) is wonderful stuff, but you need to brush it in the direction of the nap to avoid these reflections.

As for your lighting setup, just about anything will work EXCEPT what you're using. Your lighting arrangement will produce very flat lighting that won't create the reflections you need. It's all very well using soft lighting for fill, but you need small, hard lights as well, for the sparkle.
Also, and this is speculative as I am about to try it anyway, is there a way of adding a light that will add some extra sparkle - a quick google showed one underneath the camera acting as a 'sparkler' but they were just daylight rated lamps, not flash - I am a bit concerned about flare using something more powerful
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It doesn't matter whether it's a continuous light or a flash, what matters is the direction of travel - it the light hits the lens it will cause flare, if it doesn't it won't.
 
Hi Yv

If you want to give the pieces a bit more ‘life’, first take your light tent shot and then, without moving the camera or the jewellery, remove the top/sides of the tent and then change your lighting to give some nice specular reflections. I personally prefer to do this using continuous lighting, which enables me to precisely adjust the lamps while looking at the subject through the viewfinder. Don’t worry about any ghastly shadows within the pieces, or the general ‘hard’ look that may be produced. Just get the highlights working until you reach the required sparkle and ignore everything else, then take the shot.

Open both shots in photoshop with the tent shot as the bottom layer and the specular on top. Now using a layer mask on the spec shot reveal just the highlight bits to make the jewellery really zing. If it starts to looking too much like bling then drop the layer opacity, or try a bit of gaussian blur and you can also try playing around with the blending modes. You don’t of course need to restrict yourself to just two shots per setup, as you can take as many as you require to get the effect you want, but remember to keep camera and subject in exactly the same place. If you need any more clarity on the shooting or photoshop stuff then give me a shout.

Have fun
Sam-D
 
If you move the background further back then it's will be pure black as the light won't be hitting it. Even if it's been mugged by a white cat, it should still be noir.

If you're using a light tent then you're limiting yourelf by the construction of the box... so it's worth putting it away and using diffuser material instead such as Rosco's Frost (comes in rolls and is re-usable).

Sounds like you're basically needing to make a kind of lightbox out of 2 close walls, no ceiling and moving the back wall back a few feet so it's black :)


The fiddly (but best results) are to lift the item and light it all around. Then put it on the acrylic and re-adjust everything so it's mainly lit the same to get an accurate reflection.
Photoshop the 2 images together and they should hopefully start to look something like this guys: http://www.jonathanbeer.co.uk

Good luck :)
 
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