Do you Photoshop?

[thepearlgirls]

Hi everyone,
I enjoy learning so much from the experts in this forum! Hoping those with online sites can help me with photography. Do you guys use photoshop or any other program to enhance your pictures? I'm really new at this whole photography thing and cant seem to achieve the "white background" your pictures have. I've come close at times but never consistently. Would you suggest I buy one of those portable light studios?
The photos will be posted online for an e-commerce store...not to compete with you guys of course! Ours is just a basic site. My mother in law has a lot of clients based in the US who buy from her store in the Philippines to sell here privately and they have been asking her to bring some of her pieces to the US so the online site was born.
Anyway, I'm attaching a couple of pictures, the bangle and the tahitian set I think are good, the other 2 are pretty bad. Any suggestions/comments/opinions would be much appreciated!

Ria Calanog

 

[thepearlgirls]

BTW..the camera I am using is a Sony Alpha DSLR. No macro lens but the megapixel is high so I usually zoom and crop when I edit to get the macro "effect"

 

[Valeria101]

There was a bit of discussion about this on a thread about baroque freshwater pearls and another about abalone shells... you might want to run a search.

However, why white background? Often neutral gray or a dark color is used. It just makes sense for light colored pearls. Jewelry websites that do so - try www.rare1.com and www.rwwise.com. Sure there are lots. Professional photographs of pearls go for colored background more often than not too (thinking of jewelry mags etc.). Often photoshoped when consistency between images is sought (like THIS). As good a look to match as any, IMO.

 

[thepearlgirls]

Thanks, Valeria
I think I just prefer white because it looks cleaner and more modern, not as dramatic as black. I also find that when I have tried to use a black blackground, I sometimes get a "shadow" on the pearls themselves which can sometimes distort the appearance of the pearl.

 

[jshepherd]

Most of us definitely do use photoshop. Pearls are notoriously difficult to photograph, so photoshop is a must-have. White is very difficult to shoot on, and for a novice, it probably is not the best idea. You will need professional studio grade equipment to get it perfect. It is much, much easier to shoot on a color surface. Something like light gray shows well.

We use photoshop to get the picture as accurate as possible. When photoshopping it is important to have the pearls under your computer screen so that you can compare your finished product to the actual strand. If you photoshop to make your pearls look better than they are, this will get you into trouble with your customers. If you have surfed the net I am sure you have seen a couple of pretty large Sites out there, one based in Beijing and another based in New York, that photoshop the life out of their pictures. They look flashy, but they look fake. If you are careful not to over-photoshop like that, you will always have happy customers.