I'm photographing intricate earrings with lots of chains for the web.
I want to present these earrings on a white background. Cleaning up
the greyish whites with PhotoShop from my raw digital photos has been extremely
time consuming. I need a more efficient and effective yet thorough
strategy for revealing the white background behind all the chains. I
see jewelry in catalogues and magazines beautifully photographed and
presented on a white background all the time. How do they do it?
With hundreds of chain holes to edit to a pure white background, and
hundreds of pieces to edit...I need help! I don't mind investing in
some equipment or software that will do the job. I would appreciate a
tried and true solution from someone who has been in the same
situation.  There's got to be an easier way of doing this!

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Clarification of Question by 2mark-ga on 19 Apr 2005 21:53 PDT

Hey margi, hammer and dancer, thanks for the coaching! I should
probably clarify what my current equipment setup is. I'm using a
Coloreal lightbox which provides 360 degree brilliant and even
lighting.  Sometimes too much, so we drape tissue over it to soften
and diffuse the lights at the four corners of the box. We shoot with a
Canon G3. It's not that the white background shows up greyish grey.
But it's muddy grey to the degree that you can see and distinguish the
frame of the photo from the surrounding white page. We want the
appearance of the jewelry floating on the page. We've experimented
shooting with different color backgrounds.  But the metal picks up the
color of whatever background color we use. A green background make the
silver or gold greenish....blue makes it look bluish. White and black
are the only backgrounds that don't prejudice the color information of
the metal involved. Thanks!!!

Hey there, Mark.  I use Photoshop as well to do similar types of work.
 Something that may help is to have a professional photographer come
to your house/studio for a few hours one afternoon and show you how to
set up a professional photo shoot. Part of the problem you are having
is that your photographs most likely have shadow artifacts in them.
Much of this can be mitigated with excellent, multi-directional bright
lighting, perhaps inside a lighted box (which can be home made, by the
way) or with a curved, bright white background so that there are no
edges. (You see models done this way quite often as well.)

Use a good quality, high mega pixed digital camera or a low-speed
(100/200) 35MM SLR color slide film for your best results (assuming
you have a scanner that can do slides, like the Visioneer or something
similar.)

2mark-ga,

Don't photograph on a white background. Photograph on bright blue or
hot pink or some other color that does not appear in the piece itself.
Then, you can use the "select by color" function of your graphics
program to quickly ditch everything except the piece itself.

- Hammer

You're entering a subspecialty of photography called "tabletop
photography." All it is, really, is a form of commercial photography
that deals with small objects. I'd recommend that you search your
local libraries and camera stores for books that deal with this kind
of photography. You can search the web for sites that offer how-to
info, too.

Margi is on the right track, but, speaking as a long-time commercial
photographer, I'll go a little further. You definitely want multiple
light sources, with one light being your main light, and another
filling in some of the shadows caused by the main light, There should
be a background light and probably an accent light. You can read about
these in photo how-to books. But for jewelry, I'd recommend soft
lighting. Again, Margi was giving you good advice. But soft lighting
doesn't mean lighting that's not strong. It can be powerful. What
makes it soft is the size of the light source (huge professional-grade
flashes, and ones that are diffused, preferably). You can certainly
build your own; you don't have to buy expensive equipment. Again, you
can read about this in the books.

You might try some of these web sites, too:
://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&client=googlet&q=%22tabletop+photography%22

://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&client=googlet&q=%22table+top+photography%22&btnG=Search


Why is your background grey? Hammer was well-intentioned, but with
good technique, photographers have no problem shooting against a white
background and having the background come out white, not gray. The
trick is to light the background, itself, with bright light. (This
might mean investing in a top meter--especially a flash meter if you
light with flash--so you don't under- or over-light the background.)
Some tabletop photographs with a white background are shot against
white, translucent plastic which has a light shining through it from
behind. Most times, though, photographers will just be sure that
there's no light fall-off on their white background. Again, I'll refer
you to photo how-to books for the details, rather than typing a photo
course into this space.  :-)

Margi mentioned that some human models are shot with lighting like
this. That's absolutely right, but it goes further: Most
professional-grade portraiture is lit this way. If you learn how to do
great portrait lighting, it'd be a snap to move to commercial work.

To do this photography right, you'll need a good meter (flash meter if
you use flash), multiple lights sources, diffusers or reflectors or
both, knowledge of where to put the lights and how to aim them, and
all kinds of things. I'm not trying to discourage you! But it's not
something that can be learned from the web in a day or a week. Try
things, see what doesn't work, try something else, read books, read
web sites, try more things--maybe you're getting closer now?--then try
some more.

I do love Photoshop; it's a great tool! But the better your
photographs are in-camera, the more time you'll save in the long run.

If you have a specific question, feel free to ask. I'll check back
here from time to time.

G'luck,
dtc

Without seeing the file, I can't tell you exactly what to do to make
the piece appear on a white background. However, one thing you might
try is to use the curves tool (apple + m). Once the dialog box opens,
click the eye dropper tool "set white point". once the tool is
selected, click the greyish white area of the background between the
chains. This will change that color to white (and effect the rest of
the piece accordingly). If the greyish white area is relatively
consistent in color, and close to white, it may easily solve your
problem. Let me know.

Hi Margi,

My wife takes photos of her jewelry for selling on the Internet,
including eBay.  The key to getting a white background is by using a
combination of techniques.

1.) Use of a tripod is a MUST for any product shots.
2.) Your light box will do just fine, continuous lighting is a must,
even if it is a hobby lamp from Home Depot.  Adding a diffuse material
is even better.
3.) Use a white craft paper background, 
4.) Increase your shutter speed by shooting in shutter priority, or
use your camera's manual settings.  Nobody will know that you shot
your piece at 1/5th of a second, compared to using 1/60th of a second.
 Adding additional exposure time to your shot can create a shadowless
white background in lieu of adding additional lighting to your scene.

Precise instructions for achieving this look can be found here.

http://www.webphotoschool.com/Lesson_Library/Free_Lessons/Photographing_Rings_the_Easy_Way/index.html

Start off by shooting these scenes with your digital camera.  If you
are preparing images for the Web, shooting with transparancy film is
unneccessary.

Use Photoshop to adjust curves/leves to suit your final tastes.