Have you ever tried photographing your wedding ring on your finger or your name engraved necklace around your neck? Taking a picture of a jewelry piece can be challenging, especially if you’ve never done it before.
It’s frustrating when the gems in the small jewelry pieces reflect in the bright light ruining the whole effort of photography……
Whether it’s pure gold jewelry, shining diamonds, or artificial jewelry, you need to focus on some tips before taking photographs that help you sell your jewelry.
How to be the best jewelry photographer? Practice, practice, and lots of practice…..
Yes, that’s true. Knowing only these tips will not help you take your first picture of jewelry and excel in luxury jewelry photography. You still need to take hundreds of images using these tips and tricks to help you get to your desired result.
So are you ready to learn the details of the best jewelry photography? Let’s start, then.
Read More > Secret Tips For Beauty products Photography.
Contents
Challenges of Jewelry Photography
To bring out the exact clarity, shine, and details of a jewelry piece, a photographer has to put lots of effort into it. However, sometimes even though you put in everything you should, you still face challenges in getting the proper professional photographs.
Look at these challenges you might have to face while learning to picture a jewelry piece at its best.
Reflection
The worst part of luxury jewelry photography is when you take a photograph putting all your efforts and getting an image with a reflection from the gem.
An exceedingly terrible moment, no doubt…..
You need to focus on the lighting that you are adding to your professional jewelry photography setup. You cannot eliminate light completely while photographing jewelry because you need it to enhance every aspect of it.
Also, your efforts will be wasted if you have not chosen the background smartly. Each jewelry piece requires a different colored background to help enhance its features giving out enough details for the buyer.
This challenge can be resolved by using diffused lighting that helps to get rid of the reflections giving you a clear picture.
Clarity
While taking a photograph, a little movement in your hand can ruin the image entirely because a jewelry photograph must be highly vibrant and clear with no blurriness.
You need a steady and fixed place to operate your camera that will eliminate any human errors from your images. Tripod stands are available in the market that help to hold the camera and easily make suitable changes in the angle and other settings.
You can work better with a tripod stand. It will also save you time because you will take only a few images instead of 30 to 40, still not having a single proper image.
Real To Life
The jewelry images must look real to life instead of too much fakeness with unwanted editing. The buyer wants to see what a jewelry piece actually looks like in real life, not what it looks like after sharpening, adding contrast, and more.
Will you buy a jewelry piece that looks highly artificial in its photographs? Probably not.
So, you need to think with the buyer’s mind to get the best. Adjust the lighting and the background with a proper lens and a tripod stand to help maintain clarity in the images. An adequately detailed image will even display the flaws in a jewelry piece.
Retouching
You should be careful not to make the photograph too artificial with editing; at the same time, you have to put some retouching in the pictures to eliminate any flaws. But this retouching should not make the image look like it’s photoshopped; instead, use the skills to make the image look natural.
You may have to blur the ring’s lower part to shift the focus to the upper part with the gems.
The best jewelry photograph comes not only from setting up the camera and adding in the light; you need to do some post-production work to make the images even better.
Luxury Jewelry Photography Detailed Tips and Ways
From setting up a professional jewelry photography setup to learning the skills of taking the perfect jewelry photographs, you need to focus on some tips to help you succeed. Look at the below-mentioned tips and ways.
01. Photographing With White Background
Professional eCommerce sites use white backgrounds because of their benefits. Your jewelry piece will be more detailed when captured with a white background. This helps to keep the image clean and perfect, reducing the flaws.
Have a look at these tips while using the white background.
- If you don’t have a lightbox or a professional white tent, you can use a white paper roll or white cloth as the background.
- You can also add a white background after taking the images during the editing process. It will require extra time still it works better in some conditions where adding a white background does not work well.
- Add more lights to a white background to enhance its appearance and give more details to your jewelry piece.
02. Avoiding Reflections
Reflection is the most important thing to deal with while capturing premium images of jewelry. Reflection in any image reduces the clarity, increasing ambiguity.
But fortunately, you can reduce reflection using some techniques, so look at them.
- Place your jewelry on a flat surface to help you get as many details as possible from different angles with no reflection.
- Use equipment to stabilize your device, reducing shake.
- Do not mix your light source with multiple colors because it affects jewelry images badly.
- Focus on your device’s zoom capability so you can shoot from almost 2 m away from the jewelry while still zooming without affecting the quality of the images.
Retouching The Photos
Photo retouching is essential to capturing the best luxury photographs of jewelry. It involves editing the images to enhance the overall photo’s look to make it more appealing for the buyers.
Some of the tasks that are done during the photo editing include improving studio quality, removing shadows, setting the light, and adding a white background.
Use high-class photo editing software to remove any flaws that cannot be removed while taking photographs.
A jewelry photography shoot can be complicated and stressful.
Don’t worry; invest in good editing software to remove any human errors from the photographs. This will reduce your efforts, still giving out amazing images.
How To Do Different Jewelry Photography?
Different types of jewelry require particular techniques to get the best photographs. We’ve compiled some ways to help you get the best shots.
01. Capturing The Long Necklaces
Like an 18k rose gold necklace, a necklace has a long chain with a pendant in the center, making it challenging to photograph because capturing the image from a distance will not show enough details. While if a closer picture is taken, it will be difficult to display the complete necklace.
- Yet the techniques below can help you take the best possible pictures of the necklace.
- Choose the lightning technique carefully, going towards soft lighting or using a lightbox. To get a dreamy look, you can use diffused lighting techniques to give your necklace an even better look.
- Choose the best backgrounds for jewelry photography of your necklace carefully, most probably a white one.
- You can use a necklace stand to help your necklace be more like the way it should be presented in the picture.
02. How To Getting The Best Shots of Earrings
You cannot always take pictures of earrings by placing them down on a surface. Even hanging them will not sometimes help, so you need to put more effort into getting the perfect luxurious images.
- Depending on the type of earrings, such as studs, long earrings, and pushback earrings, add earrings stand to help your earrings display professionally by focusing on each detail.
- Whatever techniques you choose to apply while photographing your earrings, ensure you understand what type of earrings you have because each one needs different methods. Like if you have studs, you can even picture them while placing them on a smooth surface.
- Try not to put too many earrings in one picture; instead, capture the images separately.
03. Taking Pictures of A Ring
Capturing the image of a ring can sometimes even fail the most experienced photographers because of the difficulty it entails. The rings are very small in size, with a design on one side, like in a birthstone ring, that we need to focus on during the photo shoot while ignoring the rest part to some extent. Have a look at these ways to get an accurate image.
- Clean the ring thoroughly to avoid any spots on it, as this ruins the photographs. A better tip is to wear gloves while handling the ring; this will help to reduce the fingerprint effect and other unpleasant spots.
- You can use clean wax to hold your ring in place to capture the image.
04. Taking Best Shots of Silver Jewelry
You might also be among the many people who feel like a never-ending struggle while taking photographs of silver jewelry. But you can learn the deep photography skills that help you successfully get the images you need.
Here are some ways to apply to get high-quality silver jewelry photography.
- Add a grey card to your setup because this helps with proper images of the silver jewelry.
- Avoid using artificial lighting and use natural light as much as possible.
- In certain conditions, if you cannot access natural light, use the lightbox with two oppositely placed light sources to give a perfect light distribution. This will help you to avoid shadows on your silver jewelry pieces.
05. Managing Pearls
Pearls have their natural luster causing reflection in the photographs, destroying them completely. You can follow these tips to get the best results while capturing pearl jewelry images like a white pearl bracelet.
- Use a single light source adjusting it 2 m above the jewelry. This helps to control the reflection because when more lights are used, you will have to deal with more reflections.
- Use a dark room for capturing the images. Put a lightbox for a source of lighting that also works as a light diffuser to prevent reflection.
- Use a white fabric to create double layers of diffusion to prevent any chance of unwanted reflection.
- Research on the internet and check popular magazines to know what styles they are using while picturing pearls. This helps you save money and get creative working yourself.
Pricing of Luxury Jewelry Photography
If you want to know the cost of jewelry photography, the best way is to find the best jewelry photographer near you. Depending on your area, they will help you know what they will charge for a particular time or a specific number of jewelry pieces.
However, you can consider these prices for an overall idea of the price you may have to pay to get stunning photographs of your jewelry.
- Simple images with $30-$40 per photo
- Urgent photography with a $10-$30 extra on every image
- Editings according to your requirements with $10-$20 extra per image
Final Thoughts
Don’t be afraid to put effort into luxury jewelry photography because, ultimately, you will learn the perks of how to get detailed premium photographs of a beautiful jewelry piece.
There are countless challenges associated with jewelry photography. Still, a bit of practice and focus on what you should do and what you should avoid will help you become a professional jewelry photographer.
This article will be helpful for you to focus on the details of photographing a jewelry piece. Let us know which tips from our list helped you the most or if you have any more tips to share; we would love to hear from you.