Hello, all!

[msgeniuspa]

I work in a jewelry store and have been shooting pieces for appraisals for almost a year now. We're working with a Nikon D50, Quantaray 18-50mm lens, and light box with built in fluorescent and halogen lights.

We were using a Windows photo editing program that wasn't very good on Windows 2000 until about three months ago. We switched to Windows 7, and I downloaded Picasa, and that was giving much better results for printed appraisal pictures.

Now, however, we've recently updated our website to include a product gallery, and there's a hideous difference between the photos we got from our vendors (and I'm not convinced that some of those aren't CAD renders) and the photos we've taken ourselves of our exclusive pieces. My boss has mandated that I stop using Picasa, so I've downloaded PhotoScape, but the learning is slow.

tl;dr I'm out of my depth, reading voraciously, and don't know how to work PhotoScape.

 

[IceCanAm]

Welcome to the site.

 

[smalltowngirl13]

Hello and welcome to the forum...

 

[kareen21]

Hello, welcome. You said that you use Windows 2000 until 3 months ago?...
What's your machine?...

 

[msgeniuspa]

Well, now it's a Dell Optiplex 3020 and we're running Windows 7.

 

[shadowlands]

Windows 7 is awesome. It's very solid. Find a used D90 and you'd enjoy the live view ability for macro/zooming in, etc...

 

[Designer]

I've downloaded PhotoScape, but the learning is slow... and don't know how to work PhotoScape.

I don't know anything about PhotoScape, but the one I use is fairly easy. I use Aperture3 (iMac), and I think Lightroom is similarly easy to work with, and works on Win7.

I think using two different types of lighting is not the easiest in terms of getting the white balance correct, so here is my suggestion:

1. Use only one type of lighting in your lightbox.
2. Get Lightroom.
3. Enjoy an easier path to good results.

 

[msgeniuspa]

I'm on the verge of buying the camera myself, but the software would be trickier as my boss wants us to use freeware.

 

[Designer]

.. my boss wants us to use freeware.

That's too bad. He is a jeweler, in business to make money, and he can't see the value in obtaining good tools.

An idea:

Download a free trial of Lightroom. I think you can have it for 30 days, so plan ahead to get the most use you can with it. I'm guessing that there is a fairly flat learning curve, so in that length of time you should be able to show your boss a few good edits.

Shoot the shots in RAW
Adjust the WB in Lightroom
Experiment with minimizing or eliminating reflections.
Add some sharpening.
Show boss.

 

[msgeniuspa]

Yes, my coworker and I have broached the subject with him about free trials of Lightroom and Photoshop. I've already taken several photos of a personal ring (in RAW, at all the mm settings our lens allows, in all the lighting options our photobox allows) and am going to edit them in Picasa and PhotoScape (and hopefully Lightroom and Photoshop) as though they were going onto the website to try for some kind of empirical selection of an editor....