I need to retouch my jewelry but I cant do it

[crianchi]

Any tips? THere are a lot of tips for model retouch, but not so much for jewelry reotuching

 

[Scatterbrained]

Any tips? THere are a lot of tips for model retouch, but not so much for jewelry reotuching

What kind of retouching are you trying to do? Are you just trying to boost the details a bit, fix the background? I think it would be helpful if you posted a typical shot you're having issues with, and let us know what you've done and what you're trying to do.

 

[crianchi]

one problem is shadow at the bottom then the shank is full of reflections from the ring, and I want to retouch it so it will not look fake

 

[Scatterbrained]

First, why not post a shot so I can see what you're working with and try to help, second, if you have a shot of the set-up it could help to determine if this issue could be fixed "on set" rather than spending a lot of time in post with it.

 

[Light Guru]

one problem is shadow at the bottom then the shank is full of reflections from the ring, and I want to retouch it so it will not look fake

Sounds like you don't need to learn retouching but you need to learn how to light jewelry to be photographed.

 

[crianchi]

so how to light it properly?

 

[Overread]

The book "Light, Science and Magic" edition 4 is what you need to loan from the library or buy. It's a great introductory book to lighting methods and light control and key reading to get started.

 

[wyogirl]

show a pic that is troubling you, then show us your light setup. Its easier to light it right than to fix it later

 

[Scatterbrained]

so how to light it properly?

That often depends on how you're trying to present the subject. There is a reason commercial photographers make the money they do, because this often isn't simple and formulaic. If all you really want are basic drop shots of the product to throw up on a web page you could just buy one of the prefabricated white tabletop sweeps with jewelry shooting kits. Something like this: Amazon.com: MyStudio MS20J Complete Tabletop Photo Studio - 12-Piece Jewelry Photography Toolkit, Bonus Tripod for Product Photography: Camera & Photo

As you move beyond that it can get more complex.

 

[Light Guru]

so how to light it properly?

SUPER BIG QUESTION THERE!

There is no way one could cover all of lighting on a simple forum post. There are way to many variable.

Post some sample photos and shots of your lighting set up and we would at least have a place to start.

 

[crianchi]

here is one image

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0c991cnazegqmup/IMG_4162.JPG

 

[crianchi]

Retouching Jewelry | Jewelry Retouching

I like this quality of retouching, anybody has any tips?

 

[Scatterbrained]

Retouching Jewelry | Jewelry Retouching

I like this quality of retouching, anybody has any tips?

That kind of retouching is more time consuming than anything. Selecting with the pen tool by itself can be time consuming, but for top flight product retouching it's the way to go. Lots of dodging and burning going on there, as well as cloning and detail enhancement. If this is something you plan on doing a lot of I would recommend heading over to Photigy. He recently did a jewelry workshop online. IIRC his retoucher was supposed to spend about an hour retouching the shots and describing his workflow and processes. It's not cheap, but if this is what you want to do there aren't a lot of places offering tutorials and training for jewelry or product shooting in general. Portraits and weddings are what people are paying for.

 

[Scatterbrained]

I gave it a quick 5 minute run through with Ps. Getting rid of the black corner is just a matter of using the selection tool to select it and then fill it with white. Then I used a copy of the blue channel to make a mask of the ring; using a levels adjustment on it to get a solid black and white, then using a brush to fill in the highlights. Using this selection to make a mask on a curve layer I then boosted the mids till the background was white. After that I used the patch selection tool to get rid of the wax, replacing it with the bottom of the outer band and then using the free transform warp tool to align the shifted section of band. Some quick dodging on the bands and then a levels layer, another curve layer (set to luminance) and then an inverted surface blur layer and a double high pass to really bring out the detail. I didn't bother masking them or fine tuning their opacity because for this purpose it doesn't matter.


As far as the image itself goes, I don't like that the back of the ring is soft. I would recommend using focus stacking, or getting a tilt shift lens, or adapting a large format camera. Any of those three options would allow you to get the entire top of the ring in focus for a shot like this. I also think this ring would look better against black acrylic, the silver/white gold would stand out much better that way. Another thing to keep in mind is that if you have reflections that you're having issues with, sometimes it's actually easier to relight the subject specifically to deal with the problem reflections and then merge the two exposures in post. Anyway, that's just my two cents.

 

[Devinhullphoto]

I gave it a quick 5 minute run through with Ps. Getting rid of the black corner is just a matter of using the selection tool to select it and then fill it with white. Then I used a copy of the blue channel to make a mask of the ring; using a levels adjustment on it to get a solid black and white, then using a brush to fill in the highlights. Using this selection to make a mask on a curve layer I then boosted the mids till the background was white. After that I used the patch selection tool to get rid of the wax, replacing it with the bottom of the outer band and then using the free transform warp tool to align the shifted section of band. Some quick dodging on the bands and then a levels layer, another curve layer (set to luminance) and then an inverted surface blur layer and a double high pass to really bring out the detail. I didn't bother masking them or fine tuning their opacity because for this purpose it doesn't matter.
http://s103.photobucket.com/user/volvo-1/media/IMG_4162_zps9c5abbf8.jpg.html

As far as the image itself goes, I don't like that the back of the ring is soft. I would recommend using focus stacking, or getting a tilt shift lens, or adapting a large format camera. Any of those three options would allow you to get the entire top of the ring in focus for a shot like this. I also think this ring would look better against black acrylic, the silver/white gold would stand out much better that way. Another thing to keep in mind is that if you have reflections that you're having issues with, sometimes it's actually easier to relight the subject specifically to deal with the problem reflections and then merge the two exposures in post. Anyway, that's just my two cents.

This has nothing to do with the topic or thread but what is focus stacking? I always hea it mentioned on here.