total noob about to jump off a cliff ;)

[Dave442]

Also need to watch where the camera focuses. It seems to me that the lettering closest to the camera is the sharpest.

 

[Shredhead]

where should i put the focus? i was just kinda doing in the middle of the product. i have the focus where it only flashes a red dot in the middle of the view finder. and i move that to the middle. the parts will mostly be at a slight angle towards me...

 

[Dave442]

If you are focusing in the middle of the product you should be fine at f/16.

 

[DGMPhotography]

Honestly, if you want the best photos you should expect some amount of post-production.

You can create a preset in Lightroom and batch edit (edit all at the same time) all the photos at once to get what you need, and save a lot of time. As long as you keep your settings the same for all your photos, I think this is your best bet.

 

[Quovadis]

It's actually very hard to do in Photoshop because your bolt in certain areas has the same color as the background. If you reduce black levels in photo shop (or increase white levels), the background goes white but so does your bolt. In other words, you cannot manipulate the whole photo by playing around with black and white. You would have to isolate the bolt (which is also very difficult due to it's round shape). More time consuming than difficult.
I'm not so sure this pic would look as nice with a pure white background...
Manipulating white levels in the raw software, would also cause your bolt to be overexposed. I'm not a good photographer, so adding light to the background is obviously the only answer.