Cinnamon Jewellery

After much experimentation : white backgrounds, bright backgrounds, subtle backgrounds and many visits to my local ESK to buy far too many scrapbook sheets and different coloured paper, I've finally found a background that I'm happy with! And I had it at home all along. I've started using the back cover of an old Reader's Digest Univeral Dictionary - a sort of silvery~grey colour which I think works ok. I know lots of people prefer a plain white background for jewellery but I found I got a lot of glare from the white especially with silver jewellery and it sometimes looked a bit off white. I think the grey sets off the colours of the beads well and makes them pop and I haven't had to edit the photos as much which saves time. I've also started using a mini tripod I bought from eBay a few years ago which was immediately shoved into a draw when it arrived. I took one look at it and thought I just couldn't be bothered faffing about with it but I've now s...

.....for the perfect background. A while ago I decided that my white backgrounds were boring so decided to try something different. I tried bright orange (see example in my Etsy shop in sidebar), really liked it for a few days then decided that it was a bit much. So I then thought I'd try backgrounds in other colours, maybe a bit subtler.......... I now possess backgrounds in all colours and patterns imaginable but STILL I'm not happy with my photos! The only thing for it was to consult the Etsy forums where there are lots of threads about photographing jewellery ~ we all obviously think alike! After reading through several the general consensus about backgrounds seemed to be GREY. Yes, grey is apparently the colour to go for. Here's a photo of my earrings using a grey background I'm not sure about it, it seems a bit drab because of the grey! I know it can depend on the colour of the beads but it still looks a bit dull to me. I've seen so many gorgeous photo...

Selling my jewellery online means I have to take photos of it and I can honestly say that this is my least favourite part of the whole process! I just don't have the patience for all that fiddling about trying to get the perfect picture and I always look at the end result thinking it could be better. I generally just switch on my camera in Auto mode and let it do it's thing, however the other day I actually switched it to manual and played around with the settings. I changed the white balance, (I think that's what it's called) and it has made a difference, the photos do seem brighter. Taking the photos in Manual mode however wasn't very successful, even though it was in Macro mode, the camera didn't want to focus every time, so I went back to Auto mode. I didn't need as much light as normal, meaning I didn't have to pull the curtains as far back as I normally do, so altering the white balance has improved things. I normally use white as a background...