Thanks!  I would be interested in making a light box.  They are terribly expensive if you buy them.

my photographs have improved, but still need a lot of work.   I just sit my items on white sugar paper on my living room windowsill and take shots from there but still need lightening up on photoshop which is fantastic if you have it, though there are apparently free versions of photo editing places online, i think i saved one some time back i'll try and find it for you.

Another etsian suggested using a white lampshade and two lights at either side for the pictures so i bought one but havent had a chance to try it yet!!

i also purchased a hollagen white light that doesnt give out the yellowish hue to pictures like normal bulbs too, which is really great.  found the lamp half price for £5 so that was pretty lucky, now i'm going to go get another one so i have one for either side.  I think the correct light bulb is the most important thing to purchase if we want the best pictures.

The strobist blog for creating a lightbox is awesome!  Also, if you want to create some professional type lighting for shooting indoors, get the natural light lightbulbs, put it in a lamp, and then you can diffuse the light by either hanging a sheet in front of it or attaching a white umbrella.  That's basically all the professional lights are, a basic white umbrella.

i just retook everything today, spent a good three hours doing a LOT of jewellery items.  Most have come out quite well.

The problem i have is when trying to take a picture from slightly afar of a complete set, with the flower icon, i have 2, one which goes close and the another which goes really close.  for items where i need the whole set to show these just blur because i go further back to get the whole picture in...but with or without it i cant get clear pictures:S  i dont know what to do.

I'm defiently purchasing a photobox though, i used a lampshade which is fine for small objects but for neckalces that i want to show upright, or earrings it doesnt work really.

There are a lot of good tips in here.

I went to Micheals and picked up a bunch of scrapbooking pages for my backgrounds for pictures. You could use tiles as well, as long as they're not too shiny.

A light box is ideal; although I've never got one to work for myself. I use a bright window.. but now that summer is fading, I'll probably have to figure out this light box business soon.

I'd also recommend mannequins. I just picked up a couple (one for displaying earrings, two for necklaces) and they make it so much easier to display the jewelry.

Thanks for this link about building a simple light box!

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-diy-10-macro-photo-studio.html

I think even my two left hands can figure this out.  My pics definitely need some work.

Last edited by stashworks (10/08/2009 3:53 pm)

For my photos, I try to take them in natural sunlight and outdoors, if possible. You don't want to take pictures in the middle of the day. Early morning or late afternoon is best. I make sure I use the macro setting on my camera and turn off flash. I have a Canon Powershot SD1100 and it takes great pictures. I do wish I had one of those digital SLRs but man, they are so expensive! Take a look at my photos on my etsy store. I also use PhotoShop Elements (or any other photo editing software) to adjust the brightness/contrast.

http://www.sweetjasminedesigns.com

Since the sun has completely disappeared behind clouds in my part of the world. I went to the local camera shop today to check out a lightbox.  I made one several months ago when I was getting started, but I wasn't happy with the results.  The salesman was very helpful, and I ordered a small translucent tent that will allow you to clip lights on each side.  He also recommended a small flexible tripod, and using the self timer on the camera to eliminate shakes.  The box and the tripod came to less than $50 total, so I'll give it a try and let you know if I have any success.  I have been stressing out over my poor quality pictures so I figure this is a good use of my money!

I made a lightbox, it's very crude, but I also use picnik to adjust the colours. I also use a tripod.
I have to play around a bit with the colours (which is probably why it takes me a while to post), but eventually I think they end up looking fairly accurate.

It's a wonderful post, Thanks for sharing it here..