How To Take Attractive Photos Of Fashion Jewelry For Sales?

Have you ever wondered how stunning and sparkly jewelry looks on catalogs than in real life? One of the key aspect of selling jewelry lies in the photography.

Photographing jewelry, us not an easy as it sounds until the photographer understands and master the tips t taking great pictures of them. These include lighting, sharpness and exposure and how to adjust them in every situation in order to attain the best pictures possible.

Whether you are using your phone or have a professional DSLR camera, there are some tips mentioned below that you will find helpful.

Clean the Jewelry

The first step in photographing jewelry is making sure that the items are clean and polished. This sounds obvious, but the challenge comes from the level of detail captured by DSLR camera and proper lighting setup.

Details that are invisible to the naked eye will be revealed when photographed. One of the most notable things when photographing jewelry is canned air.

Unless your items need serious cleaning, you can just remove the dust and shine to your jewels by wiping them down with a microfiber or a damp cotton cloth before a shoot. You should also consider wearing cotton gloves so you don’t end up leaving fingerprint marks anytime you handle them.

Using Macro Lens

The most important price of equipment for photographing jewelry is macro lens. When using a DSLR, macro lens ensures that you get the spectacular images and that is why they don’t come cheap.

A macro lens should have two —one with a shorter focal length, which allows you to work much closer and reveal minute details in bigger pieces of jewelry; and another with a longer focal length, so you can conveniently shoot from a more comfortable distance.

Shooting close to the piece of jewelry can also make the camera lens show up in the reflection, so you may want to create your own lens “hide”—a white piece of paper with a hole in the middle to conceal your gear and reflect some of the light towards your object.

Keep it Simple

The best way to feature the full glory of a fashion accessory is make it stand out is to photograph it on its own. Avoid unnecessary props which prove to be a distraction that you don’t need.

This is particularly true for pieces that already have a lot going on in terms of colors, sparkles, and its design. Instead of complicating the shot with other jewelry or a potentially distracting background, your jewelry subject may be better off with a minimalist setup.

Try placing the jewelry piece on top of a wooden table, a plain white or reflective surface, or simply zoom in on key features to exclude the rest of the object while you use a wide aperture to blur out the background.

The fact is that most props draw attention away from the product. There are cases where it is necessary to use models or stylish props for shots that include the jewelry pieces.

However, this is for editorial shoots belonging to magazine covers or banners on emails. They do not go well with product pages.

Modify Your Lighting

Even for jewelry, many photographers would advise that you use natural light. But for a more professional result, you’ll want to use off-camera flashes to create a more controlled lighting setup.

Whatever you decide to use, what’s important is that you are able to create soft and even lighting to eliminate as much shadow as possible. You can further improve your lighting setup by making the most out of your available light sources, such as with reflectors or light boxes.

While you’re at it, turn off all other unnecessary light sources in the room and don’t mix different types of lighting that may produce different color temperatures.

Manage Reflections

Gemstones and metals are highly reflective, so you’re likely to find yourself reflected in the jewelry—which is obviously something you don’t want.

Eliminating reflections is a trial-and-error process when it comes to jewelry. It is hard to shoot highly reflective objects without capturing distracting reflections.

As previously mentioned, placing a paper around and at the bottom of your camera lens will help block off reflections and bounce more light back towards your subject. Place your jewelry on a sturdy surface, like a table or a block, and position one large studio light on either side.

Diffuse both lights with umbrellas. Hang and sweep a roll of seamless white paper behind and underneath your product, and attach the paper to the bottom of your camera lens. This will block off reflections from the foreground and reflect more light back onto the subject.

Focus with Precision

The usual goal is to highlight the star of your jewelry, such as the main diamond or the charms on a bracelet, so you’re likely to just use Auto Focus on them.

However, even in close-ups, the focus may still be off, so you’ll need to verify it afterward by reviewing the image and zooming in for a closer look. If it’s not accurate, refocus, verify, and lock it.

Before you end the shoot, make sure you also have winning shots where you have the entire piece of jewelry in focus. This is also in case you’re shooting for a catalogue and they only have space for one or two product images that need to show all the details and intricacies of the jewelry.

It may sound impossible even with a wide depth of field, but this can be achieved with focus stacking. This technique will allow you to capture several shots with each part of your jewelry in clear and sharp focus, so you can come up with a final image wherein everything is in focus.

Feature Contrasting Colors

To create strong and attractive images, you can feature contrasting colors by placing your jewelry on interesting and colored surfaces.

Experiment and see the type of images you can come up with when you use complementary colors with your pieces of jewelry. Using a solid color or several shades of the same color will instantly help make your items stand out, such as in the photo above.

But remember, try to keep it to a minimum and avoid using too many shades that can distract your viewers’ attention away from your main subject.

So, after reading this article, do you have any idea about how to taking attractive pictures about jewelry? If not, it doesn’t matter.

Come to Nihaojewelry, where provides detailed and beautiful pictures about all products. And if you also want to start a fashion jewelry business, then you’re in right place.

Cause you can directly open your own fashion jewelry online shop through Storeee.com. All Nihaojewelry’s products are available ( include all photos’ pictures ) , just one click you can add to your store. Additionally, you can share these beautiful pictures on your social media to attract more customers.