Taking images of small reflective objects like beads

Taking images of very small objects, such as beads or coins, can be a bit of a challenge. A little finesse is required, patience and time, but money really isn't. In this tutorial, I am hoping to help with all of this a bit. Yes, you heard be correctly, this can be fairly cheap too! I am not a photographer and do not claim to be, but over time have figured out that taking images of beads really isn't all that complicated. This is an article is for the frugal (prefer that over cheap), small time photographer, that just needs some images for their website, blogs or squid pages. And, again, I'm not a photographer, nor do I claim to be,it took a little tweaking and figuring this all out, so I thought I'd share from my experience.

Currently, we use a very old camera, Sony Mavica, that if it breaks, I may cry, a lot, okay, let's be honest, I'll be lost. It still uses those old black discs called floppy drives, often an "A" drive on the computer. (uhum....no comments please on, what are those?!?..lol) Yes, I could upgrade, I suppose, but this camera does exactly what I need and understand how it works. I have seen our camera on Ebay for as little as $5! This only proves that good images don't take a huge pocket book! You see, the web can only take up to so many pixels and that is it. You can certainly upload larger to download for printable, but the image one sees on their computer, can only have so many pixels...the rest are a waste and slow down the website they are posted on.

Here are some setting tips for your camera:

1. Always get a camera that can go as low as possible in pixels, pictures for websites, such as ours, don't need 10 megapixel graphics, in fact, that will slow down the websites down, if not crash your server and your site. Our setting is 640 X 480 and there isn't mega in that.

2. Get some goose neck style lamps and some really bright, preferably sunlight style light bulbs (this may take a couple of tries to get the right ones)

3. Make a photo box out of white foam board, put a bottom and 3 sides on the box. You can also buy photo boxes, but this is what I did. Then put a thin layer of white cloth, where the light can come through if you want a more dampened affect.

4. Aim the lights into the box and set the white balance, it's usually a button on the camera or in the settings. This will tell it that the background is white.

5. Set the macro button, usually looks like a tulip flower, a button on the camera or in the settings. What this does is allow the camera to focus in better on the tiny objects, such as beads and capture the detail without being blurred.

6. Get a photo editing program, we use one from 2000, so it doesn't have to be fancy. And, frankly, I'm not going to take a class on how to use my photo editing program, but that's me, again, not a photographer. There are also many online places like photobucket that you can use to edit and even store your photos.

7. Crop your photos in the editor, adjust the contrast and brightness as needed to get the background white and the images to be clear (If your going for a white background.)

A viola! This should get you started on creating clear, defined pictures for your bead or coin collection. To add even more dimension, you can add a black shiny plastic on the bottom, which will give a reflection and have the beads or coins really pop!

There are a varsity of image editors out there, many are even free to use, so picking a white background just seemed easy, it allows the images to "pop" and the website isn't to busy or distracting.

I was angel blessed by squid angel, angels have a very important spot in my heart. I'll have to write on that too! But, thank you jwncoexist! And, she has an awesome article regarding plastic that everyone needs to read! Here's a link to it it:

As a former Plastic's Engineer, gone entrepreneur, I was BLOWN away! Glad I got out of that! Think I'll stick with beads!

Thank you!

I'm very new to squidoo, still trying to figure it all out! And, angels hold a very special part of my heart. Thank you Daria369 for blessing my lens. Obviously, it needs a little work, but I'm working on figuring it all out. Be sure to check out her lenses, they are amazing!

Wow! I'm so new and still figuring things out, but I've been blessed by 3 angels!

skiesgreen squidblessed

our lens! She wrote a wonderful article, that is close to my heart, on child abuse.

Be sure to check it out! It's a horrible thing but something that is rampid in

this country and needs to be ended!

Click here to find it! The image was used from her article, I hope she doesn't

mind. Thank you and God Bless to all the survivors and victims of this horrible

epidemic!

Thank you Terriann-bead at home

Thank you so much for linking us into some of your beading pages, how wonderful! Terri has a fine article called beading for beginners, which has some great videos and technique ideas, that I think would be a great benefit to our followers out there! She also has some other great lenses on beading such as basic beading and so many more. Be sure to check Terri's lenses out! There's alot of learning that can be done and some great basic techniques in the beading world! I'll put up a link on our facebook to your squidoo articles!

Mobile-Boutique.com offers a wide selection of fold over magnetic clasps, slider beads and watch faces for jewelry makers. Our images are all taken in house and not done by a professional photographer, however, we think they aren't that bad.

Leave a comment and we'll be happy to answer, if we can.