New Photographic Set Up

At the 2013 ISGB conference, the Gathering, in Rochester, New York, presenter/instructor Doug Baldwin had his light boxes set up in the classroom area for students to use. Many took advantage of this opportunity to snap pictures of their work from class and post on social media such as Facebook. I saw first hand how compact Doug's system was and it didn't take long for me to purchase two light boxes.

For those of you who are familiar with my work know the challenges I face. All the bling and clear encasement create reflections and hot spots. 

I was very pleased with this image until I photographed the same bead again with Doug's system. 

This was taken from the top shooting down just like the above image. The daylight bulbs help bring out the actual bead colors better than the tungsten ones I used before. With less glare, you can actually see the depth allowing the dichroic to show through as deeply encased in the core of the piece.

This one was photographed from the front allowing the light behind the bead to show through. The result is a more true-to-life representation of the bead.

I struggled continually with hot spots on photographing my heavily encased work. As you can see from this image how distracting they are.

With Doug's system, again the colors are more true to life and there is no glare! 

Update 1: Just wanted to add another image - taken with my iPhone 4s with Doug's system. It's not as nice as the above images but considering it's from a phone, it's actually not too bad! 

Update 2: Still playing with this new system - learning how to capture the iridescence in my photography. I think this is definitely an improvement!

Photoshop Workshop!!!

Some of you know that graphic design is my day job and I have been using Photoshop since shortly after its inception in the late 1980's (now I am showing my age!). About a month ago, I gave a short private lesson to a friend and decided that I should really be teaching a Photoshop Workshop custom tailored for beadmakers and jewelry artists! I love to teach (watch for my upcoming silver glass workshop at Arrow Springs in December!) so here I am, offering a two-day workshop for Photoshop, including some photography.

Student may attend one or two days, but only those who sign up for both days will have priority. If you sign up for only one day, you will be put on a wait list to obtain a spot should the class doesn't fill up with two-day students. Having said that, if enough of you are interested in only a one-day class, I will be happy to arrange for another workshop.

This will be a hands-on class with two students sharing a computer, eight maximum.

Photoshop Workshop – The Details

Requirements
Prior experience with computer programs is highly recommended - essentially you should know more than just getting on the web and reading your email. This is a fast-pace workshop and I'd hate to have you not being able to keep up! It's also important that you have or plan on purchasing Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. If you have a laptop and prefer to use your own program, feel free to bring it. You will be working on a Macintosh computer - if you are on a PC, the only difference is your Alt is our Command key. Photoshop is almost identical on both platforms.

Cost
$125 for Day One
$200 for both days

Dates
Saturday 25 April and Saturday 2 May, 9am to 5pm with an hour for lunch
The reason for picking two Saturdays is that you will have time between the two classes to practice at home and attend the second day with questions. I also feel that you will digest the information better this way.

Agenda
Day One Morning
• You are to bring a photograph of your bead/jewelry, your camera, as well as the bead/jewelry itself, preferably the same one.
• I will demonstrate the steps on how to process an image on Photoshop - sharpening, color correcting so the image matches the piece, cropping and sizing for various usages including web, saving, archiving, retouching, etc.
• You will do these steps with your computer partner on the image you brought

Day One Afternoon
• I will work with each of you and photograph the same bead/jewelry with YOUR camera on my photo setup, we will discuss about photography setup as well
• You will process the new image in Photoshop
• You will go home with a CD of your images

Day Two Morning
This is a working day for questions and I will help each of you to trouble shoot any issues you might have at home after Day One. You may bring other beads/jewelry to photograph and work through the process again.
Day Two Afternoon
For those of you who are ready to go on to some of the more advance functions, I will demo more techniques in the afternoon.

Examples
Attached are two images - first one was the image my friend took on her own before our lesson, the second one was what she ended up with after she photographed with her own point-and-shoot camera and processed the image in Photoshop. (Note: she didn't bring the pendant from the first image.)

BEFORE

AFTER