JEWELRY PHOTOGRAPHY Jewelry photography is the most difficult photography among all different kinds of commercial photography.
There are many reasons for this, but the biggest reason is that it is very reflective. Jewelry reflects everything around it.
That includes the photographer and the camera. I’m sure you’ve seen jewelry images where you can actually tell the gender of the jewelry photographer,
not to mention a very unattractive picture. There are many factors that influences jewelry photography.
Experience of the photographer is a huge factor. Also lighting & camera equipments have great factor in jewelry photography.

Experience of the photographe is a one that needs no explanation. So let’s talk about equipments. There are tons of cameras & lighting equipments out there.
But only handfuls of them are capable of handling jewelry photography.
Lens quality, focal length, image size / pixels and lighting quality / wattage all effect jewelry photography.
And right equipments can easily cost you over $100,000. These days you can find websites selling do-it-yourself jewelry photography kit. Let me tell you straight.
Do not waste your time & money. Good jewelry photographers are not investing tens of thousands of dollars for no reason.

LIGHTING
Correct lighting set up reduces amount of unnecessary work by half. Lighting set up can both eliminate unwanted reflections and create natural shadow.
And since no jewelry is the same, lighting set up has to be changed to accommodate each piece.
The most difficult set up among them is for diamonds. Diamonds have their unique way of reflecting light.
Without correct lighting set up, diamond will look dull and flat. You’ve seen images in eBay where the diamond looks worse than plastic.
You can blame bad lighting and point and shoot camera. Are you selling jewelry via internet or Catalog mailing?
Your jewelry photo is the only way you can show the quality of your product.
No matter how well you explain about the jewelry, image is the first thing the customer sees and the last thing he/she remembers.
You could be selling exact same jewelry as your competitor at the same price,
but your competitor could be doing much more business only because they hired a professional jewelry photographer and you took your own picture.
A good lighting equipment costs anywhere from $10,000 and up. Color is very important in jewelry and constant color can only be achieved by good lighting equipment.
Depth of field is one of the most important factor in jewelry photography. In order to have great depth of field,
you need fairly powerful lighting to allow correct aperture, usually over f32. If you have no idea what all these words mean,
that's normal and exactly why you shouldn't be taking your own jewelry photography.

CAMERA EQUIPMENT
Camera is usually made up of two components. Lens and body. Let's talk about the body.
There are only few cameras out there that can truly handle jewelry photography. Image quality, more commonly know as pixels is the greatest factor.
You will need cameras that can record at least 16 mega-pixels and up. In jewelry photography,
you will be required to manipulate the image according to the clients' preference and its usage.
Sometimes you will have to enlarge a small ring to fill up full page magazine. Sometimes even a billboard. In order to do so,
you must have a high resolution image to begin with. Such camera bodies used for jewelry photography usually starts from $5,000 and up.
(and there are websites saying you can do it with a $300 point and shoot camera)
In jewelry photography, experience of the photographer is inevitable. Rest depends on the quality of the equipment.
You can't try to reduce expense if you really want to achieve the highest quality jewelry photography. Lens is also important.
You need a premium quality macro lens that has aperture of at least f22, preferably f32. Quality of the lens itself effect the quality of the image greatly.
Poor quality lends produces more noise in the picture and these noise can be really annoying as you start to enlarge the image.
Small aperture is also a crucial requirement in order to obtain crisp jewelry photography.

RETOUCHING
You can basically transform the image into pretty much anything. You can turn a clear diamond into red saphire, or transform gold necklace to silver bracelet.
But in order to do so, you need a highly skilled graphic designer who has strong ability to handle design application.
Photographing jewelry is only the beginning. The image has to be retouched to be presentable to your client.
Same diamond ring can look dramatically different depending on how they are presented.
That's why Tiffany spends tons of money making their luxurious boxes and cases. Same thing applies for jewelry photography,
You have to add right background, color tone, shadow and highlights to make the best out of what the jewelry photographer has captured.
In order to perform jewelry photography retouching, you need powerful computer and good design application.
No matter how careful the jewelry photographer is while taking the photo, there's always something that has to fixed.
They can be a scratch on the jewelry, unwanted shadow/reflection or distorted color.
All these can be fixed and enhanced through the retouching process.

IMAGE FORMATS
There are basically two different formats for jewelry photography.
1. High resolution CMYK for print.
2. Low resolution RGB for web use.
No matter which one you need, the image has to be optimized for its specific use.

CONCLUSION
When you hire a professional jewelry photographer, you are not actually paying for the image.
You are paying for their experience and their equipment. That's what makes a good jewelry photography.
Your clients solely depend on the quality of your jewelry photography to make decision.
Jewelry is a luxury item and your product image must look like one. If the image is not right, they will simply not buy and you missed a sale.
Your effort to save couple hundred dollars in jewelry photography can eventually costs you tens of thousands of dollars in missed sales.
We serve mainly New Jersey and New York area but we also serve as far as Korea and China.
One of our biggest customer is located in Atlanta, GA. Their reason for long distance relationship?
They couldn't find a professional jewelry photographer who meets their expectation!!!
Now there's a businessman who understands the value of good jewelry photography.
Give us a chance and send us one piece of your jewelry.
We will show you how good they can actually look. You will be amazed.