Hi Folks. I shot this nice ring and the photo came out pretty well. However, I'm not sure where to start on enhancing it to make it look "catalog." It just doesn't pop and the stones look "dry" and not pop out slick like some of the fine jewelry I see online. I tried different lighting and exposure tweaks to experiement. I have been looking for tutorials on the web for jewelry retouching and I still can't find much. All the retouching books out show info and techniques about everything except retouching jewelry. I love photographing reflective products and the camera picks up everything. Anyone here want to take a crack at it? Thanks steveb

May be it works, I saw this tutorial this morning...

http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorial/Intense-Colors/9678

not sure if you want to go this overboard and if not, try just this: adjustment layer of contrast/layer 25/15 or so.

Craig

Thanks for the interest Craig. I am experimenting with gradients on the gold ring itself and I like how you highlighted the stone. I have shot a lot of jewelry and some comes out better than others. Diamonds are the hardest things to photograph realistically. Then getting gold, silver and other metals to look authenic. The cameras can only take you so far, then the retouching has to ice the cake. Let's see what others can think up to contribute. steveb

I don't know anything about jewellery except I can't afford it. :knockedou

First, I duped the layer then I applied a quick mask selection of the diamonds. Next, I used the Filters/Stylise/Glowing Edges to get some colour on the facets. I then using the rubber carefully erased all the excess black rubbish. I then adjusted the colours of the selection and also the opacity to get to a final Spackle. Finally I deselected the selection then I changed the layer blend mode to Color Burn which gives the gold a richer look, you will have to use the rubber on the rubies to bring it back close to the layer underneath.

That's about it. I hope I haven't confused you too much.

Ants

steveb,

ok, so it wasnt quite what you wanted. that's fine. oh, and the highlight you liked on the stone was done with two things, a new raster layer over the original where i painted some white airbrush on parts of the stone facing the light source and then a 'starburst' from the 'illumination' tool in psp 10. that gave the sparkle effect.

i tried a similar thing on each of the diamonds, but i wasnt real crazy about that either. however, you can 'underpaint' the diamonds with white to bring out the luster a bit. by 'underpaint' i mean put a blank layer over or under your working copy and paint it with white 'under' your diamonds. then use a blend mode of something like 'luminance, overlay, screen, or soft light' to bring out the white. this is a good technique for highlighting things without destroying the original layer.

Craig

Thought I'd have a go at this as jewellery retouching fascinates me. I duplicated the layer and applied it in multiply mode and then dropped the opacity to 58%. Added to this a mask and excluded the diamonds and gems with the black paint brush. I smudged some of the harsher dark areas to make it look cleaner. Used a 50% grey layer in overlay mode to dodge and burn. Merged all layers together, did a guassian blur and applied in soft light mode and once again excluded the diamonds and gems. Merged layers to new layer again and added a new dodge and burn layer and using a star light brush dotted a few highlights within the diamonds.

Hi again folks. All of your contributions have provided several options to enhance the ring and I got many ideas. One thing that really was interesting was putting some sparkle in the diamonds using layers and masks. I would also like to see if someone could get the gold to shine and eliminate the dull, dry sandy look. I have seen some raw jewelry shots from a med format and even with that kind of quality and lighting there were still some things that needed tweaks. I am hoping someone like Katrin Eismann, who I am a big fan of and study her books might offer some suggestions for retouching and enhancing jewelry and gems. I will post some other examples of jewelry that needs some enhancement. steveb