Retouching jewelry

[wwUli]

Hi there,

I'm kinda new at this, but I need to get some rings nice and shiny without making them look like a plastic toy. The diamonds are not to hard, just using a new layer in color mode, paintbrushing with white or black and lowering the opacity then adding a little light blue for to add some simple color.

But the ring itself is a different story.. I can't just use a gblur or mblur to work away the imperfections and it does al kinds look fake if I edit too much. Is there anyone who has some keen advice on this? I've still got about 40 more to go.... Thanks a bunch!

[Der_W]

Most of the imperfections can be eliminated with the healing brush or the clone stamp, you just have to keep an eye on the quality, the image is pretty noisy, so the patch shouldn't be absolutely clean.
You could also try to increase the contrast to make it look more brilliant.

[SteveB2005]

Originally Posted by wwUli

Hi there,

I'm kinda new at this, but I need to get some rings nice and shiny without making them look like a plastic toy. The diamonds are not to hard, just using a new layer in color mode, paintbrushing with white or black and lowering the opacity then adding a little light blue for to add some simple color.

But the ring itself is a different story.. I can't just use a gblur or mblur to work away the imperfections and it does al kinds look fake if I edit too much. Is there anyone who has some keen advice on this? I've still got about 40 more to go.... Thanks a bunch!

The original image has a blue color cast and jewelry needs to be photographed with proper full spectrum lighting to capture the metals and diamonds the way they sparkle in a jeweler's display case. Are you photographing the rings yourself? If so, could you explain your workflow and what camera, lenses and lighting are you using? Then someone can advise you on an approach to take.

[wacomunist]

hey there, This is a bit down and dirty, but here is how I would approach this. Mask everything. Gold tones, hi light surfaces, and shadows, I removed the inside shadow, but you can keep it to add more shape. Go to cmyk and add contrast and channel mix the hell out of the cyan, the mix it back into the yellow and magenta, snap the black hard, then back to RGB. I think your diamonds are still too heavy.

check this out-It may save editing time

http://jewelryphotography.com/

[wwUli]

Thnx all you guys for the tips, I'll try playing around with the brushes some more. Unfortunately I don't take the photo's myself and the guy who does is (obviously) not a pro, so I'll just have to do with what I get..

@ Wacomunist: the version you made is too heavily edited in my opinion -it doesn't look natural. But you did do a good job by removing the inner shadow, that's something I'm definitely gonna give a try

I thought that retouching included adding lines, highlights and shadows too though, but I can't seem to find a realistic approach at it

[W.Smith]

Originally Posted by wwUli

[...] removing the inner shadow, that's something I'm definitely gonna give a try [...]

I'd keep it for plasticity and as perspective perception anchor. But lightened to a breath.

[boorock]

Hi There,
I'm kinda new in here. I do professional jewelry and fashion retouch. I just saw your post and wanted to help you with your problem. Here is what i can do best. As you mentioned that the picture quality is so poor. Please take a look at the sample I've made for you. You can also check out my web site to see some samples that will give you some jewelry retouch vision.

Best,
Boorock

[boorock]

www.boorock.com

[philbach]

I downloaded his photo and copied the layer and used multiply blending mode. Perhaps copying the background layer and using various blending modes and masks you can improve the photo.

[boorock]

Hi Phil,
I purposely didn't do that. Because If you do you start loosing quality. Retouch pro didn't let me upload my original and I had save low quality jpeg. Original looks more crisp but not like yours. Good work but looks exaggerated to me.

Thanks,

[zenkichan]

this is my work i do everyday
i am a jewllery retoucher in hk
nice to meet all

[KeithWilson]

fantastic work zenkichan, how about a blow-by-blow on how to make the gold look that good??

good tutorials are impossible to find.

Regards

Keith

[W.Smith]

Could you post an attachment that's big enough to see details, zenkichan?

[SteveB2005]

Originally Posted by KeithWilson

fantastic work zenkichan, how about a blow-by-blow on how to make the gold look that good??

good tutorials are impossible to find.

Regards

Keith

I have done a lot of pro jewelry product digital photography and use Photoshop CS 4 for any cleanup, enhancement, color correction, masking, clipping paths, and any additional tweaking to create the best image presented as possible. I try to always get at least an image 90%+ quality, focus, out of the camera and lighting and spend the 10% left to do in PS. It is a waste of my time to retouch or enhance a jewelry image that doesn't look good enough from the camera in the first place. But if you are doing a retouching job for a client who is providing their jewelry images, then you have to work the best you can if the images are lower in quality. That makes it even harder to do an acceptable or pro retouching presentation of the product.

It is quite true there is very little information and information on how to approach jewelry image retouching. Most Photoshop retouching books that focus on technique mainly show skin, fashion, portrait and restoration work. I am always searching online for any jewelry retouching tricks, techniques and ways to save time and get the images post processed in the least amount of time. Hopefully a pro jewelry retoucher will publish a book on the subject on some techniques in the future, however it's possible there are books on the subject I'm not aware of.

But even so, when I have the time, I am always experimenting, retouching, enhancing and working with my own jewelry images to stay in practice. I search the forums here almost daily on any subjects dealing with jewelry photography and retouching. I have learned a lot of cool stuff here too

steve