How to get a proper silver color of the rings

[garfy]

Well I have problem getting the exact silver color of the rings that I am retouching

I am giving you a link where on the top are the perfect ring and at the bottom is my sample that should look similar to the top ones

I am using desaturate, sharpen, exposure

exposure is getting it close but it is blowing the rings out

http://www.seoandwebdesign.com/perfect_rings.html

Any suggestions, I know there are experts here :]

So how to get that nice silver color out of it?
DO not worry about the artefacts I can fix those

[Klatu Baradda Nekto]

garfy,
Looks like you've pretty much nailed the "silver look" with these. If you're using the Exposure as an Adjustment Layer, you can always paint in the mask to soften or hide those areas that are getting blown-out. Frankly, yours look identical to the "perfect" ones and with so many specular highlights, one would expect that these will be pure white anyway.

One little improvement that might help is on the diamonds themselves. Yours look like they could be either sharpened or increased in contrast. Try this.
Duplicate a merged or flattened layer of the ring. Sharpen this layer (try something like 200/1.5/0) add a Hide All Layer Mask (hold down the opt/alt key when clicking on the layer mask icon !!am). Now, grab a white brush and paint on just the diamonds. This should really make them "pop!"
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[garfy]

but I do not think that that I achieved the same result as above

that is the point

THey have that nice shanknk color of whitegold, and mine looks dark

I need to raise the exposure but at the same time the details have to remain

I will ad another result that I have bben working on all day

[Beonarri]

Also, realistic reflections help.
Or, some core shadows that resemble reflections.

[kevinf]

More about retouching silver jewelry here: http://photoshoptechniques.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15196

[Klatu Baradda Nekto]

but I do not think that that I achieved the same result as above

that is the pointHey, sorry about that. Didn't look down the page far enough. Thought the top image was including both your rings and the ones you were trying to recreate.

They have that nice shanknk color of whitegold, and mine looks darkWhat's a "shanknk color?"

I need to raise the exposure but at the same time the details have to remain. I will add another result that I have been working on all dayDid you try to use the Shadow/Highlight on this? It might be better to lighten your shadows while keeping your highlights.
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[Beonarri]

Isn't shanknk the color between green and blue in the rainbow?
You know ROY G. SBIV
Red Orange Yellow Green Shanknk Blue Indigo Violet

[garfy]

I just need to get the right color of the shank (shank - ring circle)

Now it looks blue, i need that nice white color, with the details inside, exposure could do that but it blows the details out

[garfy]

yes i am coloring it slightly blue

[Mindbender]

Part of the problem is that you're stripping all of the color data out first. Even though it's basically a colorless material, and we think of both silver and diamond as being neutral, there are lots of subtle color hints that should be included.

The original photograph includes a little too much reflection of things like the camera, which has to do with how it was shot and there isn't a lot you can do about that besides reshoot it... but that aside...

Don't grayscale the image first, just work with the colors that are present in the image to begin with. I made this image:
17689
In about a minute by simply adjusting the full color version (curves, set midtone to one of the brown areas using the eyedropper, then manually adjusted the blue curve to even the tone. Used levels to adjust the luminocity to make it brighter). It's not perfect, but it's closer to what you're going for. Our brain likes to simplify things into compartments. We think that the image is supposed to be monotone because our left brain tells us that silver doesn't have any color or that it's basically gray. What you need to do is make sure that those subtle hints of color remain. I could spend even more time actually adding in color hints that would improve the image further. Things like a brighter fire to the diamonds, or very slightly colored speculars to the silver, etc.

Jewelry is tough to work with and get right.. it has a tendency to fight you by picking up unwanted colors from it's surroundings and reflect back too much light in the form of big blown out specular highlights. So it can be a pain in the butt. hehe. Just keep trying different approaches until you find one that you like. Eventually you'll get one that works really well for you. (Don't discount having a good source photo though... without that you can spend forever photoshoping a jewelry image to no avail.

[garfy]

Part of the problem is that you're stripping all of the color data out first. Even though it's basically a colorless material, and we think of both silver and diamond as being neutral, there are lots of subtle color hints that should be included.

The original photograph includes a little too much reflection of things like the camera, which has to do with how it was shot and there isn't a lot you can do about that besides reshoot it... but that aside...

Don't grayscale the image first, just work with the colors that are present in the image to begin with. I made this image:
17689
In about a minute by simply adjusting the full color version (curves, set midtone to one of the brown areas using the eyedropper, then manually adjusted the blue curve to even the tone. Used levels to adjust the luminocity to make it brighter). It's not perfect, but it's closer to what you're going for. Our brain likes to simplify things into compartments. We think that the image is supposed to be monotone because our left brain tells us that silver doesn't have any color or that it's basically gray. What you need to do is make sure that those subtle hints of color remain. I could spend even more time actually adding in color hints that would improve the image further. Things like a brighter fire to the diamonds, or very slightly colored speculars to the silver, etc.

Jewelry is tough to work with and get right.. it has a tendency to fight you by picking up unwanted colors from it's surroundings and reflect back too much light in the form of big blown out specular highlights. So it can be a pain in the butt. hehe. Just keep trying different approaches until you find one that you like. Eventually you'll get one that works really well for you. (Don't discount having a good source photo though... without that you can spend forever photoshoping a jewelry image to no avail.

Yes probably a mistake is to desaturate it at first. And then i cloloured it blue.
But some originals are red, some bluish but still thanks

Yes I am using curves, levels, do not use exposure anymore, it blows the ring out......

[Mindbender]

But some originals are red, some bluish but still thanks

The trick is to bring the colors back in line with where you want them without blowing them out completely. Removing a color caste is a common practice in retouching photos. The principles are basically the same no matter what. If you look around you'll probably find a lot of tutorials that deal with portrait photos, go ahead and read through those, the information will still pertain to what you're doing.

I would recommend checking out anything by Katrin Eismann. I keep a copy of her photo retouching book around in my personal library (one of the few books I actually own on the subject). The basic practices that she recommends and details are helpful with any kind of photo work and will help you get a better hold on how to use some of the swiss-army-knife tools in Photoshop. :)

[garfy]

thank you

I will look at those books

[lokki]

considering it's been about two years since you started asking about retouching jewelry, perhaps it's time to consider your shooting technique... for about $100US, you can get a decent portable setup that will literally take hours off of your Photoshop time. Shoot it properly, and your post work will be minimal.

[garfy]

considering it's been about two years since you started asking about retouching jewelry, perhaps it's time to consider your shooting technique... for about $100US, you can get a decent portable setup that will literally take hours off of your Photoshop time. Shoot it properly, and your post work will be minimal.

Well it is not me who is shooting the rings, I am only retouching them.
Btw guy who shoot the pics just bought the new lenses for 3K and this is the result.

At least we get a one shot picture, before we had to glue different parts together because not the whole ring was in focus.

I think getting 100 usd kit will not help, jewelry is extremely hard to shoot.

But if you have any sugeestins pleas elet me know

[lokki]

If the shooter just paid a few thousand for a good lens (which he shouldn't have had to do to get the quality shown), then another $100 or so would be very well spent to get the right environment.

Having recently gone through doing some product shots, and inventing my own solutions, I can tell you getting the shot right in the camera for these kinds of things is ten times easier than trying to use Photoshop. In my case, I was shooting translucent liquids in clear plastic containers with faulty silk screening. I figured I'd just re-do the text and graphics digitally, but it turned out that I just needed to get control over my lighting, and then I didn't need to touch the images except for masking and some color balance.

My first attempt at cleaning digitally took a few hours on a single image. Since there were about 30 shots needed, I couldn't devote that much time, so I built my kit using vellum, some 'hot' lights, a couple of flashes and a few odds and ends to adjust highlights. I think I spent $100 including the lights (already had the flashes). After a day of trying different things, I finally hit the right combination and shot all the products in an evening... the digital post work took less than an afternoon.

So, there's that...

You'll need a light tent of some sort - that will diffuse the incoming light, and remove most of the reflections, leaving a soft set of highlights. You can find many that have various openings so you can shoot at different angles, and still hid the camera's reflection. They should have white edges, also.

Another option is to just get some stock jewelry images, and overlay your own settings, though this may be very difficult when trying to match bands, or if you have custom bands that don't match the standard stuff.

Finally, and I really hate to say this, you may need to find another photographer. For people who have learned to shoot jewelry and other similar objects, it should be a very quick job.

[Kevin Connery]

"What lokki said" :]

Lighting is the key to any product photography, and it's even more important when the product is reflective, refractive, or transmissive--such as polished metal and crystals. Otherwise, you'll end up spending a lot of time redrawing the product based on the outlines in the photograph, which generally isn't cost-effective.

[Mindbender]

What they said. heh

Just an aside, I was able to build myself a workable lightbox out of foamcore and 250W hallogen shop lights that worked pretty well for my infrequent product shots. Total cost was about $5USD for the foamcore and about $9USD each for the lights (I got 3, but only need 1 or 2). $0.50 for some posterboard to make a curved background. Some heavy tape and a box knife to put it together and a couple of $1 clips to hold one of the lights on the side of the box. Total cost if you didn't buy extra lights and already have a box knife and tape... under $30. If you do lots and lots of product shots... buy some really good equipment and lights... for the occasional shot... make it yourself and control the lighting. Having a screen in front and not wearing brightly colored clothes when you shoot isn't a bad idea either.

$0.02

[garfy]

What they said. heh

GUYS i am really pissed, but not because of you. I have a problem getin the correct rings color. Our photographer shot the rings and it takes probably 1 hour of retouching to get the perfect result and it should not be like that.

He claims that a result like this can be achieved from the raw shots he did and I do not believe him, I think that he only was lucky shooting this ring correctly and he messed up on shooting the other rings.

Here is the result that we want
http://img473.imageshack.us/img473/3645/16da8.jpg

Shot at 2007-08-08

http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/9959/20wn6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Shot at 2007-08-07

And here is the mess that I got and he claims that this