FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[xdxucn]

[xdxucn]

1) Black background is often used by most people. But it seems that the specimen has no relation with background.
2) Add a little glow behind specimen. Looks a little better, because it forces the viewer to focus their eyes on the specimen.
3) Colored background: awful. Some colored background is still OK, but it needs artistic eyes. Wrongly-used color background will destroy the photo. In early Mineralogical Record magazines, I saw quite a few photos of this kind.
4) Gradient background: just like some studio backgrounds. But the specimen still has no relation with the background, which makes it looking floating.
5) Just remove bad things in the background of original photo: natural as original, but not cool.
6) Combine 4 and 5: that's what I mean for enhancing background.

[xdxucn]

Having no high-quality background paper (often happens to me)? No problem, you can blur background digitally, which remove all the imperfectness of background. The shadow is blurred, but we will not notice that in final image.

What I want to point out is: the specimen itself should be shot as good as you can, with good lighting. I'm just enhancing background, not specimen.

[xdxucn]

If you trust your eyes, you can add more to the background:
1) remove imperfections in the background
2) add gradient to simulate a studio background
3) add some glow to make specimen more focused
4) maybe you can add some digital blurred reflection
more ...

Rule: Do not change the specimen ! You have to photograph the specimen nicely (with good lighting) first. Background enhancement is just for making specimens stand out more.

[Don Lum]

Thank you for the excellent tutorial, Xiao.

Don

[Pierre Joubert]

Thank you Xiao. Can you please tell us what software, camera, and lights you use? Regards

[Jordi Fabre]

[xdxucn]

[David Fryauff]

Thank you, Xiao.

Excellent advisements and clearly great outcomes in your hands.

And all done without stacking!!!

Very helpful....I hope I can show you something good some time.

David

[Pierre Joubert]

Thank you Jordi for that link, and thank you also Xiao-dong for giving us all the detail. I am sure it will be of MUCH use to myself and others. Your selection of specimens and enhanced photography is very good and much appreciated. Best regards.

[Martin Rich]

Hello Xiao!

Thank you for the explanation of your workflow.

It seems, that „topaz“ (with this name, it must be good for mineral photos ;-) ) works very well. Like you, I’m a collector and not a photographer. So, I’m appropriate Gimp for postprocessing of the images. Masking and cutout is nearly a pain, I have to do a lot by manual to get good results. This work needs a lot of time, so I make the most photographs with natural background, but this way is very tricky, because it is depended of the distance and angle of the camera due to the motive to making visible the background, shadow/mirroring.

A question: Is the soft shadow on the bottom of your specimens natural (made with lightning), or is it artificial (made with photoshop)?

I want to post here two photos from my collection. I hope it is OK for you, because it is your threat.
The first one is with a generated background. The photo is nice, but not really perfect. The second one is with real background.

[xdxucn]

[xdxucn]

Here's another rough modification based on your first photo.

That specimen is a piece of slice. Usually I put slice pieces direct on the table (not standing) and take photos. So gradient background is not suitable, but a flat background is better. To make it looking more attractive, you can add some glows behind specimen.

Xiao-dong

[Martin Rich]

Hello Xiao!

Thank you very much for your efforts. The image with the quartz specimen looks much better; you are right, the contact between specimen and shadow is a little bit unnatural, anyway, looking better as my original. The second image is also better - good idea with the glow around the specimen.

A final question: Is the software "Topaz ReMask" suitable for all postprocessing photo-software, or is this a special add-on for Photoshop?

Thanks again
Martin

[xdxucn]