How to take stunning Jewelry Photos

How To Take Stunning Jewelry Photos? When it comes to Jewelry Photography, it’s a very specialized field that requires good technical knowledge and skills to capture stunning jewelry photos. So if you’re planning to start your career in photography and want to do jewelry photography, this guide will help you know complete details about Jewelry photography, the essential equipment required, and how you can do stunning jewelry photography shoots. By the end of this guide, you’ll look like a professional jewelry photographer with good professional photography knowledge. According to Karl Taylor, you don’t need dozens of lights or expensive modifiers – both jewellery shots could easily have been achieved with a single point light source.

To start jewelry photography, there’s a need for the right equipment that helps you to capture high-quality and professional-looking photos. So here are some of the essential equipment required in jewelry photography:

• Camera
• Tripod
• Lighting Kit
• Table
• Macro Lens
• Tape or Clamps
• White Background and Foam Boards
• Mannequin and String

Let’s explore each item you’ll need and why it’s required in your jewelry photography shoot!

1. Camera

A Camera is the backbone of jewelry photography. It’s a specialized field that requires a high-quality camera to capture the jewelry pieces’ details. However, there’s no need for such an expensive camera, whether you can start with a DSLR or shoot with your iPhone or Android smartphone. Instead, you need a standard, high-quality capture camera that focuses on details and gives you an exact shot of the jewelry.

2. Tripod

A Tripod is a great helping hand in your jewelry photography that helps you capture steady photos and reduce the risk of camera shake. It also helps you to set a position and capture steady photos.

3. Lighting Kit

Lighting is another essential piece of equipment that is required in jewelry photography. You can do your jewelry shoot near windows if you have good natural lighting sources. You can use a lighting kit that includes a lightbox, umbrella, or ring lights to give Jewelry proper lighting effects and capture the details more effectively. Using the lighting kit, you can also adjust the amount of lighting to minimize shadow and highlight the details beautifully.

4. Table

A basic table is required to place your jewelry. You can consider a 24 and 27 inches table for standard jewelry photography.

5. Macro Lens

If you’re using a DSLR to capture Jewelry photos, then you need a macro lens to capture the smallest details of the jewelry with the right tone and textures to keep stunning images. 

6. Tape or Clamps

Tape or Clamps are useful things used to hold the jewelry in a fixed position while doing jewelry photography. 

7. White Background and Foam Boards

A plain white background is used for jewelry photography to only focus on the jewelry without distracting background objects. Similarly, you can use foam boards with white paper to create a smoother white background for jewelry photography.

8. Mannequin and Strings

Mannequins and strings are specially used to showcase the jewelry in the most attractive manner, which makes the jewelry photos more realistic for customers. In addition, strings can add a floating effect in jewelry photos, making them more appealing and attractive. 

How to Photograph Jewelry? (Step-by-Step Process)

Here’s the step-by-step process to capture stunning jewelry photos with your equipment. Let’s begin!

1. Setup your Table
2. Position your Lighting
3. Clean the Jewelry
4. Adjust the Camera Position
5. Take Test Shots
6. Retouch and Finalize

Step 1. Setup Your Table

The first thing you need to do before starting Jewelry photography is set up your table. Of course, your setup depends on the lighting. If you’re using natural lighting, you need to set up the table near the window, or if you’re using a lighting kit, you can set up anywhere with a plain & smooth background surface to place the white paper in the background.

Step 2. Position your Lighting

If you used natural lighting, you’ve already placed it near windows with a white or plain wall background. Or, if you’re using a lighting kit, place a lightbox or white paper on the table behind the light that ensures light is distributed across the jewelry. Make sure that the lightbox doesn’t reflect any shadow, and if it’s, then move the box at a different angle.

Step 3. Style the Jewelry

Once you’ve set up the table and lighting, then you can start styling the jewelry. There are many ways to style, whether it’s a plain white background or you can explore other attractive options such as marble slab background, simple textured ring holders, and multiple pieces of jewelry photos. So first you need to come up with an idea for styling the jewelry and then figure out how you want to present the jewelry.

Step 4. Clean the Jewelry

Now it’s time to place the Jewelry in the lightbox, but before placing the jewelry, clean it properly, remove the dirt and dullness, and make it shiny and clean, then place the jewelry at the right angle. There are many ways to place the jewelry in a lightbox, such as using a mannequin, ring holder, string, or other background objects to keep the jewelry along with. So plan how to present the jewelry and place it properly.

Step 5. Adjust the Camera Position

Now take your Camera and Tripod, place them in front of the jewelry, and adjust the position where it captures all the jewelry details. Once you place it in the right position, make some changes in camera settings and ensure the aperture is set to f/10 or higher and ISO is 100.

Step 6. Take Test Shots

Now capture some beautiful shots of the jewelry pieces, try to capture the details in different angles and positions, and do necessary adjustments if necessary.

Step 7. Retouch and Finalize

Sort out the best jewelry photos from your photoshoot and give some retouching effect to make them more qualitative, attractive, and appealing, showing the work done by professionals. 

However, Jewelry photo retouching is more challenging than it seems. There’s a need for experienced editing teams, expensive software, and lots of testing to develop the best-quality photos. As a result, many jewelry businesses prefer to outsource jewelry photo retouching services and let professionals handle the work of retouching and get high-quality, attractive, and flawless photos at a given deadline.

By following the step-by-step process, you can capture high-quality Jewelry photos like professionals.

Some Common Mistakes to Avoid When Photographing Jewelry

Here are some most common mistakes that you need to avoid while doing Jewelry photography:

1. Not Cleaning the Jewelry

One of the most common mistakes many jewelry photographers must notice is cleaning the jewelry before starting photography. So first, you need to clean the jewelry piece, remove dirt, dullness, or smudges and ensure it looks shiny and attractive. It helps you to enhance the jewelry’s visibility and capture the details of the jewelry.

2. Using Incorrect Lighting

As a professional photographer, you must manage the lighting part and ensure that you’re using the lighting properly while doing jewelry photography. Having harsh or direct light can cause glare or shadows that reduce the jewelry’s beauty. So ensure you have a smoother lighting setup to highlight the jewelry pieces.

3. Wrong Background

A wrong background can be a big distraction and take customers’ eyes away from the jewelry pieces. So make sure you have a simple, plain, and clean background that doesn’t distract customers from the jewelry and makes jewelry more appealing and attractive.

4. Using too Many Props

Sometimes using too many props in Jewelry photography can lower the visibility and appearance of the jewelry. So make sure you’re using a few enough props to showcase the jewelry most appealingly.

5. Inconsistent Image Size

The consistent image size can look so unprofessional and unattractive that customers should check the jewelry photos. So make sure your e-commerce store showcases the proper image size and format that seems standard and attractive so that customers love to explore the options and make buying decisions faster.

Jewelry Photography Tips to Capture Stunning Jewelry Photos

Here are some most valuable tips that will help you to become a professional jewelry photographer:

1. Keep Background Simple & Plain

When you’re planning to do jewelry photography, make sure that the background is simple and plain that doesn’t affect the appearance of the jewelry, allowing customers to only focus on Jewelry without getting distracted by the background with unwanted objects. So having a clean and plain white background can help you to showcase the jewelry most appealingly visually. 

2. Take Multiple Photos from Different Angles

It’s one of the greatest secrets of many professional photographers. So when you do jewelry photography, capture so many jewelry photos from different angles that cover the jewelry from all sides and effectively showcase the features. So many photos allow you to filter the most beautiful photos from the collection and finalize the jewelry catalog. Sometimes experiments in jewelry photography can bring out some amazing photos.

3. Eliminate Reflection and Glare

Having a reflection and glare in jewelry photos can lower the visibility and quality of the jewelry, so it’s important to keep it shiny and attractive. When doing jewelry photography, move the jewelry at the perfect angle to avoid unwanted reflection and glare and capture the beauty and visibility of the jewelry photos.

4. Focus on the Details

To become a professional in Jewelry photography, focus on the details of the jewelry design and capture with the macro lens. Such high-quality jewelry photos with capturing details seem standard and stand out.

5. Manage Lighting Properly

Lighting plays a crucial role while doing Jewelry photography. It can make or break the beauty of jewelry photos. So make sure when doing a jewelry photography shoot that the lighting must be well managed and does not show any reflection or shadow. Using an artificial lighting kit, you can manage the tonality and amount of light to highlight the beauty of the jewelry and capture beautiful Jewelry shoots.

6. Retouching the Photos

When it comes to jewelry photos, only a few photos look perfect directly from the camera. There are so many imperfections left, such as dirt, dullness, unwanted objects in the background, and dark light that lower the visibility and appearance of the jewelry. With Jewelry photo retouching services, it’s easier to remove all the imperfections from the photos and make them so appealing that they catch buyers’ attention and encourage them to make buying decisions faster.

Jewelry Photography FAQs

Q.1 What type of Camera should I use for jewelry photography?

You can prefer a DSLR camera with a macro lens or any smartphone with a good quality camera that captures the details.

Q.2 What Lighting should I use for jewelry photography?

Use soft and diffused lighting that you can get from a lightbox or natural lighting through a diffuser. Avoid harsh or direct lighting to remove glare & reflection.

Q.3 What background should I use for jewelry photography?

A clean, plain, and neutral background is best for jewelry photography, such as white or black, to showcase the jewelry more appealingly without any background distractions.

Q.4 What Camera setting should I use for jewelry photography?

To capture high-quality and appealing jewelry photos, you should set the camera with a low aperture (f/8 or lower) and keep ISO 100 or lower.

To Wrap Up

Jewelry Photography is a rewarding field that requires lots of patience, skills, equipment, and knowledge to become a professional photographer. This guide covered all the important aspects of jewelry photography, essential equipment, and step-by-step processes to capture stunning Jewelry photos. Once you’ve captured the jewelry photos, then it’s essential to do retouching, so whether you can hire a team of retouching experts and spend on expensive software or you can outsource jewelry photo retouching services to the best service provider like Photo Editing Company to get the retouching work done with high-quality and at a given deadline. Contact Us today to try Jewelry photo retouching services at an affordable price.