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Old 2013-12-07, 12:38pm
Doug Baldwin Doug Baldwin is offline
Pixel Dude
 
Join Date: Apr 26, 2013
Posts: 49
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I think what the picture needs is a bit more "drama". One of the main reasons we humans are attracted to jewelry, beads and glass is the sparkle, energy, light or drama of the piece. There are several ways to accomplish this with photography. The first and easiest is to contrast a light colored object with a dark background. This gives the photo an inherent contrast and helps the object to stand out clearly and be more bold. Your pastel blue leaves are very similar in light/dark values to the almost white background. In the comparison photo below, I've isolated the leaves using a path in Photoshop and inserted a black background behind them. I have not lightened, darkened or added contrast to the leaves. The leaves now clearly contrast from the background, and we've added some drama with a quick change.

It also helps if the object has some highlights in it or on it to contrast with some shadows in the scene. The leaves could use a bit more internal contrast by lighting them more directly to create some edge highlights which would increase the sparkle.

There are several inherent downsides to using natural light whether from a window or shooting out-of-doors. The light changes color, angle and intensity depending on the time of day, time of year, weather, and the placement of the object in relation the lightsource. Using a standardized type of lighting setup indoors to shoot your objects eliminates all those problems with natural light.

By default, cameras are designed to meter everything as an 18% gray card. If your scene is predominantly light or white tones and the camera is set to any type of auto or priority exposure, the camera will automatically darken the scene to reduce the light tones to 18% or middle toned gray. That's why a scene on white may look dark or muddy because the camera is underexposing the photo.

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Last edited by Doug Baldwin; 2013-12-07 at 1:21pm.
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