How To Set Up A Photography Studio In Your Home

Your product images can brand or pause the success of your jewelry business.

If shoppers tin can't see detailed jewelry images on your website, how else will you lot convince them to purchase?

It's true that photographing jewelry is a challenge. Y'all need to avoid reflections and smudges. Manipulate lighting. Gear up your shutter speed and discontinuity a sure way. It can go real confusing, real fast.

This guide volition walk you lot through tips on preparation, lighting, positioning, and editing photos—and then it looks like you hired a professional person.

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Jewelry photography equipment

The photography equipment y'all apply volition depend on your budget. Y'all tin can go along costs minimal if you buy a few of the items below. Or you can buy more than expensive gear like lighting or displays for your jewelry.

Here's some of the basic jewelry photography equipment you'll want to have:

Photographic camera
Tripod
Lighting Source
Table
White background
Foam boards
Clamps or tape

Camera

The truth is, you don't demand the almost expensive camera to take photos of your jewelry. New jewelry store owners can execute a shoot with an iPhone or Android, too. If y'all have a smartphone handy, use information technology. If you already own a DSLR with a nice camera lens, you tin can use that.

If you're planning to buy a new camera, read this thread on Quora that discusses the all-time cameras for product photography.

Tripod

If you lot handhold your camera, it won't matter what lighting setup you use. Handholding your photographic camera or smartphone volition almost definitely effect in camera shake. Neither is a desirable situation.

E'er use a tripod. Tripods are cheap, effective, and improve both quality and consistency. When your camera is held steady by a tripod, you lot can apply optimal aperture and ISO settings. Marker a spot on the floor for your tripod and it volition be like shooting fish in a barrel to replicate your setup, fifty-fifty when shooting on dissimilar days.

Lighting source

Calorie-free is necessary to take photos of your jewelry. A room with windows next to a wall is a proficient pick. The bigger the window, the more than low-cal you'll get. If you lot don't have natural lighting, you could buy bogus light sources, like a softbox.

You can find photography lighting kits on Amazon. Don't go caught up in all the reflectors and LED lights right away. Keep your setup elementary. Afterwards you're familiar with the camera, you can try dissimilar lighting tactics in your photoshoots.

Table

A standard folding table works best. Look for ane with a width between 24 and 27 inches.

White groundwork

There are many different ways to create a white background for your shoots. If you program to accept a lot of different photos, consider ownership a white paper sweep.

Paper sweeps are large rolls of paper you lot use to create a white or colored groundwork. If the sweep gets dirty, simply cutting the muddied piece off and gyre out a clean section. The alternative to sweeps is poster lath, which you can find at your local drug store or online for cheap.

Foam boards

At that place'due south always a shadow side when shooting product photography. Information technology's usually too night to produce a good image. You tin can place a white foam board to reflect light back into the shadow to brighten it upwardly.

Clamps or record

You'll desire tape or clamps to continue your foam boards and sweeps in place when shooting on a table.

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How to photograph jewelry

Now that y'all've got your gear, allow's walk through how to photo your jewelry and go it set for your ecommerce store.

Ready your tabular array
Position your lighting
Style your jewelry
Prepare your jewelry
Set your photographic camera
Accept the photo
Retouch and finalize

Set up your table

Find the infinite y'all want to call your photo studio. If you're almost a window, fix your table 90 degrees to the right or left of information technology. The closer y'all are to the window, the softer the calorie-free will be.

Once your table is gear up, you'll want to prepare up your sweep. At that place are different ways to practise this, but the goal is to have your sweep vertical. If you're adjacent to a wall, y'all tin tape your sweep to it. If you're not, you'll demand to make something to secure the back of your sweep to. A wooden block or bricks could work.

Place your tripod in front of your setup. If you lot're using a smartphone with a short tripod, notice a place on the sweep to identify it. You should have enough space for your jewelry if yous're using the standard table.

Position your lighting

If you're shooting with natural low-cal, y'all're already set with lighting. Jump to the next step.

Merely if yous're using artificial lighting, your setup volition look a petty unlike.

Place one light source and softbox or umbrella at a 45-degree angle to the product. This volition keep the lighting soft and even. Keep your camera directly in front of the jewelry piece. If your production is placed toward the dorsum of your sweep, you may run into some shadow. Motility the product closer to you to get a pure white background.

Style your jewelry

If y'all're just starting out shooting jewelry photography, you'll probably outset with just a white background. That's OK. Merely know that you don't need to limit yourself.

To make your photos more interesting, you tin can also place your jewelry on props, such as:

A marble slab background
Simple textured backgrounds
Ring holders or stands
Grouping photos with other pieces of jewelry

Styling really comes downwards to how you want to present your products. In that location's no one way to exercise it. Get-go unproblematic, and then add and test dissimilar things over time.

Ready your jewelry

It sounds obvious, right? Of course your jewelry should exist clean and polished. The challenge comes from the level of detail captured by a DSLR camera and proper lighting setup. The final prototype will often be diddled up several times the jewelry's actual size. Details invisible to your naked middle volition be revealed when photographed.

Wipe downwardly your jewelry every time you touch it. Wearing cotton gloves may save you lot time and reshoots.

Once polished, place your jewelry in the center of the flat office of the sweep. Leave some room to sneak your white reflector carte in later.

Set your camera

Don't accept artsy depression-aperture shots of your jewelry that focus on only 1 part of the product. High discontinuity, full-focus photography will create a abrupt image your customers trust.

Your customers want to run into every detail. Give it to them with aperture settings of f-11 or greater, and set up your ISO to equally low every bit possible—preferably ISO 100.

Ensure your white residual is ready accurately so you capture your jewelry with the colors you intended. Either prepare it manually or utilise your camera'south automated mode and double check the results.

Have the photo

Position your camera on its tripod so you are shooting slightly down at the product. Position your lights (with diffusing umbrellas) above your product on either side, angle each downwards at the product, and fix them to the same power. This setup should evenly fill the frame with light without creating ugly brilliant spots on your product.

Retouch and finalize

Later on shooting your jewelry, you'll want to fix images for your online shop. Mail service-production processing involves making photos look professional person and beautiful.

The easiest route is to hire a professional editor to retouch your images. This can be a huge cost and time savings versus learning how to edit photos from scratch.

If you prefer to do it yourself, cull a free online photo editor and learn the photograph editing basics. The basic photo editing techniques available are enough to help yous enhance your photos and make them shareable across all your marketing and sales channels.

Jewelry photography tips

Whether you're a new jewelry making business or working on your fifth store, proceed the following jewelry photography tips in mind:

Have consistent photos

Develop a ready of guidelines for your jewelry photography and follow them. Consistency is key in ecommerce photography and variations from product to product or shot to shot will distract your customer. Document everything: camera settings, lighting, background, and equipment position. Brand sure yous can resume shooting on a different day without any noticeable changes.

Keep backgrounds simple

Some inexperienced retailers wait at a white background and think "deadening," or "missed opportunity for branding." They try to differentiate themselves with colorful, agile backgrounds. That'due south a mistake.

At that place'due south a reason Amazon, eBay, Rakuten, and most marketplaces require or recommend a white or neutral groundwork. A plain white or calorie-free gray background keeps the focus where information technology should be: on your product. Blackness is besides popular in jewelry photography, simply be enlightened yous may accept difficulty submitting black-background images to some marketplaces.

White backdrops are cheap and easy to create, and you can easily edit out the background of your photos. You can employ seamless white paper, create a lightbox, and even photograph white products on white backgrounds. If your stand-in groundwork has blemishes or anything else you need to fix, you tin can also use free photo editing software to fine-tune it during mail service-processing.

Use less props

This mistake is based on the same "keep your focus" principle we but discussed. Props are a distraction yous don't need. Y'all may recall your jewelry will look best when staged elaborately, or maybe y'all only want to testify information technology in a lifelike mode using a mannequin.

The reality is that most props draw attending away from your production. There are times where it is appropriate to use stylish props, models, and interesting locations in shots that include your production. Those are editorial shoots, for branding purposes. Editorial shoots belong on magazine covers, equally hero images on websites, and as banners in emails. They practice not belong on production pages.

Jewelry photography kits are relatively inexpensive. Remember, you want your jewelry photography to be consistent and focused on your product. Most props create inconsistency and distraction.

Eliminate reflections

You want your customers to be looking at your jewelry without trying to puzzle out if that'due south the lensman'southward reflection or a flaw in the stone.

The presence of gemstones and metal creates a technical challenge for jewelry product photography. Information technology's difficult to shoot highly reflective objects without capturing distracting reflections. Follow this guide to photographing reflective products, and try a double overhead light for shooting metallic jewelry.

Accept photos from different angles

It's incredibly disappointing to click on a product on a category folio and observe there are no more images. Maybe the customer liked an overhead shot of a necklace simply wanted a close-upward shot to clarify some engraving on the side. Requite it to them.

You've gone to all the trouble of prepping your product, lighting, and camera. Don't end at one or ii images. Build trust by showcasing every attribute of your jewelry. More images lead to more sales, then capture every bit many angles of your product as possible.

Retouch your photos

Few things kill a auction as quickly as a bad Photoshop task. Poorly retouched photos feel fake and destroy a customer's trust in the product image, and therefore in the product. Either invest the time to become skilled in software like Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop or hire a professional.

In improver to retouching, you should create templates that consistently crop, set margins, and align your production images. Call back: consistency is fundamental.

If you don't accept the time or skillset to brush up your own images, consider hiring a post-production processing visitor.

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Beginning taking beautiful jewelry photos today

The best online jewelry stores all have ane thing in mutual: gorgeous product photos. By post-obit this tutorial, yous'll create compelling images that sell and build your make. As y'all gain experience shooting jewelry photography, y'all can add together in elements to your shoots and get creative with your images.

By investing in high-quality photos and showcasing your jewelry the right fashion, yous'll soon see the benefits through higher sales and revenue.

Photographing jewelry FAQ

What is the best way to photo jewelry?

The all-time fashion to photograph jewelry is with a mirrorless, DSLR camera. Yous'll demand a tripod to avoid camera milkshake, and to make certain your jewelry is lit evenly and consistently. Fix your camera to the right aperture and make sure your product is in focus. And so take the photo.

How practice you lot photograph jewelry at dwelling house?

Fix up your tabular array and sweep.
Position your lighting.
Way your jewelry.
Gear up your jewelry.
Set your camera.
Take the photo.
Retouch and finalize.

What is the best lighting for jewelry photography?

Soft lighting works best for jewelry photography. You can have photos side by side to a window, or diffuse artificial light to get the highest-quality photos for your brand. Avoid on-photographic camera wink because it'southward too vivid and volition not compliment your jewelry well.

How do you photograph jewelry in natural light?

Find a space to photo your jewelry that's about a window. Identify your setup 90 degrees to the right or left of the window. Direct sunlight tin cause harsh shadows. You can soften them with a diffuser. If you don't have a diffuser you can apply a common household item such as a frosted shower curtain, parchment paper, or a sparse sheet.