The Color of Gold
Desert Moon
Posts: 5,867 ✭✭✭✭✭
HI Folks,
For the past decade I have been working on refining my photography so I can capture the beauty of coins. One area I have had serious problems with is gold, their surfaces are simply different than silver and copper and for many of my pieces I have had a hard time. So I spent the past month trying every lighting possibility I can think of. Not surprisingly every piece is different and requires different lighting. I am getting close on some, for used gold, I have been striving to capture the 'sparkle' of the surfaces as you see it in hand - it is a trade off though because to capture it, you also get all of the many gouges that this soft metal accrues on its surfaces. You can use lighting to smooth out the hits, but that also reduces the sparkle, you can bring the sparkle up to capture the full luster, but that can make the coin look far from what it looks in hand and too harsh. But I am getting there
and starting to get a better feel for the trade offs, what the camera sees vs. what I see, and how lighting affects the gold surfaces.
So here are some examples of the different colors of gold. Not perfect, but getting nice I think.......
Best, SH
Comments
Super Half Eagles with very nice pics.
Very nice indeed!
bob:)
Awesome!
My YouTube Channel
nice half eagles. i really like the 46-O
I think you are doing quite well. Often time, in our quest to get better and better, we often become our harshest critics.
I think youre quite good and beautiful subject matter doesn't hurt
M
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
You captured the 3-D effect of the CAC sticker nicely also. Thanks for sharing.
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
Nice coins and good photography.
NIce work!
Great looking photos of some great looking coins!
'dude
Nice work! I took some pictures of a few modern gold commems recently, and was surprised at how different the colors were between the examples with the same diffused lighting. I'm guessing that from year to year, there can be different suppliers of gold from different regions of the world and would make for a change in color?
Good question, the original color of gold depends on purity and proportions of alloys - copper tend to give it a more orange color, silver more white, etc. That will indeed vary in 18th century gold from year to year, I don't know about moderns but it still must play a role. Of course toning is a function of this and the environment where the toning occurred. It would be interesting to get a report on gold alloy comps year to year, mint to mint.
Best, SH
Love them!! I am tempted to post a few more colors of gold, but don't want to hijack the thread! haha
Ditto, Give us the ok, and we'll post some gold colors to your thread SH.
Great coins and nice pictures for sure
HAPPY COLLECTING
They look green to me
I love the pictures. For me, the green and gold text accents nicely/best. I even notice the gradients within - which is a very nice touch. I think I prefer the slightly heavier shadow under the coins. Although it's not a big deal (I notice only because I do the same thing) ...at times I find it can be more time consuming to effectively omit/crop the area around the coin - especially when against a black background. In the end, your pics are superb. Great inspiration!
Enjoyed numismatic conversations with Eric P. Newman, Dave Akers, Jules Reiver, David Davis, Russ Logan, John McCloskey, Kirk Gorman, W. David Perkins...
please post them, that is what we are here for......
Thanks, Photoshop is a great tool. BTW, following Goodman advice from his book, I shoot all images and export them in RAW mode, and there is very little manipulation from what is shot. His book has been a fantastic education - as they say, buy the book before the camera ;-)
Best, SH
They look fine on my screen, so it could be a monitor calibration issue. Of course, the screen I'm using at the moment isn't calibrated, so maybe they are a little green and I can't tell. If so, maybe the OP's monitor isn't calibrated, either, and what looks good to him wouldn't look right to anyone with a calibrated monitor.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Here are some other colors of gold..
@spacehayduke...Those are really great gold pictures... I have no idea if representative of 'in hand' views... but they certainly look great to me.... and I just love gold coins.... Perhaps you are afflicted slightly with 'perfectionist syndrome'... not a bad thing by any means, but can cause personal frustration. Cheers, RickO
John (messy desk).... I was referring to the color of money as green goes
.
And Happy Thanksgiving , too.
Wow! Outstanding photography and beautiful coins.
Photos are looking good. What I look for in a great, well-lit coin photo -- does it reveal what I'd see if I held the actual coin in my hand, also in a good light source? Much more valuable to me than juiced, glamour-shot photography of coin subjects.
that 82-CC looks way better than 53 to my eyes
OK....the only way to correctly assess color is by using NIST standard viewing conditions and lighting. This isn't difficult to do, but it requires attention to detail and calibration of everything in the viewing/photo system. Our eyes are poor at objective color perception.
This is not a criticism of your very nice photos...only to point out that "what we see is not what is real."
I try to capture the coin exactly as I see it in hand, I can do the glam shots as well, but that won't be a realistic image in case I ever want to sell, so I work on the in hand kind of images.
Best, SH
Those are fantastic jw!
Best, SH
Nice BC! I love the die crack on the obverse, must be a late die state......
Best, SH
And it was the one half eagle (actually 1 of 2) in my set that did not bean.... But I still love it.
Best, SH
You do a great job, IMO!
I love gold coins, thanks for sharing.
Reinvigorating this thread.......
Oh boy...you guys are giving me the "fever" to go for the gold again.
BST transactions: dbldie55, jayPem, 78saen, UltraHighRelief, nibanny, liefgold, FallGuy, lkeigwin, mbogoman, Sandman70gt, keets, joeykoins, ianrussell (@GC), EagleEye, ThePennyLady, GRANDAM, Ilikecolor, Gluggo, okiedude, Voyageur, LJenkins11, fastfreddie, ms70, pursuitofliberty, ZoidMeister,Coin Finder, GotTheBug, edwardjulio, Coinnmore, Nickpatton, Namvet69,...
Re-invigorating an old thread on showing different colors of gold. Some great coins up there. Here is my latest from the McCloskey collection, a less common classic head quarter eagle. Post your gold here that exhibit great colors!
These are pretty colorful.
Instagram
FYI, in a photography course I took not that long ago, the prof explained that the naked eye can see the equivalent of 14 F stops, while a good lenses will only pick up 9 of them. I saw this when I went with the wife for a Fall Colors trip. I could get the bright yellow - gold quite right.
"Seu cabra da peste,
"Sou Mangueira......."
Assorted stuff,
