How was this trick photography done?

clarkbar04

I've seen juicing which is usually somewhat evident but this beats all, if not for the spot on the face I'd have no idea it was the same coin.

Bottom pic is mine obviously and heck no I'm not gonna take it out of the holder!

Insider2

Just a guess. It is not a trick. Temperature of the light used but mostly due to tipping the coin just so. You can see the color is on the coin in the bottom image.

Fairlaneman

I see some color also. Just a "Cartoon" photo. You see a bunch of them on this forum.

Ken

morgandollar1878

It is all a matter or lighting and angles. Lighting includes the number of lights used to take the photo.

clarkbar04

I have looked at the coin in a few different types of light and every angle except underneath it. There's no such color on here. C'mon, I know how to look at coins.> @Fairlaneman said:

I see some color also. Just a "Cartoon" photo. You see a bunch of them on this forum.

Ken

Since you are about 7 miles from me, I'll show you some of my cartoony coins if you want.

Insider2

@Fairlaneman said: "I see some color also. Just a "Cartoon" photo. You see a bunch of them on this forum."

Don't understand. Every bit of color you see in the "cartoon?" is on the coin. Even the round spot on the Bison's flank.

clarkbar04

Its not though. There is a little bit of color underneath the buffalo which outlines his belly, and some in the field by his head and legs. Other than that it is a complete fabrication. There are no reds or greens anywhere and the whole top half of the coin isn't toned.

RogerB

It was done by increasing the saturation of one or more RGB channels.

AmazonX

Here's my 1883. Looks like your boring, common date shield nickel, right?

Well here's the color on it.

I'm assuming your coin is one of those coins where you have to tilt it in the light just to get the color. On my nickel, when looking at it in hand, you see some(but not all of the color). I'm a assuming that the seller just using axial lighting or had it angled so that it showed off the photo and possible juiced it so the very light toning showed off more.

jmlanzaf

Looks like the thin film affect. Same reason you see a rainbow in a puddle that has oil in it. The light refracts due to the index of refraction difference. There's probably a thin film of toning or possibly a foreign substance (finger oil?). When lit at the right angle, you get the rainbow.

derryb

digital enhancement - viagra for cameras.

1630Boston

I had a truview that looks 'great' to some people.............but looks nothing like the coin that I have

Elcontador

As someone else said, you can adjust color saturation and use various filters enhance colors.
Adjusting the heat of the light hitting the camera will alter color as well. All cameras have options for these items now.

cameonut2011

My guess is increased color saturation to an extreme degree.

jwitten

Same coin, but color only pops when you get the light just perfect:

messydesk

Single, small, light at just the right angle. No other light source that would interfere with the one good angle for viewing the color. Then crank up the saturation in post-processing so that people see color and don't notice you couldn't be bothered to get the coin in focus.

Insider2

In order to get the color to come out, you need to have something on the surface of the coin. Let's call it a film. There is a film on your coin.
In the bottom image, the film is reflecting back mostly under the belly. Once you tip the coin, the colors appear stronger and in other places also.

Now, as others have said, the temperature of the light source, filters, and saturation plus possible digital enhancement can all help bring out the "beastly beauty." However, note that the $5 Liberty has only been tipped in the light to completely change the coin's color. No tricks involved.

Want to prove something to all of us. I double-dog-dare you to dip the coin in Ezest and try to duplicate what you refer to as a "trick."

clarkbar04

So I asked the seller how they got the coin to look like that, stating that in all honesty I just wanted to know. I got a "dear John" letter with the coin saying it looks nothing like the coin. (I'll say once more, those colors are nowhere on the coin. It seems nobody believes me and in some cases siding with the seller.)

Anyway they bought the coin from GSC and then FURTHER enhanced the coin. The resulting product is nowhere close to reality.

This coin is an au58 and has none of those colors, it's all a trick. There is no red, no target, no nothing. No matter how much or what kid of light.

If anybody here saw this coin in a 5 dollar junk box it would stay there for years.

BryceM

BryceM

These are all the same photo with different post-processing "adjustments". As others have said, the angle of the light makes a huge difference too. A good photo will be true to the look and character of the coin in-hand.

clarkbar04

none of those takes much imagination to process. If I saw the last pic only I'd think juiced or saturated. The others look like just different lighting or tilting. That's a super cool 1806 (half?) btw.

cameonut2011

I'm afraid to ask: Is the first one a GSC photo?

Justacommeman

That buffalo must have shook the color off of himself intransit

mark

BackroadJunkie

@clarkbar04 said:
I've seen juicing which is usually somewhat evident but this beats all, if not for the spot on the face I'd have no idea it was the same coin.

Adjust gamma, increase saturation.

Done!

ricko

Looks as if you got a coin that had been photographically juiced. My worst fear is buying a blast white coin that arrives totally tarnished.... Cheers, RickO

Insider2

@clarkbar04 said: "This coin is an au58 and has none of those colors, it's all a trick. There is no red, no target, no nothing. No matter how much or what kid of light. If anybody here saw this coin in a 5 dollar junk box it would stay there for years."

Where is that junk box!

@clarkbar04 said: "There is a little bit of color underneath the buffalo which outlines his belly, and some in the field by his head and legs. Other than that it is a complete fabrication. There are no reds or greens anywhere and the whole top half of the coin isn't toned."

So which is it?

As I posted above, there is something on the surface that is definitely colored. As an education thing rather than an argument, does anyone besides me see the arc of discoloration up the leg and into the middle of the Bison's back in the "washed out" second image? That is part of the residue that is turning color when the image is either altered photographically or tipped in the light.

ctf_error_coins

All about lighting and angles .....and of course some over saturation. Same coin for sure.

I see plenty of color in your photo and I know by tipping it slightly a whole bunch more color will come out.

crazyhounddog

The OP has the coin in hand and sees no color. The OP is a seasoned collector and knows how to look at coins to find the color. What's the deal here?

Insider2

@crazyhounddog said: "The OP has the coin in hand and sees no color. The OP is a seasoned collector and knows how to look at coins to find the color. What's the deal here?"

This - I posted:

@clarkbar04 said: "This coin is an au58 and has none of those colors, it's all a trick. There is no red, no target, no nothing. No matter how much or what kid of light. If anybody here saw this coin in a 5 dollar junk box it would stay there for years."

@clarkbar04 said: "There is a little bit of color underneath the buffalo which outlines his belly, and some in the field by his head and legs. Other than that it is a complete fabrication. There are no reds or greens anywhere and the whole top half of the coin isn't toned."

So which is it?

No offense to the OP but I've heard from a long-time grading instructors and FUN board member that very many of the collectors/dealers he has taught or dealt with have problems with color-blindness (that cannot be the OP as he sees color under the belly). He continues to advise collectors he lectures to have their eyes checked.

The OP has the coin in-hand. In one post he sees a little color; yet claims the coin does not in the next. Lighting plays tricks on us. Professional authenticators very often take an image of a coin and surprise, surprise...they see things on it that are virtually invisible even while using a stereo microscope.

I have watched our IT person "doctor" an Image for publication. As has been written above: The OP's coin may not have the volcano of colors on it and it may be photographically enhanced; however, there is something on the coin that turns color without any enhancement. That's all.

clarkbar04

Well I certainly got lawyered in this thread! It has exactly as much color as you can see in my pic, and every bit as dull. It has about 0.5% of the color as the sellers photo indicates.

if I were selling this (and I wouldn't) I'd likely not even mention the toning, it is so slight and buried.

spacehayduke

@Fairlaneman said:
I see some color also. Just a "Cartoon" photo. You see a bunch of them on this forum.

Ken

Actually the majority of the images on this forum are not cartoon photos but accurate depictions of the coins in hand. Many here have an eye for strongly toned coins, I certainly do. I try to show them as they are, occasionally tipping the coin at an angle to the light will bright out the colors that may otherwise be subdued if shot straight on. I rarely see a juiced up image of a strongly toned coin similar to the bottom image in BryceM's post on these boards. As noted so far on this thread, the lighting, right angle of the camera in relation to the coin, etc. will determine the image of the coin and whether one can depict colorful toning properly. In the images of the OP, those are far different in terms of manipulation. The colors seem 'tooled' with none of the originally gray surface color left. Similar to BryceM's bottom images where the grays on the surface of the coin are now trending towards red. That image is heavily juiced up, but different in the manipulation than the OP's post.

Here is an image of a strongly toned coin I just posted on another thread.

Here are the RAW unmodified images taken directly from the camera memory.

Here is my preferred image with some very small tweaks in Photoshop that I think best depicts the coin when viewed under a light at an angle in hand, that really brings out the colors. This is typical of what I see in this forum and are not Cartoon images but realistic images of what the coin looks like when the colors are brought out by the lighting.

Here is a 'Cartoon' jooced image.

BStrauss3

OP is an experienced collector, but he didn't say he's an experienced photographer nor experienced with post processing, so he may not be aware that the camera records images with three color sensors which have different sensitivities than your eye.

To see this, take a picture of a coin and then start changing values in the saturation, gamma, or even the RGB histograms. You will be amazed at what you can produce.

clarkbar04

Maybe I can have the Hubble telescope image it's gamma radiation akin to a gas cloud a million light years away.

For the record, I don't WANT to know how to take images like this, the point of the thread was to show a coin that is as over-processed as I've ever seen.

but I'm probably just not looking at it right.

Insider2

Ain't computers wonderful!

ad4400

@clarkbar04 saiid C'mon, I know how to look at coins.>

Have to go with digital enhancement myself. Like others have said the original poster is a seasoned collector. He has posted any number of coins that he ferreted out of others bad images, He most certainly knows what he is looking at, most certainly when the piece is in hand .

Sorry this purchase did not work out for you. I know you were very excited about it based on the image