Taking pictures of slabbed coins.

Darkhorse · December 19, 2003 3:24PM

I will be photographing some slabbed coins soon for somebody and I'm wondering what techniques some people here use.
What's your lighting setup? How do you position the coin? do you shoot on an angle and then readjust the proportions in photoshop? Do you use something like a polarizing filter to get rid of some of the glare on the plastic? Or is it all a matter of foolin' around until I find what works?

Placid · December 19, 2003 5:32PM

Its all a matter of foolin' around until you find what works in my opinion.

nwcs · December 19, 2003 10:47PM

I use a digital camera with no filters and the same setup I'd use with raw coins. Because it is digital, I do whatever needs to be done to correct the image in Photoshop. Also, I'll usually run an unsharp mask filter at around 35% to 50% power to correct for shooting through plastic. As for the glare, I position the lights in such a way as the glare is just outside of the coin area and crop it out. I also mute the lights a bit with coffee filter paper over the light which softens it to reduce glare and yet not mute out the luster captured.

Here is a good example of what the results look like. Note that backgrounds of the slabs will make a difference to your photo result.

FC57Coins · December 19, 2003 10:55PM

Yup - pretty much what they said above. You just have to experiment and find what works best for you. For me, since I tend to like shooting toned coins, I find that a combination of flourescent and Reveal light works best - but I have to fool around with angles and such until I get it right and then fix the picture with software to get it right.

Taking pictures of slabbed coins.

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