Fritipedia - User contributions [en-gb]

Evil Devitrifying Purple

2020-09-05T15:17:47Z

Dickie:

Otherwise known as EDP

An [[Effetre]] [[handpulled]] colour, number 254. [[Opaque]] [[glass]] that produces a range of lovely purples. Named EDP because of its tendency to [[devitrify]] - loose its glassy-ness - when worked in certain temperature zones, you will see the glass go rough looking, it is possible to get rid of the [[devitrification]] by heating the [[glass]].

There is a good [[tutorial]] on wet canvas about how to work EDP [http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120817&highlight=sweet+dreamy+purple here].

Sandpit

2020-09-05T14:53:30Z

Dickie: /* Wiki Editing Game!!! Log in (FHF username & p'word), click 'Edit' and add your name to the bottom of the list! */

Use this page if you're not sure how to edit a wiki but want to have a play. Log into the wiki using your FHF user name and password, then come back to this page and click on 'edit' at the top to play around. Use the menu on the left to upload files (e.g. a picture), but if you think you want to do this half way through editing a page, save it first, then come back to it - I just fell into that trap!
Don't forget to click 'Save Page' at the bottom once you're done, so you can admire your handywork!

PLEASE LEAVE THE TEXT ABOVE, BUT FEEL FREE TO CHANGE ANYTHING BELOW!

== '''Wiki Editing Game'''!!! Log in (FHF username & p'word), click 'Edit' and add your name to the bottom of the list! ==

Does this mean I'm editing and why is it called a sandpit? I can't add a photo as I'm not on my own PC but I can say hello

Sarah

Or does it mean I edited in the wrong place? - whoops

There is no wrong :o) And yes, you edited! Well done you! If you want a bullet point in front of your name in the list, just go back into Edit and see what looks different regarding your name on the list and the others. That little asterisk becomes a bullet point :o) And it's a sandpit because that's where you go and play ;o) Maybe I should have called it a Fritpit?

Oh I like the idea of a frit pit - and I don't want a bullet point - I like to be different (or awkward as my Dad used to say)

=== Tip ===
Another tip is to add a space before each line which makes the text look like code, or standout
So this text has a space in front of it
That's all, nothing clever, and it appears in this little box.
Cool ha?
So there you go
--[[User:Dickie|Dickie]] 16:49, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Like this?

Did that work?

Oooh it did!

my go..hope this works!

Wa-hey I made a box ;)

Some new text

== YES!!! I too have edited the wiki and am a wiki virgin no longer!! ==

Sarah (who will get there in the end)

*Sparrow-Sabine
*Dee
*Stacy
*Lush! - Julie
*Kevie192 - Kevin
*Garish Globes - Emma (but it took some doing!)
*Yay saffie here too - Sam gotta play more i think!!!
*Miss Pixie - Lucy
*Becci Fired Silver - Hoorah!
*Kathryn - turnedlight
*Heather - Bumpy Beads woz 'ere!
*Jolene - Howdy fellow Lampies
[[Image:NZ-blog5.jpg]]

That's using the 'insert image button, but you have to upload a pic first!
(use code like this <tt><nowiki>[[Image:NZ-blog5.jpg]]</nowiki></tt>

It is also possible to do stuff to the images... (like resizing) (note image in the centre is a smaller version of 100px)

[[image:NZ-blog5.jpg|center|thumb|100px|Shells]]

This uses code like this <tt><nowiki>[[image:NZ-blog5.jpg|center|thumb|100px|Shells]]</nowiki></tt>

See the following link for more details on images [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Images Help With images on MediaWiki]

<gallery>
Image:NZ-blog5.jpg|Hey, I like
Image:NZ-blog5.jpg| making a gallery.
Image:NZ-blog5.jpg|This is cool!
Image:NZ-blog5.jpg
Image:NZ-blog5.jpg
Image:NZ-blog5.jpg
Image:NZ-blog5.jpg
Image:NZ-blog5.jpg
</gallery>

Teehee!!! :o)))))

You will also want to link to other pages... this is done by surrounding the text to link with 2 sets of square braces like this...

<tt><nowiki>[[Text to link]]</nowiki></tt>

So if I want to add a link to [[Cleaning beads]] I just add the brackets around it... it's that simple.

== Kevin's Test ==

I hope this picture works :D

[[Image:charmbracelet.jpg|center]]

It worked Kevin :) --[[User:Dee|Dee]] 18:16, 12 November 2008 (UTC)Dee

Test...--[[User:Dietmar|Dietmar]] 19:56, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

== Questions ==

Dickie, why didn't we get a wiki with WYSIWYG? :o)

Because it wouldn't have been a Wiki!! Wikis Use Wikitext !!
To be honest WYSIWYG is overrated, as it generally screws things up with no easy way to fix it, and you forever have to go back and edit the html to correct things. Wikitext is not ''that'' difficult to learn, and once you get the hang of it think how much use you will be to the '''''Wikis at large'''''...
I also thought that using the same software that runs Wikipedia would be
* More secure.
* More stable.
* Scalable.
* Easier for people to use who know about Wikis
* Not to difficult to learn
* Not something new to learn
* A known quantity.
It just seemed to make sense, sorry

Awww, okay then :o) I like the idea of 'building capacity' for the wikis at large, *gg*

[[Category:Testing]]

MediaWiki:Userlogin

2012-04-23T21:28:39Z

Dickie: Created page with 'Log in'

Fritipedia

2012-03-28T22:48:39Z

Dickie: Protected "Fritipedia" ([edit=sysop] (indefinite) [move=sysop] (indefinite))

__NOTOC__
[[Image:FritHappens_Wiki_large_Horiz.png‎|center|no-frame]]

Click here to return back to [http://www.frit-happens.co.uk/forum/ Frit Happens! Forum]

== Introduction ==
Welcome to the Frit Happens! wiki... Otherwise known as '''{{SITENAME}}'''.
We hope you find it useful informative and fun.

== Frit Happens! ==
...Does it? We hope not, and with the help of {{SITENAME}} you will hopefully be better informed

In case you are confused as to where to start, here are a few links to get you going. Once you have found a page you can navigate around by following the links to other articles that are within the article that you are reading.

*[[Frit]]
*[[Glass]]
*[[Cleaning beads]]
*[[Annealing]]
*[[Lampworking]]
*[[Frit Happens!]]

For More information on using and editing {{SITENAME}} please see [[Help:Contents|the help section]]

== Get Writing ==
If you want to know what pages need writing, then having a look at the [[Special:WantedPages|pages that need writing]] is a good idea.

== Sandpit ==
If you want to have a go but are too scared you might muck something up then there is a [[Sandpit]] to play in where you can muck around without worrying about changing a valid page.
It's important to realise that it is '''not''' possible to destroy a page completely (or even a little bit for that matter), well OK you can... but only temporarily, because we can always go to back to ''any'' older version of a page. So don't worry, edit away!

Coefficient of Expansion

2010-09-23T22:43:31Z

Dickie:

Coefficient of Expansion or COE, describes by how much a material will expand per degree of temperature increase. Different types of glass have different COEs.

Glass, like many materials, expands as it gets hotter and contracts as it cools. The Coefficient of Expansion for glass is a way of describing the degree of expansion. When two rods of glass are melted together, it is important that their COE is the same so that they are expanding and contracting at the same rate. If you attempt to melt two rods with different COEs together, they will contract at different rates as they cool, producing stress within the piece you have made which could lead to breakage.

COE

2010-09-23T22:42:42Z

Dickie: COE moved to Coefficient of Expansion: Canonical name change

#REDIRECT [[Coefficient of Expansion]]

Coefficient of Expansion

2010-09-23T22:42:42Z

Dickie: COE moved to Coefficient of Expansion: Canonical name change

COE, or Coefficient of Expansion, describes by how much a material will expand per degree of temperature increase. Different types of glass have different COE's.

Glass, like many materials, expands as it gets hotter and contracts as it cools. The Coefficient of Expansion for glass is a way of describing the degree of expansion. When two rods of glass are melted together, it is important that their COE is the same so that they are expanding and contracting at the same rate. If you attempt to melt two rods with different COE's together, they will contract at different rates as they cool, producing stress within the piece you have made which could lead to breakage.

Annealing

2010-08-26T08:29:40Z

Dickie:

In [[glass bead making]] annealing refers to the process by which the [[glass]] is heated up to within the [[annealing range]] of the particular glass that was used to make the bead. It is then held there for a specified amount of time (depending on the size of the piece) and then cooled down gradually at a constant rate (for example 1°C per minute). This eliminates the stresses within the glass that were introduced in the process of making the bead.

This is because [[Glass]] is a very poor conductor of heat and as it cools it does so unevenly, unless cooled slowly. This means that while the outside of the piece may have cooled below the [[strain point]] the core of the piece may well still be much higher (maybe even still above the [[softening point]]. The upshot of this is that as it cools stresses build up.

If these stresses are not removed from the [[glass]] then it may cause the bead to shatter or crack in the future. This could happen at any time, even years in the future.

(In [[silversmithing]] annealing is the process of changing the structure of silver to make it workable!)

== Why you need to anneal your beads ==
[[Image:Bead_Annealing.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Here you can see the effect of not annealing your beads. By using polarising filters to show the stress. The bead on the right has not been annealed, you can see the stress in the bead as the blue and orange coloured parts, the bead on the left '''has''' been annealed and shows no coloured sections (note that the dark areas are just shadows and reflections)]]
If you are planning to make glass beads to sell then they must be annealed. This means that the bead is more durable and less like to shatter ruining the jewellery item that has been made

== How to tell if your beads are annealed ==
There are a variety of tests that you can use to test if your beads are annealed some more "scientific" than others.
===Bounce test===
This means you can bounce your glass bead on a concrete or tiled floor and it will remain intact. This is not truly recommended although dropping does occur regularly by accident!!! This may lead to slight chipping of an otherwise totally acceptable bead!

===Cold to hot test===
This involves making your bead very cold i.e. putting it in the fridge and then transferring it rapidly to hot water. This is NOT recommended as the glass bead may be perfectly annealed but the thermal shock may cause it to shatter!

===Polarising lenses===
This is probabaly the most reliable method of checking your annealing schedule. This involves holding the glass bead between two polarising lenses up to a light source and looking for stresses in the glass. These show up as coloured areas in the glass. (see [[Media:Bead_Annealing.jpg]] above) Please note: it can only be done on transparent beads.

== What Temperature should you anneal beads ==
This depends on the glass that you are using and it's [[coefficiency]]. The manufacturers of the different glasses will hold information about the [[strain point]] and the [[annealing range]] of glass which should help you to develop [[annealing schedules]] on your [[kiln]]

== For How long should you Anneal Beads ==
It is '''not''' possible to over anneal glass, but you can certainly under-anneal.

The length of time needed to anneal [[glass]] is dependant on the size of the piece at it's thickest part. The bigger it is, the more time is needed, as the bigger the piece the more time it takes for the glass temperature to stabilise in the kiln, until ultimately the entire piece is at the same uniform temperature.

The rampdown rate is also related to the size of the piece, as larger pieces require a slower ramp down towards the [[strain point]]

As a rule of thumb for beads no larger than an inch or so, you should anneal for an hour.

==Annealing ==

=== Annealing Schedule for COE 104 Silver Glass in a Paragon SC2 - as you go ===

A lot of silver glass likes lower temperatures - but to compensate, you'll need a longer soak time. This is what I use for my SC2 annealing as you go ....

Ramp 1 - 700

Temp 1 487°C (910°F)

Hold 12 hours - I set this long and skip when I'm done!

Ramp 2 78

Temp 2 493°C (920°F)

Hold 2 hours

Ramp 3 78

Temp 148°C (300°F)

Hold 0

Ramp 0

=== ANNEAL AS-YOU-GO – Paragon SC2 ===
Good for COE 90 and 104 glass

Segment 1:
Ramp1 900 deg C
Temp1 500 deg C
Hold1 12 HRS

Segment 2:
Ramp2 FULL
Temp2 520 deg C '''**'''
Hold2 1 HR

Segment 3:
Ramp3 78 deg C
Temp3 370 deg C
Hold3 0000mins

Segment 4:
Ramp4 0000

In segment 1 I set the holding time to 12 hours, but as soon as I have put in the last bead for the day I skip to segment 2. On the sentry 3.0 controller you do that by pressing the up arrow twice, on the sentry 4.0 controller you skip a segment by pressing up arrow once. SStP should appear in the window. Press start.

With annealing as you go it is vital the bead is properly flame-annealed before putting it into the kiln, i.e. first the bead needs to be warmed through, then flame-annealed in the outer part of the flame until it does not glow anymore before going into the kiln. If too hot it will stick to other beads or kiln floor, if not evenly warmed before flame-annealed it might crack down the middle of the mandrel (and yes, I have experienced both , luckily with no great consequences).

'''**'''If I’m using kiln striking colours, or colours that need a higher temp (ie CiM’s Halong Bay & Peacock) – in segment 2, I increase the temp to 545°C

NB – if you have some beads previously made and not annealed, you can pop them in the kiln just before you fire up this schedule.

== FAQ ==

=== I'm impatient... When can I remove my beads from the Kiln? ===
When your [[kiln]] temperature has dropped below the [[strain point]] of the [[glass]] you are using it is safe to drop the temperature much more quickly. You still need to be careful as your beads could suffer [[thermal shock]], in the same way that a glass rod can shatter if you just plunge it into the flame without warming it up, this is different from [[stress cracking]].

When the kiln is well below the [[strain point]] (at around 200°C, maybe higher) you can part open the door of your kiln to speed the process of cooling, as the natural thermal capacity of the [[kiln]] will still stop the [[beads]] from cooling too quickly. Remember below the [[strain point]] the only damage you can do to your bead is [[thermal shock]] cooling them quickly now will '''not''' affect the annealing process.

Once the kiln is below 100°C it is possible to to open the [[kiln]] door fully, and allow the kiln to drop much more quickly.

Once the beads are at a safe temperature to handle (less than 50 - 60°C ) You can carefully remove the beads and admire your work. (remember they may be hotter than you think, be prepared to put them back in the kiln).

Please be aware that while the beads are still warm keep them away from any cold drafts as although it is very unlikely there is still a chance they may thermaly shock.

Please remember that it is better to be safe than sorry. If you are at all concerned or have just made the [[world's best bead]], then you need to learn some patience, and be a bit more conservative. Maybe even waiting till the morning before opening your [[kiln]].

Devitification

2010-04-26T10:22:59Z

Dickie: Redirecting to Devitrification

#REDIRECT [[Devitrification]]

Devitrification

2010-04-26T10:21:22Z

Dickie: New page: Take a look at the link below to find out more about devitrification http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devitrification

Take a look at the link below to find out more about devitrification

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devitrification

Bead Photography

2009-03-04T12:19:35Z

Dickie: Redirecting to Photography

#REDIRECT [[Photography]]

Silvered ivory stringer

2009-02-09T00:28:37Z

Dickie: Redirecting to SIS

#REDIRECT [[SIS]]

SIS

2009-02-09T00:27:45Z

Dickie: Added list formatting

SIS stands for silvered ivory [[stringer]]. It is often added to create organic looking effects on the surface of a lampwork bead design.

== How to make silvered ivory stringer ==

# Cut some silver leaf the length of the square by about 1" place on your non flamable work surface/marver
# Take one commercially pulled ivory stringer
# If your posh dip your finger in water, if your like me a good bit of slobber works fine, wet the first 4" (or how ever long your piece of silver leaf is) of the stringer.
# Roll your stringer over the silver so it wraps around your stringer, the wet will make it cling like a magnet.
# Flash through the flame quickly and gently to burnish the silver to the stringer.
# Apply to your bead by laying it on and let it melt in....voila!

Tutorial by Lorna Prime of [http://www.pixiewillowdesigns.com/ Pixie Willow Designs]

Murrini

2009-01-24T15:50:56Z

Dickie:

Need to add ''what are Murrini'' section

== Rough Guide to using Murrini ==

Below is a guide from Jolene Wolfe of [http://www.kitzbitzartglass.com kitzbitz art glass]

Spot heat on the bead where you want the murrini to go and have the murrini at the ready held in some tweezers. Make sure you leave a bit of murrini sticking out from the ends of the tweezers otherwise your tweezers may get stuck on the base bead when you attach.

When your base bead is glowing, quickly waft the murrini in the top of the flame to warm slightly. Bring both the murrini and bead out of the flame and attach.

Hold the bead in the top of the flame whilst you heat some clear glass. Dab a small amount of clear on top of the murrini to keep the pattern from closing up when it is heated.

Slowly melt the murrini down in to the base bead. You may want to help the process along by flattening the murrini gently with a [[marver]] when it is soft. If you press down at an angle the pattern on your murrini will become distorted. Another method is to melt the entire murrini in to the base bead without pressing it at all which will make the pattern spread out further on the surface of the bead. Be careful not to let the base bead get too hot as it will begin to flow and distort your murrini.

This takes a bit of practice but the results can be stunning

Northstar

2009-01-10T02:03:52Z

Dickie: /* Users Guide */

Northstar Glassworks INC produce [[boro]] glass rods for lampwork. They currently have 116 [[boro]] colours in their pallette. Northstar also have a small but beautiful range of silver rich glass rods that are [[CoE]] 104. These are sold under the name [[Precision 104]]

Here's the user guide - from Northstar for 104 glass (Jan 09) - www.northstarglass.com
Thanks to Nancy at Northstar for sending the information and allowing me to share it with you!

==Northstar Glassworks, Inc Precision 104 Soft Glass==

===Users Guide===

Basic [[Striking]] Guide for Precision 104 [[Soft Glass]]
#Use adequate [[ventilation]] for silver rich colors.
#Use a [[neutral flame]] (shortest yellow candle) while making your piece.
#To strike, remove your piece from the flame until it is no longer glowing.
#Change to slightly [[reducing flame]] by turning [[propane]] up or [[oxygen]] down.
#Reheat your piece until the [[glass]] is glowing again.
#Remove your piece from the flame and watch the colors develop.
#To further develop the colors repeat steps 4-6 until satisfied with the end result.
#To remove part of all of these effects, reheat at the tip of an [[oxidizing flame]].

[[Annealing]] Temperature 940-960 F (504-515°C)

'''SPC401 Rocio Silver Mist'''

We recommend you use a neutral [[oxidizing flame]] when melting in the glass in the [[torch]] when you are ready for final color development. Reduce multiple times and tease the colors out at the back of the flame, several times. The more times you do this, the better the color.

'''SPC402 Picasso Silver Blue'''

This one likes a lot of reduction heat, but don't overdo it. Just roll it around in the flame until you see the haze appear, let it cool a bit, and then go back to a neutral flame. Reduce multiple times and tease the colors out at the back of the flame several times. The more times you do this, the better the color.

'''SPC403 Chagall Dark Silver Blue'''

A light reduction is all that is needed to get these colors to develop. Turn down your oxy a bit until you get a small, bushy flame. Pass your work in and out until you get the colors you want. The colors pop almost immediately. Let it cool a bit, then go back to a neutral flame. SPC403 Chagall has deeper blues, but you can get a bright, metallic blue finish, and also have iridescent rainbow in spots, depending on how long it is worked.

'''SPC404 Monet Silver Amethyst'''

Simply reduce to get amazing colors. A light reduction is all that is needed to get these colors to pop. Turn down your oxygen a bit until you get a small, bushy flame. Pass the glass in and out until you get the desired results. The colors pop almost immediately. Let it cool a bit and then go back to a neutral flame.

'''SPC405 DaVinci 1 Transparent'''

We recommend that you use a neutral [[oxidizing flame]] when you are ready for final color development. Reduce multiple times at the back of the flame. The more frequently you do this, the better the color. Want to bring the silver to the surface? Use a more reducing ….turn up your gas (or turn down your oxygen!)

'''SPC406 DaVinci 2 Double Amber Purple'''

This color is Van Gogh’s younger twin. Work it VERY hot until it is transparent on the surface. Then cool and watch it begin to turn a dark orange or brown. Depending on if and WHEN you encase it, you will get different colors. If you encase it soon after it begins to darken, you will get blues and greens. If you let the dark brown really develop before you encase, you will get more blues and magentas. Depending on how you treat it after you encase, or not, you may get pinks, rose, lavenders and creams. But you have to get it pretty hot to begin with. Use a very neutral flame.

'''SPC407 Van Gogh Caramel'''

Work it VERY hot until it is transparent on the surface. Then cool and watch it turn a dark orange or brown. Depending on if and WHEN you encase, you will get different colors. If you encase it soon after it begins to turn dark, you will get blues and greens. If you let the dark brown really develop before you encase, you will get more blues and magentas. Depending on how you treat it after you encase, or not, you may get pinks, rose, lavenders and creams. But you have to get it pretty hot to begin with. Use a very neutral flame.

'''SPC408 Diamond Clear'''

This is the mother glass for all Precision 104 colors. Diamond Clear works well with other silver rich colors with no cracking problems. The glass is fairly bubble free. Don’t work it too hot or you will see small bubbles rise to the surface. Experiment with your flame settings to achieve the cleanest clear on the market. Heat this glass slowly in an oxidizing flame. Enjoy!

'''SPC409 Kandinsky Geen Exotic'''

This color is like Matisse Red Exotic. It has the same melting characteristics. REDUCE THE HECK OUT IF IT!! Trick: The copper color burns off easily, so you need to reduce and pull out of the flame. You can wave it around to keep it hot, but don’t burn it all off. Keep it out of the flame. Encase. Reacts well with copper green, intense black and ivory.

'''SPC410 Matisse Red'''

REDUCE THE HECK OUT IF IT!! Trick: the copper color burns off easily, so you need to reduce and pull it out of the flame. You can wave it around to keep it hot, but don’t burn the copper color off. Keep it out of the flame! Encase, and then shape it. Reacts will with copper green, intense black and ivory.

'''SPC411 Rembrandt'''

Wow! This color is a beautiful neon green with tons of silver reactions. Work this color in a neutral to oxidizing flame. After final shaping and details are complete, reduce in a soft, fluffy flame. This will bring out lots of metallic and lustrous colors. Don’t over reduce unless that is the color you are looking for. This is Abe Fleishman’s (the creator of all Precision 104 colors) favorite color because of the wild colors you can achieve.

'''SPC412 Sashas Silver'''

Work this color in a neutral to oxidizing flame. This color is really easy to get results from. Heat hot and after shaping, reduce in and out of the flame to get the desired color effect. This color will produce heavy metallic and lustrous tones.

'''SPC413 Garzoni Giovanna'''

We recommend you use a neutral oxidizing flame when melting the glass at the torch. When you are ready for final color development, reduce multiple times and tease the colors out at the back of the flame. The more frequently you repeat this, the better the color. Use a little heaver reduction flame (extra propane or natural gas) to bring the silver to the surface.

'''SPC414 Black Pearl'''

A light reduction is all that is needed to get the amazing colors to pop! Turn down your oxy slightly until you have a small, bushy flame. Pass in and out of the flame until you achieve the desired results. The colors pop almost immediately. Cool a bit, then continue in a neutral flame.

'''SPC415 Abes Ivy'''

SPC-415 Abes Ivy is a light transparent aquamarine blue color that can yield many hues including metallic blues, copper reds and sea greens. When reduced, this color can yield earthy reds and browns. Because of its high silver content it will react very quickly in the flame so be careful not to over reduce. To yield other interesting effects, try encasing Abes Ivy with SPC-408 Diamond Clear or backing it with an opaque color like Bright White or Ivory. This color can be stretched thin, so it is well suited for delicate blown work, stringer application, beads, sculptures and cane work. We recommend use of a neutral oxidizing flame when melting the color in the flame and to achieve the most vivid colors. Wave the piece in the flame to bring out the silver.

Neutral flame

2009-01-10T02:02:10Z

Dickie: Redirecting to Oxidising and reducing#Neutral flame

#REDIRECT [[Oxidising_and_reducing#Neutral_flame]]

Reducing flame

2009-01-10T02:02:03Z

Dickie: Redirecting to Oxidising and reducing#Reducing flame

#REDIRECT [[Oxidising_and_reducing#Reducing_flame]]

Oxidizing flame

2009-01-10T02:01:31Z

Dickie: Redirecting to Oxidising and reducing#Oxidising flame

#REDIRECT [[Oxidising_and_reducing#Oxidising_flame]]

Northstar

2009-01-10T02:00:13Z

Dickie:

Northstar Glassworks INC produce [[boro]] glass rods for lampwork. They currently have 116 [[boro]] colours in their pallette. Northstar also have a small but beautiful range of silver rich glass rods that are [[CoE]] 104. These are sold under the name [[Precision 104]]

Here's the user guide - from Northstar for 104 glass (Jan 09) - www.northstarglass.com
Thanks to Nancy at Northstar for sending the information and allowing me to share it with you!

==Northstar Glassworks, Inc Precision 104 Soft Glass==

===Users Guide===

Basic [[Striking]] Guide for Precision 104 [[Soft Glass]]
1. Use adequate [[ventilation]] for silver rich colors.
2. Use a [[neutral flame]] (shortest yellow candle) while making your piece.
3. To strike, remove your piece from the flame until it is no longer glowing.
4. Change to slightly [[reducing flame]] by turning [[propane]] up or [[oxygen]] down.
5. Reheat your piece until the [[glass]] is glowing again.
6. Remove your piece from the flame and watch the colors develop.
7. To further develop the colors repeat steps 4-6 until satisfied with the end result.
8. To remove part of all of these effects, reheat at the tip of an [[oxidizing flame]].

[[Annealing]] Temperature 940-960 F (504-515°C)

'''SPC401 Rocio Silver Mist'''

We recommend you use a neutral [[oxidizing flame]] when melting in the glass in the [[torch]] when you are ready for final color development. Reduce multiple times and tease the colors out at the back of the flame, several times. The more times you do this, the better the color.

'''SPC402 Picasso Silver Blue'''

This one likes a lot of reduction heat, but don't overdo it. Just roll it around in the flame until you see the haze appear, let it cool a bit, and then go back to a neutral flame. Reduce multiple times and tease the colors out at the back of the flame several times. The more times you do this, the better the color.

'''SPC403 Chagall Dark Silver Blue'''

A light reduction is all that is needed to get these colors to develop. Turn down your oxy a bit until you get a small, bushy flame. Pass your work in and out until you get the colors you want. The colors pop almost immediately. Let it cool a bit, then go back to a neutral flame. SPC403 Chagall has deeper blues, but you can get a bright, metallic blue finish, and also have iridescent rainbow in spots, depending on how long it is worked.

'''SPC404 Monet Silver Amethyst'''

Simply reduce to get amazing colors. A light reduction is all that is needed to get these colors to pop. Turn down your oxygen a bit until you get a small, bushy flame. Pass the glass in and out until you get the desired results. The colors pop almost immediately. Let it cool a bit and then go back to a neutral flame.

'''SPC405 DaVinci 1 Transparent'''

We recommend that you use a neutral [[oxidizing flame]] when you are ready for final color development. Reduce multiple times at the back of the flame. The more frequently you do this, the better the color. Want to bring the silver to the surface? Use a more reducing ….turn up your gas (or turn down your oxygen!)

'''SPC406 DaVinci 2 Double Amber Purple'''

This color is Van Gogh’s younger twin. Work it VERY hot until it is transparent on the surface. Then cool and watch it begin to turn a dark orange or brown. Depending on if and WHEN you encase it, you will get different colors. If you encase it soon after it begins to darken, you will get blues and greens. If you let the dark brown really develop before you encase, you will get more blues and magentas. Depending on how you treat it after you encase, or not, you may get pinks, rose, lavenders and creams. But you have to get it pretty hot to begin with. Use a very neutral flame.

'''SPC407 Van Gogh Caramel'''

Work it VERY hot until it is transparent on the surface. Then cool and watch it turn a dark orange or brown. Depending on if and WHEN you encase, you will get different colors. If you encase it soon after it begins to turn dark, you will get blues and greens. If you let the dark brown really develop before you encase, you will get more blues and magentas. Depending on how you treat it after you encase, or not, you may get pinks, rose, lavenders and creams. But you have to get it pretty hot to begin with. Use a very neutral flame.

'''SPC408 Diamond Clear'''

This is the mother glass for all Precision 104 colors. Diamond Clear works well with other silver rich colors with no cracking problems. The glass is fairly bubble free. Don’t work it too hot or you will see small bubbles rise to the surface. Experiment with your flame settings to achieve the cleanest clear on the market. Heat this glass slowly in an oxidizing flame. Enjoy!

'''SPC409 Kandinsky Geen Exotic'''

This color is like Matisse Red Exotic. It has the same melting characteristics. REDUCE THE HECK OUT IF IT!! Trick: The copper color burns off easily, so you need to reduce and pull out of the flame. You can wave it around to keep it hot, but don’t burn it all off. Keep it out of the flame. Encase. Reacts well with copper green, intense black and ivory.

'''SPC410 Matisse Red'''

REDUCE THE HECK OUT IF IT!! Trick: the copper color burns off easily, so you need to reduce and pull it out of the flame. You can wave it around to keep it hot, but don’t burn the copper color off. Keep it out of the flame! Encase, and then shape it. Reacts will with copper green, intense black and ivory.

'''SPC411 Rembrandt'''

Wow! This color is a beautiful neon green with tons of silver reactions. Work this color in a neutral to oxidizing flame. After final shaping and details are complete, reduce in a soft, fluffy flame. This will bring out lots of metallic and lustrous colors. Don’t over reduce unless that is the color you are looking for. This is Abe Fleishman’s (the creator of all Precision 104 colors) favorite color because of the wild colors you can achieve.

'''SPC412 Sashas Silver'''

Work this color in a neutral to oxidizing flame. This color is really easy to get results from. Heat hot and after shaping, reduce in and out of the flame to get the desired color effect. This color will produce heavy metallic and lustrous tones.

'''SPC413 Garzoni Giovanna'''

We recommend you use a neutral oxidizing flame when melting the glass at the torch. When you are ready for final color development, reduce multiple times and tease the colors out at the back of the flame. The more frequently you repeat this, the better the color. Use a little heaver reduction flame (extra propane or natural gas) to bring the silver to the surface.

'''SPC414 Black Pearl'''

A light reduction is all that is needed to get the amazing colors to pop! Turn down your oxy slightly until you have a small, bushy flame. Pass in and out of the flame until you achieve the desired results. The colors pop almost immediately. Cool a bit, then continue in a neutral flame.

'''SPC415 Abes Ivy'''

SPC-415 Abes Ivy is a light transparent aquamarine blue color that can yield many hues including metallic blues, copper reds and sea greens. When reduced, this color can yield earthy reds and browns. Because of its high silver content it will react very quickly in the flame so be careful not to over reduce. To yield other interesting effects, try encasing Abes Ivy with SPC-408 Diamond Clear or backing it with an opaque color like Bright White or Ivory. This color can be stretched thin, so it is well suited for delicate blown work, stringer application, beads, sculptures and cane work. We recommend use of a neutral oxidizing flame when melting the color in the flame and to achieve the most vivid colors. Wave the piece in the flame to bring out the silver.

Bead release

2009-01-07T22:50:00Z

Dickie:

Bead release is the substance that you put onto your [[mandrels]] to prevent your [[glass]] sticking to the metal. This means that (provided you can get the bead off)your mandrels are reusable.
There are many different brands of bead release available including:

===Foster Fire===

===Foster Fire smooth and tough===

===Sludge===

===Fusion Bead Separator===

===Bucket of Mud===

===Dip and Go Sludge===

Some bead release is available ready made and some are in powder form that you need to add water to in order to use.

C.O.E

2009-01-07T22:46:56Z

Dickie: Redirecting to Coefficient of expansion

#REDIRECT [[Coefficient of expansion]]

Coe

2009-01-07T22:46:16Z

Dickie: Redirecting to Coefficient of expansion

#REDIRECT [[Coefficient of expansion]]

Coe

2009-01-07T22:44:58Z

Dickie: Redirecting to CoE

#REDIRECT [[CoE]]

MediaWiki:Common.js

2008-12-24T02:13:17Z

Dickie:

/* Any JavaScript here will be loaded for all users on every page load. */
//This is a modified copy of a script by User:MarkS for extra features added by User:Voice of All.
// This is based on the original code on Wikipedia:Tools/Editing tools
// To disable this script, add <code>mwCustomEditButtons = [];<code> to [[Special:Mypage/monobook.js]]

if (mwCustomEditButtons) {
mwCustomEditButtons[mwCustomEditButtons.length] = {
"imageFile": "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c8/Button_redirect.png",
"speedTip": "Redirect",
"tagOpen": "#REDIRECT [[",
"tagClose": "]]",
"sampleText": "Insert text"};

mwCustomEditButtons[mwCustomEditButtons.length] = {
"imageFile": "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c9/Button_strike.png",
"speedTip": "Strike",
"tagOpen": "<s>",
"tagClose": "</s>",
"sampleText": "Strike-through text"};

mwCustomEditButtons[mwCustomEditButtons.length] = {
"imageFile": "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/13/Button_enter.png",
"speedTip": "Line break",
"tagOpen": " ",
"tagClose": "",
"sampleText": ""};

mwCustomEditButtons[mwCustomEditButtons.length] = {
"imageFile": "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/80/Button_upper_letter.png",
"speedTip": "Superscript",
"tagOpen": "",
"tagClose": "",
"sampleText": "Superscript text"};

mwCustomEditButtons[mwCustomEditButtons.length] = {
"imageFile": "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/70/Button_lower_letter.png",
"speedTip": "Subscript",
"tagOpen": "",
"tagClose": "",
"sampleText": "Subscript text"};

mwCustomEditButtons[mwCustomEditButtons.length] = {
"imageFile": "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/58/Button_small.png",
"speedTip": "Small",
"tagOpen": "",
"tagClose": "",
"sampleText": "Small Text"};

mwCustomEditButtons[mwCustomEditButtons.length] = {
"imageFile": "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/Button_hide_comment.png",
"speedTip": "Insert hidden Comment",
"tagOpen": "",
"sampleText": "Comment"};

mwCustomEditButtons[mwCustomEditButtons.length] = {
"imageFile": "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/12/Button_gallery.png",
"speedTip": "Insert a picture gallery",
"tagOpen": "\n<gallery>\n",
"tagClose": "\n</gallery>",
"sampleText": "Image:Example.jpg|Caption1\nImage:Example.jpg|Caption2"};

mwCustomEditButtons[mwCustomEditButtons.length] = {
"imageFile": "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fd/Button_blockquote.png",
"speedTip": "Insert block of quoted text",
"tagOpen": "<blockquote>\n",
"tagClose": "\n</blockquote>",
"sampleText": "Block quote"};

mwCustomEditButtons[mwCustomEditButtons.length] = {
"imageFile": "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/60/Button_insert_table.png",
"speedTip": "Insert a table",
"tagOpen": '{| class="wikitable" border="1"\n|',
"tagClose": "\n|}",
"sampleText": "-\n! header 1\n! header 2\n! header 3\n|-\n| row 1, cell 1\n| row 1, cell 2\n| row 1, cell 3\n|-\n| row 2, cell 1\n| row 2, cell 2\n| row 2, cell 3"};

mwCustomEditButtons[mwCustomEditButtons.length] = {
"imageFile": "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Button_reflink.png",
"speedTip": "Insert a reference",
"tagOpen": "<ref>",
"tagClose": "</ref>",
"sampleText": "Insert footnote text here"};
}

MediaWiki:Common.js

2008-12-24T02:08:29Z

Dickie:

/* Any JavaScript here will be loaded for all users on every page load. */
/*var button = {
"imageFile": "images/5/56/Button_big.png", //image to be shown on the button (may be a full URL too), 22x22 pixels
"speedTip": "big text", //text shown in a tooltip when hovering the mouse over the button
"tagOpen": "<big>", //the text to use to mark the beginning of the block
"tagClose": "</big>", //the text to use to mark the end of the block (if any)
"sampleText": "big text" //the sample text to place inside the block
};
mwCustomEditButtons.push(button);
*/

MediaWiki:Common.js

2008-12-24T02:06:21Z

Dickie: New page: /* Any JavaScript here will be loaded for all users on every page load. */ var button = { "imageFile": "images/5/56/Button_big.png", //image to be shown on the button (may be a fu...

/* Any JavaScript here will be loaded for all users on every page load. */
var button = {
"imageFile": "images/5/56/Button_big.png", //image to be shown on the button (may be a full URL too), 22x22 pixels
"speedTip": "big text", //text shown in a tooltip when hovering the mouse over the button
"tagOpen": "<big>", //the text to use to mark the beginning of the block
"tagClose": "</big>", //the text to use to mark the end of the block (if any)
"sampleText": "big text" //the sample text to place inside the block
};
mwCustomEditButtons.push(button);

Glass beads

2008-12-23T16:29:00Z

Dickie:

=== History of Glass Beads ===

Glass beads have been found dating from pre-historic times with finds in Egypt and Eastern Mesopotamia and are some of the oldest known works of art.

Here is an interesting article on the [http://www.geocities.com/ladysveva/BeadHistory.html History of the glass bead by Lady Sveva Lucciola]

=== Modern Glass Beads ===

In the middle Ages Venice became the glass making capital of the western world. Marco Polo is attributed with bringing the first glass beads home from Asia. The secrets of glass manufacture found their way to Venice from Syria. In 1292, the glass factories were relocated to the island of Murano both to reduce risk of fire to the city, and to protect the secrets glass manufacture.

See Wikipedia entry on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murano_beads Murano glass beads]

Reducing

2008-12-08T18:15:55Z

Dickie:

== Further information ==
[[Oxidising_and_reducing#Reducing_flame|Reducing Flame]]

Reducing

2008-12-06T23:17:29Z

Dickie: Redirecting to Oxidising and reducing#Reducing flame

#REDIRECT [[Oxidising_and_reducing#Reducing_flame]]

Satake

2008-12-06T23:15:41Z

Dickie: fixed links

Satake glass is made in Japan and is available in two types; lead and soda. Lead bearing Satake cane and Soda cane tend to be incompatible. It has a CoE which ranges between 113 and 125 which means that when you use several Satake colours together it is best to test them for [[compatibility]] first. Satake glass should be worked in a cool flame as it is very soft, much softer than [[Effetre]] and other CoE 104 glass. The [[annealing]] temperature of Satake glass is 890F.

Photography

2008-12-05T10:09:02Z

Dickie: /* Results */

[[Image:AutomaticPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|A Picture taken on fully automatic under tungsten light, notice the orange tinge to the picture and the fact that it is also underexposed (i.e. too dark) this is a common problem with all cameras]]
[[Image:WB_Adjusted.jpg|thumb|300px|This picture is now taken with the white balance set to manual in the camera by setting it from a grey card, notice the fact that although the picture is still underexposed the white paper is now grey rather than orange]]

Photography is an entire subject that could take up a whole Wiki all by itself. What follows here are some hints and tips for [[beadmakers]] wishing to get good photographs of their [[beads]] or [[glass]] work.

It is generally regarded that the better your original image (off the camera) the better the final result will be. Yes you can adjust pictures in Photoshop afterwards but the final quality of the image will suffer (see final pictures).
For the best image quality you should aim for an image that is as close to how you would like it before it even touches [[Photoshop]]. Then all you need to do in there is a bit of sharpening (perhaps) cropping and maybe adding a watermark.

== Problems with glass ==
Generally speaking [[glass]] is actually quite a difficult subject to photograph due to its reflective nature, but given a few simple tips a bit of patience and some quite simple equipment it is possible to get very good results.

== Basic Set-up ==
[[Image:Plus_1_stop.jpg‎|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with one stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is still a slight shade of grey...we still need a bit more compensation]]
[[Image:Plus_2_stops.jpg|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with two stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is now much closer to white, but interestingly now has a slight pink tinge. This is because the camera is not adjusting correctly for the white balance of the light as the exposure has changed.]]
The basic set-up required to photograph beads is actually very simple.
* A light source (desk light or window).
* White piece of paper.
* A Digital Camera.
* Tripod (if you have shaky hands, or not much light, or both)
* Oh yes and some glass work to photograph.

You do not really need more than this to take basic good quality photographs of your work.

When taking pictures with this type of equipment it is important to set up the camera correctly to get the best shot, because if you just turn your camera on and take a picture you will generally be very disappointed with the result.

'''Just to make a point, all the pictures on this page were taken with no more than a white piece of card (balanced on a clothes airer) under a halogen ceiling spotlight.''' (OK the camera was a Canon EOS 20D but I could have (and have) got very similar results with a point and shoot camera, as long as it has white balance and exposure compensation adjustment)

There are two setting that are very important that you understand to be able to take good bead photographs.

* White Balance
* Exposure Compensation

== White balance ==

===What is white?===
As many of you may know there are many types of white, our eyes are very good at compensating for different light colours and different shades of white, and we just ''know'' that something is white. Cameras on the other hand are dumb, and have to be told what white is, otherwise they will get it wrong.
Therefore the white balance setting in a camera is to make sure white is actually a white and not yellowy orange or blue.

Most cameras do this automatically when you take pictures, but quite often get it wrong, especially if there is a lot of one colour in the scene. Higher end cameras will often allow you to take a picture of something grey or white and set the cameras white balance from that picture, many low end cameras often have this feature as well, so it is well worth checking your user manual for "'''Manual white balance'''".

If your camera does not have a manual white balance setting then what you '''must''' do instead is set the white balance to match the lighting conditions. Although auto mode is OK. It often gets things wrong, but if you are taking pictures with tungsten lights then set to tungsten. etc.
Remember that direct sunlight is a different setting from shade, even though the light is coming from the same source. Shade is actually very blue in colour, so you should ensure that your camera is set to the correct setting.

=== White or grey? ===
In real life, due to the nature of white not always being ''pure white'' I would thoroughly recommend buying a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_card grey card] from the likes of [http://www.jessops.com/online.store/categories/Accessories/General%20Camera%20Accessories/Grey%20Cards/products/Jessops/Grey%20Card%208%20x%2010in-9652/Show.html Jessops]. This is calibrated to be a mid grey (often called 18% grey card) and is ideal for setting the white balance and also for getting the correct exposure as the brightness of the card is also calibrated. But if you do not have one don't worry a piece of the whitest paper you can find will be fine.

Despite the fact that white balance makes sure that white is white it should not be confused with

== Exposure Compensation ==
This ensures that white is white and not grey!!!

Basically this setting allows you to over/under expose your pictures, that may sound wrong but the reason you would need this is because all cameras have to work out the correct exposure for a given scene.

The problem comes when what you are photographing is a picture of a bead on a white piece of paper and this is certainly not typical, and the camera will under expose it. (as wrong as it might seem this is the correct behaviour as most scenes that you photograph will average out to a mid grey in terms of brightness).

Many people think that under exposed pictures like the ones shown on the right are due to not having enough light, but that is wrong, adding more lights will not solve this problem. To correct this you need to "fool" the camera into ''over exposing'' the image so that white paper actually looks white and not grey. (remember this is not to be confused with white balance as described above)

By changing the exposure compensation to add 1 or 2 [[stops]], that picture of a bead on a white piece of paper will be white and not grey and the colours in you beads will be much more vibrant, thus removing the necessity to process all your pictures in Photoshop.

== Results ==
[[Image:FinalPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|The final version that has been ''slightly'' adjusted in a photo editor, to remove the slight colour cast, and brightened just a little bit]]
[[Image:Corrected_From_Original.jpg|thumb|300px|This is the original under exposed and incorrect white balance version of the photo, but ''corrected'' in a [[photo editor]]. This is as close as I could get it to the right look. Notice though that the colour is not as vibrant as the picture above and that the shadows have a slight orange tinge. The picture is also more ''grainy''. Although this may be acceptable to you the correct version is far superior.]]
You can see the results of these above techniques in the last [[photograph]] in the series above, but I personally would tweak them a little bit in [[Photoshop]] (see the two photographs on the right).

The final two pictures are quite similar but the first one is a very ''slightly'' corrected version of the best shot from the series, this was just to correct the small amount of ''colour cast'' that was there and to brighten it just a bit more, this is because +2 stops was not quite enough, but my camera only allowed me to add 2 stops. I could have used manual mode to get it spot on, but we will go into that later.

Note that it '''is''' possible to get the pictures even better from the camera, but beware that if you push the exposure too far, then you are in danger of ''burning out'' the image, and you will then loose highlights (which you will '''not''' be able to get back). It's much better the leave a bit of ''headroom'' in the image and then adjust out that little bit in Photoshop as you are in complete control over the amount you can change the [[exposure]] by.

To show the difference in getting the picture ''right first time'' the final picture on the right is a ''[[photoshopped]]'' version of the very first badly [[underexposed]] and incorrect white balance picture at the top of this page.

Although this may not look too bad, the colour vibrancy and accuracy of the colours to the original beads is not as good, also the ''[[grain]]'' of the camera's sensor is also visible and detracts from the image. Basically the picture is just not as sharp or as crisp, especially when viewed large or printed.

Remember to click on the images to see larger versions...

== Manual Exposure ==

If your camera has a full manual mode (i.e. allows you to set both [[shutter speed]] and [[aperture]] together and separately then this is the way to go.)

If you don't have a [[grey card]] (as described above) and you want to get a good approximation for 18% grey for metering you can do a lot worse than using the back of your hand....(assuming you are a white skinned Caucasian that is) I'll tell you how to do this, but I would suggest getting a [[grey card]] anyway, they are also useful for [[white balance]] as described above and don't cost very much...

Basically, set up your [[photo studio]] [[lighting]] as usual. Set your camera to full auto mode then fill the frame with your hand and take a picture of the back of your hand (in the same position as the bead would be), remember try to ensure that as much of your hand fills the fame as possible, don't bring your hand closer to the camera than the bead will be, so that the lighting is the same as it would be for the bead picture, so zoom in with the camera to the level that you would want to photograph anyway.

Now note down the [[shutter speed]] and [[aperture]] values that your camera decided to use to take this shot. (for example 125th second at f5.6)

Now, change your camera to manual mode and dial in the same settings as those noted above. Now any pictures you take should be exposed correctly for the scene, assuming the [[lighting]] does not change that is.

Don't worry, the camera will probably be desperately trying to tell you the picture will be over exposed... but don't believe it... It's lying... honest (after all what does it know, it's only a camera, it isn't as educated as you in glass bead photography)

And that's it... if you '''do''' have a [[grey card]] (and again I strongly suggest you do) then you do exactly the same thing as above but replace your hand with the grey card... well... keep your hand attached to your wrist, just put the card in front of your camera where you hand once was. (I think you understand!)

The grey card's usage is not just restricted to setting the exposure while taking pictures, It is sometimes also very useful to leave a bit of the [[grey card]] visible in the corner of a shot so that when you come to crop and edit your shots later you can double check both the [[white balance]] '''and''' the [[exposure]] in [[Photoshop]] as the grey card should read at mid point grey in [[Photoshop]] and with an even [[white balance]]. You can click it with the eye dropper tool to select the white balance setting and all three of the red green and blue values should be 127.

== Technical bit - Why can't I just edit in Photoshop? ==

Well.. of course you ''can'', but if you have managed to read through the information above then you should now know why photoshopping your images to correct these basic problems is a bad idea... but for a technical reason then read on.

But if you are easily ''geeked out'' then stop reading now!

One of the problems is with dynamic range... a picture on a computer can only store a limited number of colours. In fact although it can represent over 16.7 million different colours it can only store a paltry 256 levels of grey. This is because each colour is made up of varying quantities of red green and blue. Each of these 3 primary colours is represented by a byte (with a value ranging from 0 to 255) the problem comes when grey is concerned. Grey is made up of equal values of each colour. So 50% grey has a value of 127 for red 127 for green and 127 for blue. As you can see (or perhaps not) as they have to be the same you can therefore only have 256 different levels of grey. This restriction is also true for other colours, but is generally not noticeable in the same way.

To cut to the chase, if you take a picture where you have not correctly set the camera for white balance and brightness then when you edit in photoshop it has to ''stretch'' the colours and levels that ''are'' available in the picture to make it look right, this ultimately reduces the quality of the end result, because you have less colours and shades in the picture than you should have, you can really notice it in greys and gently shaded areas as mentioned above so by only using a few of the available colours in your original image by not exposing correctly, then you are starting out from a bad position and the end result will never be as good.

== Light cubes ==

To help with photography and reduce reflections you can use a light cube.

These are [[translucent]] boxes, usually made from cloth, that allow you to photograph your work in an easy way. You still need to follow all the instructions above, but be warned that unless you introduce deliberate [[reflections]] your [[glass]] will appear dull or [[matt]]

== Further information ==

*[http://www.tabletopstudio.com/HowTo_page.html Tabletop Studio Techniques]
*[http://www.beadybugs.co.uk/hintsandtips.htm How to clean up photos - by Helen P]

[[Category:Tutorial]]
[[Category:Techniques]]

Photography

2008-12-04T23:04:51Z

Dickie:

[[Image:AutomaticPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|A Picture taken on fully automatic under tungsten light, notice the orange tinge to the picture and the fact that it is also underexposed (i.e. too dark) this is a common problem with all cameras]]
[[Image:WB_Adjusted.jpg|thumb|300px|This picture is now taken with the white balance set to manual in the camera by setting it from a grey card, notice the fact that although the picture is still underexposed the white paper is now grey rather than orange]]

Photography is an entire subject that could take up a whole Wiki all by itself. What follows here are some hints and tips for [[beadmakers]] wishing to get good photographs of their [[beads]] or [[glass]] work.

It is generally regarded that the better your original image (off the camera) the better the final result will be. Yes you can adjust pictures in Photoshop afterwards but the final quality of the image will suffer (see final pictures).
For the best image quality you should aim for an image that is as close to how you would like it before it even touches [[Photoshop]]. Then all you need to do in there is a bit of sharpening (perhaps) cropping and maybe adding a watermark.

== Problems with glass ==
Generally speaking [[glass]] is actually quite a difficult subject to photograph due to its reflective nature, but given a few simple tips a bit of patience and some quite simple equipment it is possible to get very good results.

== Basic Set-up ==
[[Image:Plus_1_stop.jpg‎|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with one stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is still a slight shade of grey...we still need a bit more compensation]]
[[Image:Plus_2_stops.jpg|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with two stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is now much closer to white, but interestingly now has a slight pink tinge. This is because the camera is not adjusting correctly for the white balance of the light as the exposure has changed.]]
The basic set-up required to photograph beads is actually very simple.
* A light source (desk light or window).
* White piece of paper.
* A Digital Camera.
* Tripod (if you have shaky hands, or not much light, or both)
* Oh yes and some glass work to photograph.

You do not really need more than this to take basic good quality photographs of your work.

When taking pictures with this type of equipment it is important to set up the camera correctly to get the best shot, because if you just turn your camera on and take a picture you will generally be very disappointed with the result.

'''Just to make a point, all the pictures on this page were taken with no more than a white piece of card (balanced on a clothes airer) under a halogen ceiling spotlight.''' (OK the camera was a Canon EOS 20D but I could have (and have) got very similar results with a point and shoot camera, as long as it has white balance and exposure compensation adjustment)

There are two setting that are very important that you understand to be able to take good bead photographs.

* White Balance
* Exposure Compensation

== White balance ==

===What is white?===
As many of you may know there are many types of white, our eyes are very good at compensating for different light colours and different shades of white, and we just ''know'' that something is white. Cameras on the other hand are dumb, and have to be told what white is, otherwise they will get it wrong.
Therefore the white balance setting in a camera is to make sure white is actually a white and not yellowy orange or blue.

Most cameras do this automatically when you take pictures, but quite often get it wrong, especially if there is a lot of one colour in the scene. Higher end cameras will often allow you to take a picture of something grey or white and set the cameras white balance from that picture, many low end cameras often have this feature as well, so it is well worth checking your user manual for "'''Manual white balance'''".

If your camera does not have a manual white balance setting then what you '''must''' do instead is set the white balance to match the lighting conditions. Although auto mode is OK. It often gets things wrong, but if you are taking pictures with tungsten lights then set to tungsten. etc.
Remember that direct sunlight is a different setting from shade, even though the light is coming from the same source. Shade is actually very blue in colour, so you should ensure that your camera is set to the correct setting.

=== White or grey? ===
In real life, due to the nature of white not always being ''pure white'' I would thoroughly recommend buying a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_card grey card] from the likes of [http://www.jessops.com/online.store/categories/Accessories/General%20Camera%20Accessories/Grey%20Cards/products/Jessops/Grey%20Card%208%20x%2010in-9652/Show.html Jessops]. This is calibrated to be a mid grey (often called 18% grey card) and is ideal for setting the white balance and also for getting the correct exposure as the brightness of the card is also calibrated. But if you do not have one don't worry a piece of the whitest paper you can find will be fine.

Despite the fact that white balance makes sure that white is white it should not be confused with

== Exposure Compensation ==
This ensures that white is white and not grey!!!

Basically this setting allows you to over/under expose your pictures, that may sound wrong but the reason you would need this is because all cameras have to work out the correct exposure for a given scene.

The problem comes when what you are photographing is a picture of a bead on a white piece of paper and this is certainly not typical, and the camera will under expose it. (as wrong as it might seem this is the correct behaviour as most scenes that you photograph will average out to a mid grey in terms of brightness).

Many people think that under exposed pictures like the ones shown on the right are due to not having enough light, but that is wrong, adding more lights will not solve this problem. To correct this you need to "fool" the camera into ''over exposing'' the image so that white paper actually looks white and not grey. (remember this is not to be confused with white balance as described above)

By changing the exposure compensation to add 1 or 2 [[stops]], that picture of a bead on a white piece of paper will be white and not grey and the colours in you beads will be much more vibrant, thus removing the necessity to process all your pictures in Photoshop.

== Results ==
[[Image:FinalPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|The final version that has been ''slightly'' adjusted in a photo editor, to remove the slight colour cast, and brightened just a little bit]]
[[Image:Corrected_From_Original.jpg|thumb|300px|This is the original under exposed and incorrect white balance version of the photo, but ''corrected'' in a [[photo editor]]. This is as close as I could get it to the right look. Notice though that the colour is not as vibrant as the picture above and that the shadows have a slight orange tinge. The picture is also more ''grainy''. Although this may be acceptable to you the correct version is far superior.]]
You can see the results of these techniques in the last [[photograph]] above, but I personally would tweek them a bit in Photoshop (see the two photographs on the right).

The final two pictures are quite similar but the first one is a very ''slightly'' corrected version of the best shot from the series, this is just to correct the small amount of ''colour cast'' that was there and brighten it just a bit more, as +2 stops was not quite enough, but my camera only allowed me to add 2 stops. I could have used manual mode, but we will go into that later.

It is possible to get the pictures even better from the camera, but beware that if you push the exposure too far, then you are in danger of ''burning out'' the image, and you will then loose highlights. It's much better the leave a bit of ''headroom'' in the image and then adjust out that little bit in Photoshop as you are in complete control over the amount you can change the [[exposure]] by.

The final picture on the right is a ''[[photoshopped]]'' version of the very first [[underexposed]] and bad white balance picture at the top of this page.

Although this does not look too bad the colour vibrancy is not as good, and the ''[[grain]]'' of the camera's sensor is also visible and detracts from the image. The picture is just not as sharp or as crisp, especially when viewed large or printed.

Click on the images to see larger versions...

== Manual Exposure ==

If your camera has a full manual mode (i.e. allows you to set both [[shutter speed]] and [[aperture]] together and separately then this is the way to go.)

If you don't have a [[grey card]] (as described above) and you want to get a good approximation for 18% grey for metering you can do a lot worse than using the back of your hand....(assuming you are a white skinned Caucasian that is) I'll tell you how to do this, but I would suggest getting a [[grey card]] anyway, they are also useful for [[white balance]] as described above and don't cost very much...

Basically, set up your [[photo studio]] [[lighting]] as usual. Set your camera to full auto mode then fill the frame with your hand and take a picture of the back of your hand (in the same position as the bead would be), remember try to ensure that as much of your hand fills the fame as possible, don't bring your hand closer to the camera than the bead will be, so that the lighting is the same as it would be for the bead picture, so zoom in with the camera to the level that you would want to photograph anyway.

Now note down the [[shutter speed]] and [[aperture]] values that your camera decided to use to take this shot. (for example 125th second at f5.6)

Now, change your camera to manual mode and dial in the same settings as those noted above. Now any pictures you take should be exposed correctly for the scene, assuming the [[lighting]] does not change that is.

Don't worry, the camera will probably be desperately trying to tell you the picture will be over exposed... but don't believe it... It's lying... honest (after all what does it know, it's only a camera, it isn't as educated as you in glass bead photography)

And that's it... if you '''do''' have a [[grey card]] (and again I strongly suggest you do) then you do exactly the same thing as above but replace your hand with the grey card... well... keep your hand attached to your wrist, just put the card in front of your camera where you hand once was. (I think you understand!)

The grey card's usage is not just restricted to setting the exposure while taking pictures, It is sometimes also very useful to leave a bit of the [[grey card]] visible in the corner of a shot so that when you come to crop and edit your shots later you can double check both the [[white balance]] '''and''' the [[exposure]] in [[Photoshop]] as the grey card should read at mid point grey in [[Photoshop]] and with an even [[white balance]]. You can click it with the eye dropper tool to select the white balance setting and all three of the red green and blue values should be 127.

== Technical bit - Why can't I just edit in Photoshop? ==

Well.. of course you ''can'', but if you have managed to read through the information above then you should now know why photoshopping your images to correct these basic problems is a bad idea... but for a technical reason then read on.

But if you are easily ''geeked out'' then stop reading now!

One of the problems is with dynamic range... a picture on a computer can only store a limited number of colours. In fact although it can represent over 16.7 million different colours it can only store a paltry 256 levels of grey. This is because each colour is made up of varying quantities of red green and blue. Each of these 3 primary colours is represented by a byte (with a value ranging from 0 to 255) the problem comes when grey is concerned. Grey is made up of equal values of each colour. So 50% grey has a value of 127 for red 127 for green and 127 for blue. As you can see (or perhaps not) as they have to be the same you can therefore only have 256 different levels of grey. This restriction is also true for other colours, but is generally not noticeable in the same way.

To cut to the chase, if you take a picture where you have not correctly set the camera for white balance and brightness then when you edit in photoshop it has to ''stretch'' the colours and levels that ''are'' available in the picture to make it look right, this ultimately reduces the quality of the end result, because you have less colours and shades in the picture than you should have, you can really notice it in greys and gently shaded areas as mentioned above so by only using a few of the available colours in your original image by not exposing correctly, then you are starting out from a bad position and the end result will never be as good.

== Light cubes ==

To help with photography and reduce reflections you can use a light cube.

These are [[translucent]] boxes, usually made from cloth, that allow you to photograph your work in an easy way. You still need to follow all the instructions above, but be warned that unless you introduce deliberate [[reflections]] your [[glass]] will appear dull or [[matt]]

== Further information ==

*[http://www.tabletopstudio.com/HowTo_page.html Tabletop Studio Techniques]
*[http://www.beadybugs.co.uk/hintsandtips.htm How to clean up photos - by Helen P]

[[Category:Tutorial]]
[[Category:Techniques]]

Photography

2008-12-04T23:02:26Z

Dickie: /* Manual Exposure */

[[Image:AutomaticPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|A Picture taken on fully automatic under tungsten light, notice the orange tinge to the picture and the fact that it is also underexposed (i.e. too dark)]]
[[Image:WB_Adjusted.jpg|thumb|300px|This picture is now taken with the white balance set to manual in the camera by setting it from a grey card, notice the fact that although the picture is still underexposed the white paper is now grey rather than orange]]

Photography is an entire subject that could take up a whole Wiki all by itself. What follows here are some hints and tips for [[beadmakers]] wishing to get good photographs of their [[beads]] or [[glass]] work.

It is generally regarded that the better your original image (off the camera) the better the final result will be. Yes you can adjust pictures in Photoshop afterwards but the final quality of the image will suffer (see final pictures).
For the best image quality you should aim for an image that is as close to how you would like it before it even touches [[Photoshop]]. Then all you need to do in there is a bit of sharpening (perhaps) cropping and maybe adding a watermark.

== Problems with glass ==
Generally speaking [[glass]] is actually quite a difficult subject to photograph due to its reflective nature, but given a few simple tips a bit of patience and some quite simple equipment it is possible to get very good results.

== Basic Set-up ==
[[Image:Plus_1_stop.jpg‎|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with one stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is still a slight shade of grey...we still need a bit more compensation]]
[[Image:Plus_2_stops.jpg|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with two stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is now much closer to white, but interestingly now has a slight pink tinge. This is because the camera is not adjusting correctly for the white balance of the light as the exposure has changed.]]
The basic set-up required to photograph beads is actually very simple.
* A light source (desk light or window).
* White piece of paper.
* A Digital Camera.
* Tripod (if you have shaky hands, or not much light, or both)
* Oh yes and some glass work to photograph.

You do not really need more than this to take basic good quality photographs of your work.

When taking pictures with this type of equipment it is important to set up the camera correctly to get the best shot, because if you just turn your camera on and take a picture you will generally be very disappointed with the result.

'''Just to make a point, all the pictures on this page were taken with no more than a white piece of card (balanced on a clothes airer) under a halogen ceiling spotlight.''' (OK the camera was a Canon EOS 20D but I could have (and have) got very similar results with a point and shoot camera, as long as it has white balance and exposure compensation adjustment)

There are two setting that are very important that you understand to be able to take good bead photographs.

* White Balance
* Exposure Compensation

== White balance ==

===What is white?===
As many of you may know there are many types of white, our eyes are very good at compensating for different light colours and different shades of white, and we just ''know'' that something is white. Cameras on the other hand are dumb, and have to be told what white is, otherwise they will get it wrong.
Therefore the white balance setting in a camera is to make sure white is actually a white and not yellowy orange or blue.

Most cameras do this automatically when you take pictures, but quite often get it wrong, especially if there is a lot of one colour in the scene. Higher end cameras will often allow you to take a picture of something grey or white and set the cameras white balance from that picture, many low end cameras often have this feature as well, so it is well worth checking your user manual for "'''Manual white balance'''".

If your camera does not have a manual white balance setting then what you '''must''' do instead is set the white balance to match the lighting conditions. Although auto mode is OK. It often gets things wrong, but if you are taking pictures with tungsten lights then set to tungsten. etc.
Remember that direct sunlight is a different setting from shade, even though the light is coming from the same source. Shade is actually very blue in colour, so you should ensure that your camera is set to the correct setting.

=== White or grey? ===
In real life, due to the nature of white not always being ''pure white'' I would thoroughly recommend buying a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_card grey card] from the likes of [http://www.jessops.com/online.store/categories/Accessories/General%20Camera%20Accessories/Grey%20Cards/products/Jessops/Grey%20Card%208%20x%2010in-9652/Show.html Jessops]. This is calibrated to be a mid grey (often called 18% grey card) and is ideal for setting the white balance and also for getting the correct exposure as the brightness of the card is also calibrated. But if you do not have one don't worry a piece of the whitest paper you can find will be fine.

Despite the fact that white balance makes sure that white is white it should not be confused with

== Exposure Compensation ==
This ensures that white is white and not grey!!!

Basically this setting allows you to over/under expose your pictures, that may sound wrong but the reason you would need this is because all cameras have to work out the correct exposure for a given scene.

The problem comes when what you are photographing is a picture of a bead on a white piece of paper and this is certainly not typical, and the camera will under expose it. (as wrong as it might seem this is the correct behaviour as most scenes that you photograph will average out to a mid grey in terms of brightness).

Many people think that under exposed pictures like the ones shown on the right are due to not having enough light, but that is wrong, adding more lights will not solve this problem. To correct this you need to "fool" the camera into ''over exposing'' the image so that white paper actually looks white and not grey. (remember this is not to be confused with white balance as described above)

By changing the exposure compensation to add 1 or 2 [[stops]], that picture of a bead on a white piece of paper will be white and not grey and the colours in you beads will be much more vibrant, thus removing the necessity to process all your pictures in Photoshop.

== Results ==
[[Image:FinalPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|The final version that has been ''slightly'' adjusted in a photo editor, to remove the slight colour cast, and brightened just a little bit]]
[[Image:Corrected_From_Original.jpg|thumb|300px|This is the original under exposed and incorrect white balance version of the photo, but ''corrected'' in a [[photo editor]]. This is as close as I could get it to the right look. Notice though that the colour is not as vibrant as the picture above and that the shadows have a slight orange tinge. The picture is also more ''grainy''. Although this may be acceptable to you the correct version is far superior.]]
You can see the results of these techniques in the last [[photograph]] above, but I personally would tweek them a bit in Photoshop (see the two photographs on the right).

The final two pictures are quite similar but the first one is a very ''slightly'' corrected version of the best shot from the series, this is just to correct the small amount of ''colour cast'' that was there and brighten it just a bit more, as +2 stops was not quite enough, but my camera only allowed me to add 2 stops. I could have used manual mode, but we will go into that later.

It is possible to get the pictures even better from the camera, but beware that if you push the exposure too far, then you are in danger of ''burning out'' the image, and you will then loose highlights. It's much better the leave a bit of ''headroom'' in the image and then adjust out that little bit in Photoshop as you are in complete control over the amount you can change the [[exposure]] by.

The final picture on the right is a ''[[photoshopped]]'' version of the very first [[underexposed]] and bad white balance picture at the top of this page.

Although this does not look too bad the colour vibrancy is not as good, and the ''[[grain]]'' of the camera's sensor is also visible and detracts from the image. The picture is just not as sharp or as crisp, especially when viewed large or printed.

Click on the images to see larger versions...

== Manual Exposure ==

If your camera has a full manual mode (i.e. allows you to set both [[shutter speed]] and [[aperture]] together and separately then this is the way to go.)

If you don't have a [[grey card]] (as described above) and you want to get a good approximation for 18% grey for metering you can do a lot worse than using the back of your hand....(assuming you are a white skinned Caucasian that is) I'll tell you how to do this, but I would suggest getting a [[grey card]] anyway, they are also useful for [[white balance]] as described above and don't cost very much...

Basically, set up your [[photo studio]] [[lighting]] as usual. Set your camera to full auto mode then fill the frame with your hand and take a picture of the back of your hand (in the same position as the bead would be), remember try to ensure that as much of your hand fills the fame as possible, don't bring your hand closer to the camera than the bead will be, so that the lighting is the same as it would be for the bead picture, so zoom in with the camera to the level that you would want to photograph anyway.

Now note down the [[shutter speed]] and [[aperture]] values that your camera decided to use to take this shot. (for example 125th second at f5.6)

Now, change your camera to manual mode and dial in the same settings as those noted above. Now any pictures you take should be exposed correctly for the scene, assuming the [[lighting]] does not change that is.

Don't worry, the camera will probably be desperately trying to tell you the picture will be over exposed... but don't believe it... It's lying... honest (after all what does it know, it's only a camera, it isn't as educated as you in glass bead photography)

And that's it... if you '''do''' have a [[grey card]] (and again I strongly suggest you do) then you do exactly the same thing as above but replace your hand with the grey card... well... keep your hand attached to your wrist, just put the card in front of your camera where you hand once was. (I think you understand!)

The grey card's usage is not just restricted to setting the exposure while taking pictures, It is sometimes also very useful to leave a bit of the [[grey card]] visible in the corner of a shot so that when you come to crop and edit your shots later you can double check both the [[white balance]] '''and''' the [[exposure]] in [[Photoshop]] as the grey card should read at mid point grey in [[Photoshop]] and with an even [[white balance]]. You can click it with the eye dropper tool to select the white balance setting and all three of the red green and blue values should be 127.

== Technical bit - Why can't I just edit in Photoshop? ==

Well.. of course you ''can'', but if you have managed to read through the information above then you should now know why photoshopping your images to correct these basic problems is a bad idea... but for a technical reason then read on.

But if you are easily ''geeked out'' then stop reading now!

One of the problems is with dynamic range... a picture on a computer can only store a limited number of colours. In fact although it can represent over 16.7 million different colours it can only store a paltry 256 levels of grey. This is because each colour is made up of varying quantities of red green and blue. Each of these 3 primary colours is represented by a byte (with a value ranging from 0 to 255) the problem comes when grey is concerned. Grey is made up of equal values of each colour. So 50% grey has a value of 127 for red 127 for green and 127 for blue. As you can see (or perhaps not) as they have to be the same you can therefore only have 256 different levels of grey. This restriction is also true for other colours, but is generally not noticeable in the same way.

To cut to the chase, if you take a picture where you have not correctly set the camera for white balance and brightness then when you edit in photoshop it has to ''stretch'' the colours and levels that ''are'' available in the picture to make it look right, this ultimately reduces the quality of the end result, because you have less colours and shades in the picture than you should have, you can really notice it in greys and gently shaded areas as mentioned above so by only using a few of the available colours in your original image by not exposing correctly, then you are starting out from a bad position and the end result will never be as good.

== Light cubes ==

To help with photography and reduce reflections you can use a light cube.

These are [[translucent]] boxes, usually made from cloth, that allow you to photograph your work in an easy way. You still need to follow all the instructions above, but be warned that unless you introduce deliberate [[reflections]] your [[glass]] will appear dull or [[matt]]

== Further information ==

*[http://www.tabletopstudio.com/HowTo_page.html Tabletop Studio Techniques]
*[http://www.beadybugs.co.uk/hintsandtips.htm How to clean up photos - by Helen P]

[[Category:Tutorial]]
[[Category:Techniques]]

Photography

2008-12-04T22:52:08Z

Dickie: /* Results */

[[Image:AutomaticPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|A Picture taken on fully automatic under tungsten light, notice the orange tinge to the picture and the fact that it is also underexposed (i.e. too dark)]]
[[Image:WB_Adjusted.jpg|thumb|300px|This picture is now taken with the white balance set to manual in the camera by setting it from a grey card, notice the fact that although the picture is still underexposed the white paper is now grey rather than orange]]

Photography is an entire subject that could take up a whole Wiki all by itself. What follows here are some hints and tips for [[beadmakers]] wishing to get good photographs of their [[beads]] or [[glass]] work.

It is generally regarded that the better your original image (off the camera) the better the final result will be. Yes you can adjust pictures in Photoshop afterwards but the final quality of the image will suffer (see final pictures).
For the best image quality you should aim for an image that is as close to how you would like it before it even touches [[Photoshop]]. Then all you need to do in there is a bit of sharpening (perhaps) cropping and maybe adding a watermark.

== Problems with glass ==
Generally speaking [[glass]] is actually quite a difficult subject to photograph due to its reflective nature, but given a few simple tips a bit of patience and some quite simple equipment it is possible to get very good results.

== Basic Set-up ==
[[Image:Plus_1_stop.jpg‎|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with one stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is still a slight shade of grey...we still need a bit more compensation]]
[[Image:Plus_2_stops.jpg|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with two stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is now much closer to white, but interestingly now has a slight pink tinge. This is because the camera is not adjusting correctly for the white balance of the light as the exposure has changed.]]
The basic set-up required to photograph beads is actually very simple.
* A light source (desk light or window).
* White piece of paper.
* A Digital Camera.
* Tripod (if you have shaky hands, or not much light, or both)
* Oh yes and some glass work to photograph.

You do not really need more than this to take basic good quality photographs of your work.

When taking pictures with this type of equipment it is important to set up the camera correctly to get the best shot, because if you just turn your camera on and take a picture you will generally be very disappointed with the result.

'''Just to make a point, all the pictures on this page were taken with no more than a white piece of card (balanced on a clothes airer) under a halogen ceiling spotlight.''' (OK the camera was a Canon EOS 20D but I could have (and have) got very similar results with a point and shoot camera, as long as it has white balance and exposure compensation adjustment)

There are two setting that are very important that you understand to be able to take good bead photographs.

* White Balance
* Exposure Compensation

== White balance ==

===What is white?===
As many of you may know there are many types of white, our eyes are very good at compensating for different light colours and different shades of white, and we just ''know'' that something is white. Cameras on the other hand are dumb, and have to be told what white is, otherwise they will get it wrong.
Therefore the white balance setting in a camera is to make sure white is actually a white and not yellowy orange or blue.

Most cameras do this automatically when you take pictures, but quite often get it wrong, especially if there is a lot of one colour in the scene. Higher end cameras will often allow you to take a picture of something grey or white and set the cameras white balance from that picture, many low end cameras often have this feature as well, so it is well worth checking your user manual for "'''Manual white balance'''".

If your camera does not have a manual white balance setting then what you '''must''' do instead is set the white balance to match the lighting conditions. Although auto mode is OK. It often gets things wrong, but if you are taking pictures with tungsten lights then set to tungsten. etc.
Remember that direct sunlight is a different setting from shade, even though the light is coming from the same source. Shade is actually very blue in colour, so you should ensure that your camera is set to the correct setting.

=== White or grey? ===
In real life, due to the nature of white not always being ''pure white'' I would thoroughly recommend buying a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_card grey card] from the likes of [http://www.jessops.com/online.store/categories/Accessories/General%20Camera%20Accessories/Grey%20Cards/products/Jessops/Grey%20Card%208%20x%2010in-9652/Show.html Jessops]. This is calibrated to be a mid grey (often called 18% grey card) and is ideal for setting the white balance and also for getting the correct exposure as the brightness of the card is also calibrated. But if you do not have one don't worry a piece of the whitest paper you can find will be fine.

Despite the fact that white balance makes sure that white is white it should not be confused with

== Exposure Compensation ==
This ensures that white is white and not grey!!!

Basically this setting allows you to over/under expose your pictures, that may sound wrong but the reason you would need this is because all cameras have to work out the correct exposure for a given scene.

The problem comes when what you are photographing is a picture of a bead on a white piece of paper and this is certainly not typical, and the camera will under expose it. (as wrong as it might seem this is the correct behaviour as most scenes that you photograph will average out to a mid grey in terms of brightness).

Many people think that under exposed pictures like the ones shown on the right are due to not having enough light, but that is wrong, adding more lights will not solve this problem. To correct this you need to "fool" the camera into ''over exposing'' the image so that white paper actually looks white and not grey. (remember this is not to be confused with white balance as described above)

By changing the exposure compensation to add 1 or 2 [[stops]], that picture of a bead on a white piece of paper will be white and not grey and the colours in you beads will be much more vibrant, thus removing the necessity to process all your pictures in Photoshop.

== Results ==
[[Image:FinalPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|The final version that has been ''slightly'' adjusted in a photo editor, to remove the slight colour cast, and brightened just a little bit]]
[[Image:Corrected_From_Original.jpg|thumb|300px|This is the original under exposed and incorrect white balance version of the photo, but ''corrected'' in a [[photo editor]]. This is as close as I could get it to the right look. Notice though that the colour is not as vibrant as the picture above and that the shadows have a slight orange tinge. The picture is also more ''grainy''. Although this may be acceptable to you the correct version is far superior.]]
You can see the results of these techniques in the last [[photograph]] above, but I personally would tweek them a bit in Photoshop (see the two photographs on the right).

The final two pictures are quite similar but the first one is a very ''slightly'' corrected version of the best shot from the series, this is just to correct the small amount of ''colour cast'' that was there and brighten it just a bit more, as +2 stops was not quite enough, but my camera only allowed me to add 2 stops. I could have used manual mode, but we will go into that later.

It is possible to get the pictures even better from the camera, but beware that if you push the exposure too far, then you are in danger of ''burning out'' the image, and you will then loose highlights. It's much better the leave a bit of ''headroom'' in the image and then adjust out that little bit in Photoshop as you are in complete control over the amount you can change the [[exposure]] by.

The final picture on the right is a ''[[photoshopped]]'' version of the very first [[underexposed]] and bad white balance picture at the top of this page.

Although this does not look too bad the colour vibrancy is not as good, and the ''[[grain]]'' of the camera's sensor is also visible and detracts from the image. The picture is just not as sharp or as crisp, especially when viewed large or printed.

Click on the images to see larger versions...

== Manual Exposure ==

If your camera has a full manual mode (i.e. allows you to set both [[shutter speed]] and [[aperture]] together this is the way to go.)

If you don't have a [[grey card]] and you want to get a good approximation for 18% grey for metering you can do a lot worse than using the back of your hand....(assuming you are a white skinned Caucasian that is) I'll tell you how to do this, but I would suggest getting a [[grey card]] anyway, they are also useful for [[white balance]] as described above...

Basically, set up your [[photo studio]] [[lighting]] as usual then fill the frame with your hand and try to take a picture of the back of your hand (in the same position as the bead would be), remember try to ensure that as much of your hand fills the fame as possible, don't bring your hand closer to the camera than the bead, but zoom in with the camera to the level that you would want to photograph anyway.

Now note down the [[exposure]] and [[aperture]] that your camera used to take this shot. e.g 125th second at f5.6

Now if you set your camera to manual and dial in the same settings as noted above. Now any pictures you take should be exposed correctly for the scene, assuming the [[lighting]] does not change.

The camera will desperately be trying to tell you the picture will be over exposed... but don't believe it... It's lying (after all what does it know, it's only a camera, it isn't as educated as you in glass beads)

And that's it... if you '''do''' have a [[grey card]] then you do exactly the same thing but replace your hand with the grey card... well... keep your hand attached to your wrist, just put the card in front of your camera where you hand once was. (I think you understand!)

It is sometimes also useful to leave a bit of the [[grey card]] visible in the corner of a shot so that when you come to crop and edit your shots later you can double check both the white balance AND the [[exposure]] in Photoshop as they grey card should read at 50% grey in Photoshop and with an even [[white balance]]. You can click it with the eye dropper tool to select the white balance setting.

== Technical bit - Why can't I just edit in Photoshop? ==

Well.. of course you ''can'', but if you have managed to read through the information above then you should now know why photoshopping your images to correct these basic problems is a bad idea... but for a technical reason then read on.

But if you are easily ''geeked out'' then stop reading now!

One of the problems is with dynamic range... a picture on a computer can only store a limited number of colours. In fact although it can represent over 16.7 million different colours it can only store a paltry 256 levels of grey. This is because each colour is made up of varying quantities of red green and blue. Each of these 3 primary colours is represented by a byte (with a value ranging from 0 to 255) the problem comes when grey is concerned. Grey is made up of equal values of each colour. So 50% grey has a value of 127 for red 127 for green and 127 for blue. As you can see (or perhaps not) as they have to be the same you can therefore only have 256 different levels of grey. This restriction is also true for other colours, but is generally not noticeable in the same way.

To cut to the chase, if you take a picture where you have not correctly set the camera for white balance and brightness then when you edit in photoshop it has to ''stretch'' the colours and levels that ''are'' available in the picture to make it look right, this ultimately reduces the quality of the end result, because you have less colours and shades in the picture than you should have, you can really notice it in greys and gently shaded areas as mentioned above so by only using a few of the available colours in your original image by not exposing correctly, then you are starting out from a bad position and the end result will never be as good.

== Light cubes ==

To help with photography and reduce reflections you can use a light cube.

These are [[translucent]] boxes, usually made from cloth, that allow you to photograph your work in an easy way. You still need to follow all the instructions above, but be warned that unless you introduce deliberate [[reflections]] your [[glass]] will appear dull or [[matt]]

== Further information ==

*[http://www.tabletopstudio.com/HowTo_page.html Tabletop Studio Techniques]
*[http://www.beadybugs.co.uk/hintsandtips.htm How to clean up photos - by Helen P]

[[Category:Tutorial]]
[[Category:Techniques]]

Photoshopped

2008-12-04T22:49:16Z

Dickie: Redirecting to Adobe Photoshop

#REDIRECT [[Adobe Photoshop]]

Adobe Photoshop

2008-12-04T22:48:27Z

Dickie:

Photoshop from Adobe is software for your computer that allows you to ''tweak'' your photographs. Adobe photoshop can be purchased through many computer shops or on the Internet.

In the same way that many people talk about ''Hoovering'' the carpet many people us the term ''to Photoshop'' something or do some ''Photoshopping'' in relation to editing a picture in a photo editing package that does not have to be using Photoshop itself.

There are many alternatives to Photoshop that are much more affordable (see links below).

== External Links ==

* [http://www.getpaint.net/ paint.net] A basic but fully featured '''free''' photo editor.
* [http://picasa.google.com/ Picasa from Google] '''Free''' and easy to use and organises your photographs too (now includes [[watermarking]]).
* [http://www.gimp.org/ GIMP] A very powerful and again '''free''' but more difficult to learn photo editor.

Photography

2008-12-04T22:36:47Z

Dickie: /* White balance */

[[Image:AutomaticPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|A Picture taken on fully automatic under tungsten light, notice the orange tinge to the picture and the fact that it is also underexposed (i.e. too dark)]]
[[Image:WB_Adjusted.jpg|thumb|300px|This picture is now taken with the white balance set to manual in the camera by setting it from a grey card, notice the fact that although the picture is still underexposed the white paper is now grey rather than orange]]

Photography is an entire subject that could take up a whole Wiki all by itself. What follows here are some hints and tips for [[beadmakers]] wishing to get good photographs of their [[beads]] or [[glass]] work.

It is generally regarded that the better your original image (off the camera) the better the final result will be. Yes you can adjust pictures in Photoshop afterwards but the final quality of the image will suffer (see final pictures).
For the best image quality you should aim for an image that is as close to how you would like it before it even touches [[Photoshop]]. Then all you need to do in there is a bit of sharpening (perhaps) cropping and maybe adding a watermark.

== Problems with glass ==
Generally speaking [[glass]] is actually quite a difficult subject to photograph due to its reflective nature, but given a few simple tips a bit of patience and some quite simple equipment it is possible to get very good results.

== Basic Set-up ==
[[Image:Plus_1_stop.jpg‎|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with one stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is still a slight shade of grey...we still need a bit more compensation]]
[[Image:Plus_2_stops.jpg|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with two stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is now much closer to white, but interestingly now has a slight pink tinge. This is because the camera is not adjusting correctly for the white balance of the light as the exposure has changed.]]
The basic set-up required to photograph beads is actually very simple.
* A light source (desk light or window).
* White piece of paper.
* A Digital Camera.
* Tripod (if you have shaky hands, or not much light, or both)
* Oh yes and some glass work to photograph.

You do not really need more than this to take basic good quality photographs of your work.

When taking pictures with this type of equipment it is important to set up the camera correctly to get the best shot, because if you just turn your camera on and take a picture you will generally be very disappointed with the result.

'''Just to make a point, all the pictures on this page were taken with no more than a white piece of card (balanced on a clothes airer) under a halogen ceiling spotlight.''' (OK the camera was a Canon EOS 20D but I could have (and have) got very similar results with a point and shoot camera, as long as it has white balance and exposure compensation adjustment)

There are two setting that are very important that you understand to be able to take good bead photographs.

* White Balance
* Exposure Compensation

== White balance ==

===What is white?===
As many of you may know there are many types of white, our eyes are very good at compensating for different light colours and different shades of white, and we just ''know'' that something is white. Cameras on the other hand are dumb, and have to be told what white is, otherwise they will get it wrong.
Therefore the white balance setting in a camera is to make sure white is actually a white and not yellowy orange or blue.

Most cameras do this automatically when you take pictures, but quite often get it wrong, especially if there is a lot of one colour in the scene. Higher end cameras will often allow you to take a picture of something grey or white and set the cameras white balance from that picture, many low end cameras often have this feature as well, so it is well worth checking your user manual for "'''Manual white balance'''".

If your camera does not have a manual white balance setting then what you '''must''' do instead is set the white balance to match the lighting conditions. Although auto mode is OK. It often gets things wrong, but if you are taking pictures with tungsten lights then set to tungsten. etc.
Remember that direct sunlight is a different setting from shade, even though the light is coming from the same source. Shade is actually very blue in colour, so you should ensure that your camera is set to the correct setting.

=== White or grey? ===
In real life, due to the nature of white not always being ''pure white'' I would thoroughly recommend buying a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_card grey card] from the likes of [http://www.jessops.com/online.store/categories/Accessories/General%20Camera%20Accessories/Grey%20Cards/products/Jessops/Grey%20Card%208%20x%2010in-9652/Show.html Jessops]. This is calibrated to be a mid grey (often called 18% grey card) and is ideal for setting the white balance and also for getting the correct exposure as the brightness of the card is also calibrated. But if you do not have one don't worry a piece of the whitest paper you can find will be fine.

Despite the fact that white balance makes sure that white is white it should not be confused with

== Exposure Compensation ==
This ensures that white is white and not grey!!!

Basically this setting allows you to over/under expose your pictures, that may sound wrong but the reason you would need this is because all cameras have to work out the correct exposure for a given scene.

The problem comes when what you are photographing is a picture of a bead on a white piece of paper and this is certainly not typical, and the camera will under expose it. (as wrong as it might seem this is the correct behaviour as most scenes that you photograph will average out to a mid grey in terms of brightness).

Many people think that under exposed pictures like the ones shown on the right are due to not having enough light, but that is wrong, adding more lights will not solve this problem. To correct this you need to "fool" the camera into ''over exposing'' the image so that white paper actually looks white and not grey. (remember this is not to be confused with white balance as described above)

By changing the exposure compensation to add 1 or 2 [[stops]], that picture of a bead on a white piece of paper will be white and not grey and the colours in you beads will be much more vibrant, thus removing the necessity to process all your pictures in Photoshop.

== Results ==
[[Image:FinalPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|The final version that has been ''slightly'' adjusted in a photo editor, to remove the slight colour cast, and brightened just a little bit]]
[[Image:Corrected_From_Original.jpg|thumb|300px|This is the original under exposed and incorrect white balance version of the photo, but ''corrected'' in a photo editor. This is as close as I could get it to the right look. Notice though that the colour is not as vibrant as the picture above and that the shadows have a slight orange tinge. The picture is also more ''grainy''. Although this may be acceptable to you the correct version is far superior.]]
You can see the results of these techniques in the last photograph above, but I personally would tweek them a bit in Photoshop (see the two photographs on the right).

The final two pictures are quite similar but the first one is a very ''slightly'' corrected version of the best shot from the series, this is just to correct the small amount of ''colour cast'' that was there and brighten it just a bit more, as +2 stops was not quite enough, but my camera only allowed me to add 2 stops. I could have used manual mode, but we will go into that later.

It is possible to get the pictures even better from the camera, but beware that if you push the exposure too far, then you are in danger of ''burning out'' the image, and you will then loose highlights. It's much better the leave a bit of ''headroom'' in the image and then adjust out that little bit in Photoshop as you are in complete control over the amount you can change the exposure by.

The final picture on the right is a ''[[photoshopped]]'' version of the very first underexposed and bad white balance picture at the top of this page.

Although this does not look too bad the colour vibrancy is not as good, and the ''[[grain]]'' of the camera's sensor is also visible and detracts from the image. The picture is just not as sharp or as crisp, especially when viewed large or printed.

Click on the images to see larger versions...

== Manual Exposure ==

If your camera has a full manual mode (i.e. allows you to set both [[shutter speed]] and [[aperture]] together this is the way to go.)

If you don't have a [[grey card]] and you want to get a good approximation for 18% grey for metering you can do a lot worse than using the back of your hand....(assuming you are a white skinned Caucasian that is) I'll tell you how to do this, but I would suggest getting a [[grey card]] anyway, they are also useful for [[white balance]] as described above...

Basically, set up your [[photo studio]] [[lighting]] as usual then fill the frame with your hand and try to take a picture of the back of your hand (in the same position as the bead would be), remember try to ensure that as much of your hand fills the fame as possible, don't bring your hand closer to the camera than the bead, but zoom in with the camera to the level that you would want to photograph anyway.

Now note down the [[exposure]] and [[aperture]] that your camera used to take this shot. e.g 125th second at f5.6

Now if you set your camera to manual and dial in the same settings as noted above. Now any pictures you take should be exposed correctly for the scene, assuming the [[lighting]] does not change.

The camera will desperately be trying to tell you the picture will be over exposed... but don't believe it... It's lying (after all what does it know, it's only a camera, it isn't as educated as you in glass beads)

And that's it... if you '''do''' have a [[grey card]] then you do exactly the same thing but replace your hand with the grey card... well... keep your hand attached to your wrist, just put the card in front of your camera where you hand once was. (I think you understand!)

It is sometimes also useful to leave a bit of the [[grey card]] visible in the corner of a shot so that when you come to crop and edit your shots later you can double check both the white balance AND the [[exposure]] in Photoshop as they grey card should read at 50% grey in Photoshop and with an even [[white balance]]. You can click it with the eye dropper tool to select the white balance setting.

== Technical bit - Why can't I just edit in Photoshop? ==

Well.. of course you ''can'', but if you have managed to read through the information above then you should now know why photoshopping your images to correct these basic problems is a bad idea... but for a technical reason then read on.

But if you are easily ''geeked out'' then stop reading now!

One of the problems is with dynamic range... a picture on a computer can only store a limited number of colours. In fact although it can represent over 16.7 million different colours it can only store a paltry 256 levels of grey. This is because each colour is made up of varying quantities of red green and blue. Each of these 3 primary colours is represented by a byte (with a value ranging from 0 to 255) the problem comes when grey is concerned. Grey is made up of equal values of each colour. So 50% grey has a value of 127 for red 127 for green and 127 for blue. As you can see (or perhaps not) as they have to be the same you can therefore only have 256 different levels of grey. This restriction is also true for other colours, but is generally not noticeable in the same way.

To cut to the chase, if you take a picture where you have not correctly set the camera for white balance and brightness then when you edit in photoshop it has to ''stretch'' the colours and levels that ''are'' available in the picture to make it look right, this ultimately reduces the quality of the end result, because you have less colours and shades in the picture than you should have, you can really notice it in greys and gently shaded areas as mentioned above so by only using a few of the available colours in your original image by not exposing correctly, then you are starting out from a bad position and the end result will never be as good.

== Light cubes ==

To help with photography and reduce reflections you can use a light cube.

These are [[translucent]] boxes, usually made from cloth, that allow you to photograph your work in an easy way. You still need to follow all the instructions above, but be warned that unless you introduce deliberate [[reflections]] your [[glass]] will appear dull or [[matt]]

== Further information ==

*[http://www.tabletopstudio.com/HowTo_page.html Tabletop Studio Techniques]
*[http://www.beadybugs.co.uk/hintsandtips.htm How to clean up photos - by Helen P]

[[Category:Tutorial]]
[[Category:Techniques]]

Adobe Photoshop

2008-12-04T10:52:32Z

Dickie:

Photoshop from Adobe is software for your computer that allows you to ''tweak'' your photographs. Adobe photoshop can be purchased through many computer shops or on the Internet.

In the same way that many people talk about ''Hoovering'' the carpet many people us the term ''to Photoshop'' something in relation to editing a picture in a photo editing package that does not have to be using Photoshop itself.

There are many alternatives to Photoshop that are much more affordable (see links below).

== External Links ==

* [http://www.getpaint.net/ paint.net] A basic but fully featured '''free''' photo editor.
* [http://picasa.google.com/ Picasa from Google] '''Free''' and easy to use and organises your photographs too (now includes [[watermarking]]).
* [http://www.gimp.org/ GIMP] A very powerful and again '''free''' but more difficult to learn photo editor.

Photoshop

2008-12-04T10:52:12Z

Dickie: Photoshop moved to Adobe Photoshop: Used the correct term

#REDIRECT [[Adobe Photoshop]]

Adobe Photoshop

2008-12-04T10:52:12Z

Dickie: Photoshop moved to Adobe Photoshop: Used the correct term

Photoshop is software for your computer that allows you to ''tweak'' your photographs. Adobe photoshop can be purchased through many computer shops or on the Internet.

In the same way that many people talk about ''Hoovering'' the carpet many people us the term ''to Photoshop'' something in relation to editing a picture in a photo editing package that does not have to be using Photoshop itself.

There are many alternatives to Photoshop that are much more affordable (see links below).

== External Links ==

* [http://www.getpaint.net/ paint.net] A basic but fully featured '''free''' photo editor.
* [http://picasa.google.com/ Picasa from Google] '''Free''' and easy to use and organises your photographs too (now includes [[watermarking]]).
* [http://www.gimp.org/ GIMP] A very powerful and again '''free''' but more difficult to learn photo editor.

Adobe Photoshop

2008-12-04T10:51:05Z

Dickie:

Adobe Photoshop

2008-12-04T10:49:49Z

Dickie: restructured page

Photoshop is software for your computer that allows you to ''tweak'' your photographs. Adobe photoshop can be purchased through many computer shops or on the Internet.

In the same way that many people talk about ''Hoovering'' the carpet many people us the term ''to Photoshop'' something in relation to editing a picture in a photo editing package that does not have to be using Photoshop itself.

There are many alternatives to Photoshop that are much more affordable (see links below).

== External Links ==

* [http://www.getpaint.net/ paint.net] A basic but fully featured '''free''' photo editor.
* [http://picasa.google.com/ Picasa from Google] '''Free''' and easy to use and organises your photographs too (now includes watermarking).
* [http://www.gimp.org/ GIMP] A very powerful and again '''free''' but more difficult to learn photo editor.

Photography

2008-12-03T17:47:15Z

Dickie: /* Results */

[[Image:AutomaticPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|A Picture taken on fully automatic under tungsten light, notice the orange tinge to the picture and the fact that it is also underexposed (i.e. too dark)]]
[[Image:WB_Adjusted.jpg|thumb|300px|This picture is now taken with the white balance set to manual in the camera by setting it from a grey card, notice the fact that although the picture is still underexposed the white paper is now grey rather than orange]]

Photography is an entire subject that could take up a whole Wiki all by itself. What follows here are some hints and tips for [[beadmakers]] wishing to get good photographs of their [[beads]] or [[glass]] work.

It is generally regarded that the better your original image (off the camera) the better the final result will be. Yes you can adjust pictures in Photoshop afterwards but the final quality of the image will suffer (see final pictures).
For the best image quality you should aim for an image that is as close to how you would like it before it even touches Photoshop. Then all you need to do in there is a bit of sharpening (perhaps) cropping and maybe adding a watermark.

== Problems with glass ==
Generally speaking [[glass]] is actually quite a difficult subject to photograph due to its reflective nature, but given a few simple tips a bit of patience and some quite simple equipment it is possible to get very good results.

== Basic Set-up ==
[[Image:Plus_1_stop.jpg‎|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with one stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is still a slight shade of grey...we still need a bit more compensation]]
[[Image:Plus_2_stops.jpg|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with two stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is now much closer to white, but interestingly now has a slight pink tinge. This is because the camera is not adjusting correctly for the white balance of the light as the exposure has changed.]]
The basic set-up required to photograph beads is actually very simple.
* A light source (desk light or window).
* White piece of paper.
* A Digital Camera.
* Tripod (if you have shaky hands, or not much light, or both)
* Oh yes and some glass work to photograph.

You do not really need more than this to take basic good quality photographs of your work.

When taking pictures with this type of equipment it is important to set up the camera correctly to get the best shot, because if you just turn your camera on and take a picture you will generally be very disappointed with the result.

'''Just to make a point, all the pictures on this page were taken with no more than a white piece of card (balanced on a clothes airer) under a halogen ceiling spotlight.''' (OK the camera was a Canon EOS 20D but I could have (and have) got very similar results with a point and shoot camera, as long as it has white balance and exposure compensation adjustment)

There are two setting that are very important that you understand to be able to take good bead photographs.

* White Balance
* Exposure Compensation

== White balance ==

===What is white?===
As many of you may know there are many types of white, our eyes are very good at compensating for different light colours and different shades of white, and we just ''know'' that something is white. Cameras on the other hand are dumb, and have to be told what white is, otherwise they will get it wrong.
Therefore the white balance setting in a camera is to make sure white is actually a white and not yellowy orange or blue.

Most cameras do this automatically when you take pictures, but quite often get it wrong, especially if there is a lot of one colour in the scene. Higher end cameras will often allow you to take a picture of something grey or white and set the cameras white balance from that picture, many low end cameras often have this feature as well, so it is well worth checking your user manual for "'''Manual white balance'''".

In real life, due to the nature of white not always being ''pure white'' I would thoroughly recommend buying a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_card grey card] from the likes of [http://www.jessops.com/online.store/categories/Accessories/General%20Camera%20Accessories/Grey%20Cards/products/Jessops/Grey%20Card%208%20x%2010in-9652/Show.html Jessops]. This is calibrated to be a mid grey (often called 18% grey card) and is ideal for setting the white balance and also for getting the correct exposure as the brightness of the card is also calibrated. But if you do not have one don't worry a piece of the whitest paper you can find will be fine.

Despite the fact that white balance makes sure that white is white it should not be confused with

== Exposure Compensation ==
This ensures that white is white and not grey!!!

Basically this setting allows you to over/under expose your pictures, that may sound wrong but the reason you would need this is because all cameras have to work out the correct exposure for a given scene.

The problem comes when what you are photographing is a picture of a bead on a white piece of paper and this is certainly not typical, and the camera will under expose it. (as wrong as it might seem this is the correct behaviour as most scenes that you photograph will average out to a mid grey in terms of brightness).

Many people think that under exposed pictures like the ones shown on the right are due to not having enough light, but that is wrong, adding more lights will not solve this problem. To correct this you need to "fool" the camera into ''over exposing'' the image so that white paper actually looks white and not grey. (remember this is not to be confused with white balance as described above)

By changing the exposure compensation to add 1 or 2 [[stops]], that picture of a bead on a white piece of paper will be white and not grey and the colours in you beads will be much more vibrant, thus removing the necessity to process all your pictures in Photoshop.

== Results ==
[[Image:FinalPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|The final version that has been ''slightly'' adjusted in a photo editor, to remove the slight colour cast, and brightened just a little bit]]
[[Image:Corrected_From_Original.jpg|thumb|300px|This is the original under exposed and incorrect white balance version of the photo, but ''corrected'' in a photo editor. This is as close as I could get it to the right look. Notice though that the colour is not as vibrant as the picture above and that the shadows have a slight orange tinge. The picture is also more ''grainy''. Although this may be acceptable to you the correct version is far superior.]]
You can see the results of these techniques in the last photograph above, but I personally would tweek them a bit in Photoshop (see the two photographs on the right).

The final two pictures are quite similar but the first one is a very ''slightly'' corrected version of the best shot from the series, this is just to correct the small amount of ''colour cast'' that was there and brighten it just a bit more, as +2 stops was not quite enough, but my camera only allowed me to add 2 stops. I could have used manual mode, but we will go into that later.

It is possible to get the pictures even better from the camera, but beware that if you push the exposure too far, then you are in danger of ''burning out'' the image, and you will then loose highlights. It's much better the leave a bit of ''headroom'' in the image and then adjust out that little bit in Photoshop as you are in complete control over the amount you can change the exposure by.

The final picture on the right is a ''[[photoshopped]]'' version of the very first underexposed and bad white balance picture at the top of this page.

Although this does not look too bad the colour vibrancy is not as good, and the ''[[grain]]'' of the camera's sensor is also visible and detracts from the image. The picture is just not as sharp or as crisp, especially when viewed large or printed.

Click on the images to see larger versions...

== Manual Exposure ==

If your camera has a full manual mode (i.e. allows you to set both [[shutter speed]] and [[aperture]] together this is the way to go.)

If you don't have a [[grey card]] and you want to get a good approximation for 18% grey for metering you can do a lot worse than using the back of your hand....(assuming you are a white skinned Caucasian that is) I'll tell you how to do this, but I would suggest getting a [[grey card]] anyway, they are also useful for [[white balance]] as described above...

Basically, set up your [[photo studio]] [[lighting]] as usual then fill the frame with your hand and try to take a picture of the back of your hand (in the same position as the bead would be), remember try to ensure that as much of your hand fills the fame as possible, don't bring your hand closer to the camera than the bead, but zoom in with the camera to the level that you would want to photograph anyway.

Now note down the [[exposure]] and [[aperture]] that your camera used to take this shot. e.g 125th second at f5.6

Now if you set your camera to manual and dial in the same settings as noted above. Now any pictures you take should be exposed correctly for the scene, assuming the [[lighting]] does not change.

The camera will desperately be trying to tell you the picture will be over exposed... but don't believe it... It's lying (after all what does it know, it's only a camera, it isn't as educated as you in glass beads)

And that's it... if you '''do''' have a [[grey card]] then you do exactly the same thing but replace your hand with the grey card... well... keep your hand attached to your wrist, just put the card in front of your camera where you hand once was. (I think you understand!)

It is sometimes also useful to leave a bit of the [[grey card]] visible in the corner of a shot so that when you come to crop and edit your shots later you can double check both the white balance AND the [[exposure]] in Photoshop as they grey card should read at 50% grey in Photoshop and with an even [[white balance]]. You can click it with the eye dropper tool to select the white balance setting.

== Technical bit - Why can't I just edit in Photoshop? ==

Well.. of course you ''can'', but if you have managed to read through the information above then you should now know why photoshopping your images to correct these basic problems is a bad idea... but for a technical reason then read on.

But if you are easily ''geeked out'' then stop reading now!

One of the problems is with dynamic range... a picture on a computer can only store a limited number of colours. In fact although it can represent over 16.7 million different colours it can only store a paltry 256 levels of grey. This is because each colour is made up of varying quantities of red green and blue. Each of these 3 primary colours is represented by a byte (with a value ranging from 0 to 255) the problem comes when grey is concerned. Grey is made up of equal values of each colour. So 50% grey has a value of 127 for red 127 for green and 127 for blue. As you can see (or perhaps not) as they have to be the same you can therefore only have 256 different levels of grey. This restriction is also true for other colours, but is generally not noticeable in the same way.

To cut to the chase, if you take a picture where you have not correctly set the camera for white balance and brightness then when you edit in photoshop it has to ''stretch'' the colours and levels that ''are'' available in the picture to make it look right, this ultimately reduces the quality of the end result, because you have less colours and shades in the picture than you should have, you can really notice it in greys and gently shaded areas as mentioned above so by only using a few of the available colours in your original image by not exposing correctly, then you are starting out from a bad position and the end result will never be as good.

== Light cubes ==

To help with photography and reduce reflections you can use a light cube.

These are [[translucent]] boxes, usually made from cloth, that allow you to photograph your work in an easy way. You still need to follow all the instructions above, but be warned that unless you introduce deliberate [[reflections]] your [[glass]] will appear dull or [[matt]]

== Further information ==

*[http://www.tabletopstudio.com/HowTo_page.html Tabletop Studio Techniques]
*[http://www.beadybugs.co.uk/hintsandtips.htm How to clean up photos - by Helen P]

[[Category:Tutorial]]
[[Category:Techniques]]

Photography

2008-12-03T10:41:30Z

Dickie: /* Basic Set-up */

[[Image:AutomaticPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|A Picture taken on fully automatic under tungsten light, notice the orange tinge to the picture and the fact that it is also underexposed (i.e. too dark)]]
[[Image:WB_Adjusted.jpg|thumb|300px|This picture is now taken with the white balance set to manual in the camera by setting it from a grey card, notice the fact that although the picture is still underexposed the white paper is now grey rather than orange]]

Photography is an entire subject that could take up a whole Wiki all by itself. What follows here are some hints and tips for [[beadmakers]] wishing to get good photographs of their [[beads]] or [[glass]] work.

It is generally regarded that the better your original image (off the camera) the better the final result will be. Yes you can adjust pictures in Photoshop afterwards but the final quality of the image will suffer (see final pictures).
For the best image quality you should aim for an image that is as close to how you would like it before it even touches Photoshop. Then all you need to do in there is a bit of sharpening (perhaps) cropping and maybe adding a watermark.

== Problems with glass ==
Generally speaking [[glass]] is actually quite a difficult subject to photograph due to its reflective nature, but given a few simple tips a bit of patience and some quite simple equipment it is possible to get very good results.

== Basic Set-up ==
[[Image:Plus_1_stop.jpg‎|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with one stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is still a slight shade of grey...we still need a bit more compensation]]
[[Image:Plus_2_stops.jpg|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with two stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is now much closer to white, but interestingly now has a slight pink tinge. This is because the camera is not adjusting correctly for the white balance of the light as the exposure has changed.]]
The basic set-up required to photograph beads is actually very simple.
* A light source (desk light or window).
* White piece of paper.
* A Digital Camera.
* Tripod (if you have shaky hands, or not much light, or both)
* Oh yes and some glass work to photograph.

You do not really need more than this to take basic good quality photographs of your work.

When taking pictures with this type of equipment it is important to set up the camera correctly to get the best shot, because if you just turn your camera on and take a picture you will generally be very disappointed with the result.

'''Just to make a point, all the pictures on this page were taken with no more than a white piece of card (balanced on a clothes airer) under a halogen ceiling spotlight.''' (OK the camera was a Canon EOS 20D but I could have (and have) got very similar results with a point and shoot camera, as long as it has white balance and exposure compensation adjustment)

There are two setting that are very important that you understand to be able to take good bead photographs.

* White Balance
* Exposure Compensation

== White balance ==

===What is white?===
As many of you may know there are many types of white, our eyes are very good at compensating for different light colours and different shades of white, and we just ''know'' that something is white. Cameras on the other hand are dumb, and have to be told what white is, otherwise they will get it wrong.
Therefore the white balance setting in a camera is to make sure white is actually a white and not yellowy orange or blue.

Most cameras do this automatically when you take pictures, but quite often get it wrong, especially if there is a lot of one colour in the scene. Higher end cameras will often allow you to take a picture of something grey or white and set the cameras white balance from that picture, many low end cameras often have this feature as well, so it is well worth checking your user manual for "'''Manual white balance'''".

In real life, due to the nature of white not always being ''pure white'' I would thoroughly recommend buying a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_card grey card] from the likes of [http://www.jessops.com/online.store/categories/Accessories/General%20Camera%20Accessories/Grey%20Cards/products/Jessops/Grey%20Card%208%20x%2010in-9652/Show.html Jessops]. This is calibrated to be a mid grey (often called 18% grey card) and is ideal for setting the white balance and also for getting the correct exposure as the brightness of the card is also calibrated. But if you do not have one don't worry a piece of the whitest paper you can find will be fine.

Despite the fact that white balance makes sure that white is white it should not be confused with

== Exposure Compensation ==
This ensures that white is white and not grey!!!

Basically this setting allows you to over/under expose your pictures, that may sound wrong but the reason you would need this is because all cameras have to work out the correct exposure for a given scene.

The problem comes when what you are photographing is a picture of a bead on a white piece of paper and this is certainly not typical, and the camera will under expose it. (as wrong as it might seem this is the correct behaviour as most scenes that you photograph will average out to a mid grey in terms of brightness).

Many people think that under exposed pictures like the ones shown on the right are due to not having enough light, but that is wrong, adding more lights will not solve this problem. To correct this you need to "fool" the camera into ''over exposing'' the image so that white paper actually looks white and not grey. (remember this is not to be confused with white balance as described above)

By changing the exposure compensation to add 1 or 2 [[stops]], that picture of a bead on a white piece of paper will be white and not grey and the colours in you beads will be much more vibrant, thus removing the necessity to process all your pictures in Photoshop.

== Results ==
[[Image:FinalPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|The final version that has been ''slightly'' adjusted in a photo editor, to remove the slight colour cast, and brightened just a little bit]]
[[Image:Corrected_From_Original.jpg|thumb|300px|A corrected version of the original under exposed and incorrect white balance version of the photo, but corrected in a photo editor. This is as close as I could get it to the correct look. Notice that the colour is not as vibrant as the picture above and that the shadows have a slight orange tinge. Although this may be acceptable the correct version is far superior.]]
You can see the results of these techniques in the last photograph above, but I personally would tweek them a bit in Photoshop (see the two photographs on the right).

The final two pictures are quite similar but the first one is a very ''slightly'' corrected version of the best shot from the series, this is just to correct the small amount of ''colour cast'' that was there and brighten it just a bit more, as +2 stops was not quite enough, but my camera only allowed me to add 2 stops. I could have used manual mode, but we will go into that later.

It is possible to get the pictures even better from the camera, but beware that if you push the exposure too far, then you are in danger of ''burning out'' the image, and you will then loose highlights. It's much better the leave a bit of ''headroom'' in the image and then adjust out that little bit in Photoshop as you are in complete control over the amount you can change the exposure by.

The final picture on the right is a ''[[photoshopped]]'' version of the very first underexposed and bad white balance picture at the top of this page.

Although this does not look too bad the colour vibrancy is not as good, and the ''[[grain]]'' of the camera's sensor is also visible and detracts from the image. The picture is just not as sharp or as crisp, especially when viewed large or printed.

Click on the images to see larger versions...

== Manual Exposure ==

If your camera has a full manual mode (i.e. allows you to set both [[shutter speed]] and [[aperture]] together this is the way to go.)

If you don't have a [[grey card]] and you want to get a good approximation for 18% grey for metering you can do a lot worse than using the back of your hand....(assuming you are a white skinned Caucasian that is) I'll tell you how to do this, but I would suggest getting a [[grey card]] anyway, they are also useful for [[white balance]] as described above...

Basically, set up your [[photo studio]] [[lighting]] as usual then fill the frame with your hand and try to take a picture of the back of your hand (in the same position as the bead would be), remember try to ensure that as much of your hand fills the fame as possible, don't bring your hand closer to the camera than the bead, but zoom in with the camera to the level that you would want to photograph anyway.

Now note down the [[exposure]] and [[aperture]] that your camera used to take this shot. e.g 125th second at f5.6

Now if you set your camera to manual and dial in the same settings as noted above. Now any pictures you take should be exposed correctly for the scene, assuming the [[lighting]] does not change.

The camera will desperately be trying to tell you the picture will be over exposed... but don't believe it... It's lying (after all what does it know, it's only a camera, it isn't as educated as you in glass beads)

And that's it... if you '''do''' have a [[grey card]] then you do exactly the same thing but replace your hand with the grey card... well... keep your hand attached to your wrist, just put the card in front of your camera where you hand once was. (I think you understand!)

It is sometimes also useful to leave a bit of the [[grey card]] visible in the corner of a shot so that when you come to crop and edit your shots later you can double check both the white balance AND the [[exposure]] in Photoshop as they grey card should read at 50% grey in Photoshop and with an even [[white balance]]. You can click it with the eye dropper tool to select the white balance setting.

== Technical bit - Why can't I just edit in Photoshop? ==

Well.. of course you ''can'', but if you have managed to read through the information above then you should now know why photoshopping your images to correct these basic problems is a bad idea... but for a technical reason then read on.

But if you are easily ''geeked out'' then stop reading now!

One of the problems is with dynamic range... a picture on a computer can only store a limited number of colours. In fact although it can represent over 16.7 million different colours it can only store a paltry 256 levels of grey. This is because each colour is made up of varying quantities of red green and blue. Each of these 3 primary colours is represented by a byte (with a value ranging from 0 to 255) the problem comes when grey is concerned. Grey is made up of equal values of each colour. So 50% grey has a value of 127 for red 127 for green and 127 for blue. As you can see (or perhaps not) as they have to be the same you can therefore only have 256 different levels of grey. This restriction is also true for other colours, but is generally not noticeable in the same way.

To cut to the chase, if you take a picture where you have not correctly set the camera for white balance and brightness then when you edit in photoshop it has to ''stretch'' the colours and levels that ''are'' available in the picture to make it look right, this ultimately reduces the quality of the end result, because you have less colours and shades in the picture than you should have, you can really notice it in greys and gently shaded areas as mentioned above so by only using a few of the available colours in your original image by not exposing correctly, then you are starting out from a bad position and the end result will never be as good.

== Light cubes ==

To help with photography and reduce reflections you can use a light cube.

These are [[translucent]] boxes, usually made from cloth, that allow you to photograph your work in an easy way. You still need to follow all the instructions above, but be warned that unless you introduce deliberate [[reflections]] your [[glass]] will appear dull or [[matt]]

== Further information ==

*[http://www.tabletopstudio.com/HowTo_page.html Tabletop Studio Techniques]
*[http://www.beadybugs.co.uk/hintsandtips.htm How to clean up photos - by Helen P]

[[Category:Tutorial]]
[[Category:Techniques]]

Category:Tutorial

2008-12-03T09:53:17Z

Dickie: New page: Here you can find tutorials on various topics.

Here you can find tutorials on various topics.

Photography

2008-12-03T09:52:24Z

Dickie: Added categories

[[Image:AutomaticPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|A Picture taken on fully automatic under tungsten light, notice the orange tinge to the picture and the fact that it is also underexposed (i.e. too dark)]]
[[Image:WB_Adjusted.jpg|thumb|300px|This picture is now taken with the white balance set to manual in the camera by setting it from a grey card, notice the fact that although the picture is still underexposed the white paper is now grey rather than orange]]

Photography is an entire subject that could take up a whole Wiki all by itself. What follows here are some hints and tips for [[beadmakers]] wishing to get good photographs of their [[beads]] or [[glass]] work.

It is generally regarded that the better your original image (off the camera) the better the final result will be. Yes you can adjust pictures in Photoshop afterwards but the final quality of the image will suffer (see final pictures).
For the best image quality you should aim for an image that is as close to how you would like it before it even touches Photoshop. Then all you need to do in there is a bit of sharpening (perhaps) cropping and maybe adding a watermark.

== Problems with glass ==
Generally speaking [[glass]] is actually quite a difficult subject to photograph due to its reflective nature, but given a few simple tips a bit of patience and some quite simple equipment it is possible to get very good results.

== Basic Set-up ==
[[Image:Plus_1_stop.jpg‎|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with one stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is still a slight shade of grey...we still need a bit more compensation]]
[[Image:Plus_2_stops.jpg|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with two stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is now much closer to white, but interestingly now has a slight pink tinge. This is because the camera is not adjusting correctly for the white balance of the light as the exposure has changed.]]
The basic set-up required to photograph beads is actually very simple.
* A light source (desk light or window).
* White piece of paper.
* A Digital Camera.
* Tripod (if you have shaky hands, or not much light, or both)
* Oh yes and some glass work to photograph.

You do not really need more than this to take basic good quality photographs of your work.

When taking pictures with this type of equipment it is important to set up the camera correctly to get the best shot, because if you just turn your camera on and take a picture you will generally be very disappointed with the result.

'''Just to make a point all the pictures on this page were taken on a white piece of card (balanced on a clothes airer) under a halogen ceiling spotlight.''' (OK the camera was a Canon EOS 20D but I could have (and have) got very similar results with a point and shoot camera, as long as it has white balance and exposure compensation adjustment)

There are two setting that are very important that you understand to be able to take good bead photographs.

* White Balance
* Exposure Compensation

== White balance ==

===What is white?===
As many of you may know there are many types of white, our eyes are very good at compensating for different light colours and different shades of white, and we just ''know'' that something is white. Cameras on the other hand are dumb, and have to be told what white is, otherwise they will get it wrong.
Therefore the white balance setting in a camera is to make sure white is actually a white and not yellowy orange or blue.

Most cameras do this automatically when you take pictures, but quite often get it wrong, especially if there is a lot of one colour in the scene. Higher end cameras will often allow you to take a picture of something grey or white and set the cameras white balance from that picture, many low end cameras often have this feature as well, so it is well worth checking your user manual for "'''Manual white balance'''".

In real life, due to the nature of white not always being ''pure white'' I would thoroughly recommend buying a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_card grey card] from the likes of [http://www.jessops.com/online.store/categories/Accessories/General%20Camera%20Accessories/Grey%20Cards/products/Jessops/Grey%20Card%208%20x%2010in-9652/Show.html Jessops]. This is calibrated to be a mid grey (often called 18% grey card) and is ideal for setting the white balance and also for getting the correct exposure as the brightness of the card is also calibrated. But if you do not have one don't worry a piece of the whitest paper you can find will be fine.

Despite the fact that white balance makes sure that white is white it should not be confused with

== Exposure Compensation ==
This ensures that white is white and not grey!!!

Basically this setting allows you to over/under expose your pictures, that may sound wrong but the reason you would need this is because all cameras have to work out the correct exposure for a given scene.

The problem comes when what you are photographing is a picture of a bead on a white piece of paper and this is certainly not typical, and the camera will under expose it. (as wrong as it might seem this is the correct behaviour as most scenes that you photograph will average out to a mid grey in terms of brightness).

Many people think that under exposed pictures like the ones shown on the right are due to not having enough light, but that is wrong, adding more lights will not solve this problem. To correct this you need to "fool" the camera into ''over exposing'' the image so that white paper actually looks white and not grey. (remember this is not to be confused with white balance as described above)

By changing the exposure compensation to add 1 or 2 [[stops]], that picture of a bead on a white piece of paper will be white and not grey and the colours in you beads will be much more vibrant, thus removing the necessity to process all your pictures in Photoshop.

== Results ==
[[Image:FinalPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|The final version that has been ''slightly'' adjusted in a photo editor, to remove the slight colour cast, and brightened just a little bit]]
[[Image:Corrected_From_Original.jpg|thumb|300px|A corrected version of the original under exposed and incorrect white balance version of the photo, but corrected in a photo editor. This is as close as I could get it to the correct look. Notice that the colour is not as vibrant as the picture above and that the shadows have a slight orange tinge. Although this may be acceptable the correct version is far superior.]]
You can see the results of these techniques in the last photograph above, but I personally would tweek them a bit in Photoshop (see the two photographs on the right).

The final two pictures are quite similar but the first one is a very ''slightly'' corrected version of the best shot from the series, this is just to correct the small amount of ''colour cast'' that was there and brighten it just a bit more, as +2 stops was not quite enough, but my camera only allowed me to add 2 stops. I could have used manual mode, but we will go into that later.

It is possible to get the pictures even better from the camera, but beware that if you push the exposure too far, then you are in danger of ''burning out'' the image, and you will then loose highlights. It's much better the leave a bit of ''headroom'' in the image and then adjust out that little bit in Photoshop as you are in complete control over the amount you can change the exposure by.

The final picture on the right is a ''[[photoshopped]]'' version of the very first underexposed and bad white balance picture at the top of this page.

Although this does not look too bad the colour vibrancy is not as good, and the ''[[grain]]'' of the camera's sensor is also visible and detracts from the image. The picture is just not as sharp or as crisp, especially when viewed large or printed.

Click on the images to see larger versions...

== Manual Exposure ==

If your camera has a full manual mode (i.e. allows you to set both [[shutter speed]] and [[aperture]] together this is the way to go.)

If you don't have a [[grey card]] and you want to get a good approximation for 18% grey for metering you can do a lot worse than using the back of your hand....(assuming you are a white skinned Caucasian that is) I'll tell you how to do this, but I would suggest getting a [[grey card]] anyway, they are also useful for [[white balance]] as described above...

Basically, set up your [[photo studio]] [[lighting]] as usual then fill the frame with your hand and try to take a picture of the back of your hand (in the same position as the bead would be), remember try to ensure that as much of your hand fills the fame as possible, don't bring your hand closer to the camera than the bead, but zoom in with the camera to the level that you would want to photograph anyway.

Now note down the [[exposure]] and [[aperture]] that your camera used to take this shot. e.g 125th second at f5.6

Now if you set your camera to manual and dial in the same settings as noted above. Now any pictures you take should be exposed correctly for the scene, assuming the [[lighting]] does not change.

The camera will desperately be trying to tell you the picture will be over exposed... but don't believe it... It's lying (after all what does it know, it's only a camera, it isn't as educated as you in glass beads)

And that's it... if you '''do''' have a [[grey card]] then you do exactly the same thing but replace your hand with the grey card... well... keep your hand attached to your wrist, just put the card in front of your camera where you hand once was. (I think you understand!)

It is sometimes also useful to leave a bit of the [[grey card]] visible in the corner of a shot so that when you come to crop and edit your shots later you can double check both the white balance AND the [[exposure]] in Photoshop as they grey card should read at 50% grey in Photoshop and with an even [[white balance]]. You can click it with the eye dropper tool to select the white balance setting.

== Technical bit - Why can't I just edit in Photoshop? ==

Well.. of course you ''can'', but if you have managed to read through the information above then you should now know why photoshopping your images to correct these basic problems is a bad idea... but for a technical reason then read on.

But if you are easily ''geeked out'' then stop reading now!

One of the problems is with dynamic range... a picture on a computer can only store a limited number of colours. In fact although it can represent over 16.7 million different colours it can only store a paltry 256 levels of grey. This is because each colour is made up of varying quantities of red green and blue. Each of these 3 primary colours is represented by a byte (with a value ranging from 0 to 255) the problem comes when grey is concerned. Grey is made up of equal values of each colour. So 50% grey has a value of 127 for red 127 for green and 127 for blue. As you can see (or perhaps not) as they have to be the same you can therefore only have 256 different levels of grey. This restriction is also true for other colours, but is generally not noticeable in the same way.

To cut to the chase, if you take a picture where you have not correctly set the camera for white balance and brightness then when you edit in photoshop it has to ''stretch'' the colours and levels that ''are'' available in the picture to make it look right, this ultimately reduces the quality of the end result, because you have less colours and shades in the picture than you should have, you can really notice it in greys and gently shaded areas as mentioned above so by only using a few of the available colours in your original image by not exposing correctly, then you are starting out from a bad position and the end result will never be as good.

== Light cubes ==

To help with photography and reduce reflections you can use a light cube.

These are [[translucent]] boxes, usually made from cloth, that allow you to photograph your work in an easy way. You still need to follow all the instructions above, but be warned that unless you introduce deliberate [[reflections]] your [[glass]] will appear dull or [[matt]]

== Further information ==

*[http://www.tabletopstudio.com/HowTo_page.html Tabletop Studio Techniques]
*[http://www.beadybugs.co.uk/hintsandtips.htm How to clean up photos - by Helen P]

[[Category:Tutorial]]
[[Category:Techniques]]

Beadmakers

2008-12-03T09:50:10Z

Dickie: New page: In the context of this Wiki Beadmakers are people who make glass beads using lampworking techniques. There are other types of bead making, for example Fimo, paper, silver e...

In the context of this Wiki Beadmakers are people who make [[glass beads]] using [[lampworking]] techniques.
There are other types of bead making, for example [[Fimo]], paper, [[silver]] etc. etc.

Photography

2008-12-03T01:35:08Z

Dickie: /* Basic Set-up */

[[Image:AutomaticPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|A Picture taken on fully automatic under tungsten light, notice the orange tinge to the picture and the fact that it is also underexposed (i.e. too dark)]]
[[Image:WB_Adjusted.jpg|thumb|300px|This picture is now taken with the white balance set to manual in the camera by setting it from a grey card, notice the fact that although the picture is still underexposed the white paper is now grey rather than orange]]

Photography is an entire subject that could take up a whole Wiki all by itself. What follows here are some hints and tips for [[beadmakers]] wishing to get good photographs of their [[beads]] or [[glass]] work.

It is generally regarded that the better your original image (off the camera) the better the final result will be. Yes you can adjust pictures in Photoshop afterwards but the final quality of the image will suffer (see final pictures).
For the best image quality you should aim for an image that is as close to how you would like it before it even touches Photoshop. Then all you need to do in there is a bit of sharpening (perhaps) cropping and maybe adding a watermark.

== Problems with glass ==
Generally speaking [[glass]] is actually quite a difficult subject to photograph due to its reflective nature, but given a few simple tips a bit of patience and some quite simple equipment it is possible to get very good results.

== Basic Set-up ==
[[Image:Plus_1_stop.jpg‎|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with one stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is still a slight shade of grey...we still need a bit more compensation]]
[[Image:Plus_2_stops.jpg|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with two stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is now much closer to white, but interestingly now has a slight pink tinge. This is because the camera is not adjusting correctly for the white balance of the light as the exposure has changed.]]
The basic set-up required to photograph beads is actually very simple.
* A light source (desk light or window).
* White piece of paper.
* A Digital Camera.
* Tripod (if you have shaky hands, or not much light, or both)
* Oh yes and some glass work to photograph.

You do not really need more than this to take basic good quality photographs of your work.

When taking pictures with this type of equipment it is important to set up the camera correctly to get the best shot, because if you just turn your camera on and take a picture you will generally be very disappointed with the result.

'''Just to make a point all the pictures on this page were taken on a white piece of card (balanced on a clothes airer) under a halogen ceiling spotlight.''' (OK the camera was a Canon EOS 20D but I could have (and have) got very similar results with a point and shoot camera, as long as it has white balance and exposure compensation adjustment)

There are two setting that are very important that you understand to be able to take good bead photographs.

* White Balance
* Exposure Compensation

== White balance ==

===What is white?===
As many of you may know there are many types of white, our eyes are very good at compensating for different light colours and different shades of white, and we just ''know'' that something is white. Cameras on the other hand are dumb, and have to be told what white is, otherwise they will get it wrong.
Therefore the white balance setting in a camera is to make sure white is actually a white and not yellowy orange or blue.

Most cameras do this automatically when you take pictures, but quite often get it wrong, especially if there is a lot of one colour in the scene. Higher end cameras will often allow you to take a picture of something grey or white and set the cameras white balance from that picture, many low end cameras often have this feature as well, so it is well worth checking your user manual for "'''Manual white balance'''".

In real life, due to the nature of white not always being ''pure white'' I would thoroughly recommend buying a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_card grey card] from the likes of [http://www.jessops.com/online.store/categories/Accessories/General%20Camera%20Accessories/Grey%20Cards/products/Jessops/Grey%20Card%208%20x%2010in-9652/Show.html Jessops]. This is calibrated to be a mid grey (often called 18% grey card) and is ideal for setting the white balance and also for getting the correct exposure as the brightness of the card is also calibrated. But if you do not have one don't worry a piece of the whitest paper you can find will be fine.

Despite the fact that white balance makes sure that white is white it should not be confused with

== Exposure Compensation ==
This ensures that white is white and not grey!!!

Basically this setting allows you to over/under expose your pictures, that may sound wrong but the reason you would need this is because all cameras have to work out the correct exposure for a given scene.

The problem comes when what you are photographing is a picture of a bead on a white piece of paper and this is certainly not typical, and the camera will under expose it. (as wrong as it might seem this is the correct behaviour as most scenes that you photograph will average out to a mid grey in terms of brightness).

Many people think that under exposed pictures like the ones shown on the right are due to not having enough light, but that is wrong, adding more lights will not solve this problem. To correct this you need to "fool" the camera into ''over exposing'' the image so that white paper actually looks white and not grey. (remember this is not to be confused with white balance as described above)

By changing the exposure compensation to add 1 or 2 [[stops]], that picture of a bead on a white piece of paper will be white and not grey and the colours in you beads will be much more vibrant, thus removing the necessity to process all your pictures in Photoshop.

== Results ==
[[Image:FinalPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|The final version that has been ''slightly'' adjusted in a photo editor, to remove the slight colour cast, and brightened just a little bit]]
[[Image:Corrected_From_Original.jpg|thumb|300px|A corrected version of the original under exposed and incorrect white balance version of the photo, but corrected in a photo editor. This is as close as I could get it to the correct look. Notice that the colour is not as vibrant as the picture above and that the shadows have a slight orange tinge. Although this may be acceptable the correct version is far superior.]]
You can see the results of these techniques in the last photograph above, but I personally would tweek them a bit in Photoshop (see the two photographs on the right).

The final two pictures are quite similar but the first one is a very ''slightly'' corrected version of the best shot from the series, this is just to correct the small amount of ''colour cast'' that was there and brighten it just a bit more, as +2 stops was not quite enough, but my camera only allowed me to add 2 stops. I could have used manual mode, but we will go into that later.

It is possible to get the pictures even better from the camera, but beware that if you push the exposure too far, then you are in danger of ''burning out'' the image, and you will then loose highlights. It's much better the leave a bit of ''headroom'' in the image and then adjust out that little bit in Photoshop as you are in complete control over the amount you can change the exposure by.

The final picture on the right is a ''[[photoshopped]]'' version of the very first underexposed and bad white balance picture at the top of this page.

Although this does not look too bad the colour vibrancy is not as good, and the ''[[grain]]'' of the camera's sensor is also visible and detracts from the image. The picture is just not as sharp or as crisp, especially when viewed large or printed.

Click on the images to see larger versions...

== Manual Exposure ==

If your camera has a full manual mode (i.e. allows you to set both [[shutter speed]] and [[aperture]] together this is the way to go.)

If you don't have a [[grey card]] and you want to get a good approximation for 18% grey for metering you can do a lot worse than using the back of your hand....(assuming you are a white skinned Caucasian that is) I'll tell you how to do this, but I would suggest getting a [[grey card]] anyway, they are also useful for [[white balance]] as described above...

Basically, set up your [[photo studio]] [[lighting]] as usual then fill the frame with your hand and try to take a picture of the back of your hand (in the same position as the bead would be), remember try to ensure that as much of your hand fills the fame as possible, don't bring your hand closer to the camera than the bead, but zoom in with the camera to the level that you would want to photograph anyway.

Now note down the [[exposure]] and [[aperture]] that your camera used to take this shot. e.g 125th second at f5.6

Now if you set your camera to manual and dial in the same settings as noted above. Now any pictures you take should be exposed correctly for the scene, assuming the [[lighting]] does not change.

The camera will desperately be trying to tell you the picture will be over exposed... but don't believe it... It's lying (after all what does it know, it's only a camera, it isn't as educated as you in glass beads)

And that's it... if you '''do''' have a [[grey card]] then you do exactly the same thing but replace your hand with the grey card... well... keep your hand attached to your wrist, just put the card in front of your camera where you hand once was. (I think you understand!)

It is sometimes also useful to leave a bit of the [[grey card]] visible in the corner of a shot so that when you come to crop and edit your shots later you can double check both the white balance AND the [[exposure]] in Photoshop as they grey card should read at 50% grey in Photoshop and with an even [[white balance]]. You can click it with the eye dropper tool to select the white balance setting.

== Technical bit - Why can't I just edit in Photoshop? ==

Well.. of course you ''can'', but if you have managed to read through the information above then you should now know why photoshopping your images to correct these basic problems is a bad idea... but for a technical reason then read on.

But if you are easily ''geeked out'' then stop reading now!

One of the problems is with dynamic range... a picture on a computer can only store a limited number of colours. In fact although it can represent over 16.7 million different colours it can only store a paltry 256 levels of grey. This is because each colour is made up of varying quantities of red green and blue. Each of these 3 primary colours is represented by a byte (with a value ranging from 0 to 255) the problem comes when grey is concerned. Grey is made up of equal values of each colour. So 50% grey has a value of 127 for red 127 for green and 127 for blue. As you can see (or perhaps not) as they have to be the same you can therefore only have 256 different levels of grey. This restriction is also true for other colours, but is generally not noticeable in the same way.

To cut to the chase, if you take a picture where you have not correctly set the camera for white balance and brightness then when you edit in photoshop it has to ''stretch'' the colours and levels that ''are'' available in the picture to make it look right, this ultimately reduces the quality of the end result, because you have less colours and shades in the picture than you should have, you can really notice it in greys and gently shaded areas as mentioned above so by only using a few of the available colours in your original image by not exposing correctly, then you are starting out from a bad position and the end result will never be as good.

== Light cubes ==

To help with photography and reduce reflections you can use a light cube.

These are [[translucent]] boxes, usually made from cloth, that allow you to photograph your work in an easy way. You still need to follow all the instructions above, but be warned that unless you introduce deliberate [[reflections]] your [[glass]] will appear dull or [[matt]]

== Further information ==

*[http://www.tabletopstudio.com/HowTo_page.html Tabletop Studio Techniques]
*[http://www.beadybugs.co.uk/hintsandtips.htm How to clean up photos - by Helen P]

Photography

2008-12-03T01:33:53Z

Dickie: /* Basic Set-up */

[[Image:AutomaticPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|A Picture taken on fully automatic under tungsten light, notice the orange tinge to the picture and the fact that it is also underexposed (i.e. too dark)]]
[[Image:WB_Adjusted.jpg|thumb|300px|This picture is now taken with the white balance set to manual in the camera by setting it from a grey card, notice the fact that although the picture is still underexposed the white paper is now grey rather than orange]]

Photography is an entire subject that could take up a whole Wiki all by itself. What follows here are some hints and tips for [[beadmakers]] wishing to get good photographs of their [[beads]] or [[glass]] work.

It is generally regarded that the better your original image (off the camera) the better the final result will be. Yes you can adjust pictures in Photoshop afterwards but the final quality of the image will suffer (see final pictures).
For the best image quality you should aim for an image that is as close to how you would like it before it even touches Photoshop. Then all you need to do in there is a bit of sharpening (perhaps) cropping and maybe adding a watermark.

== Problems with glass ==
Generally speaking [[glass]] is actually quite a difficult subject to photograph due to its reflective nature, but given a few simple tips a bit of patience and some quite simple equipment it is possible to get very good results.

== Basic Set-up ==
[[Image:Plus_1_stop.jpg‎|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with one stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is still a slight shade of grey...we still need a bit more compensation]]
[[Image:Plus_2_stops.jpg|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with two stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is now much closer to white, but interestingly now has a slight pink tinge. This is because the camera is not adjusting correctly for the white balance of the light as the exposure has changed.]]
The basic set-up required to photograph beads is actually very simple.
* A light source (desk light or window).
* White piece of paper.
* A Digital Camera.
* Oh yes and some glass work to photograph.

You do not really need more than this to take basic good quality photographs of your work.

When taking pictures with this type of equipment it is important to set up the camera correctly to get the best shot, because if you just turn your camera on and take a picture you will generally be very disappointed with the result.

'''Just to make a point all the pictures on this page were taken on a white piece of card (balanced on a clothes airer) under a halogen ceiling spotlight.''' (OK the camera was a Canon EOS 20D but I could have (and have) got very similar results with a point and shoot camera, as long as it has white balance and exposure compensation adjustment)

There are two setting that are very important that you understand to be able to take good bead photographs.

* White Balance
* Exposure Compensation

== White balance ==

===What is white?===
As many of you may know there are many types of white, our eyes are very good at compensating for different light colours and different shades of white, and we just ''know'' that something is white. Cameras on the other hand are dumb, and have to be told what white is, otherwise they will get it wrong.
Therefore the white balance setting in a camera is to make sure white is actually a white and not yellowy orange or blue.

Most cameras do this automatically when you take pictures, but quite often get it wrong, especially if there is a lot of one colour in the scene. Higher end cameras will often allow you to take a picture of something grey or white and set the cameras white balance from that picture, many low end cameras often have this feature as well, so it is well worth checking your user manual for "'''Manual white balance'''".

In real life, due to the nature of white not always being ''pure white'' I would thoroughly recommend buying a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_card grey card] from the likes of [http://www.jessops.com/online.store/categories/Accessories/General%20Camera%20Accessories/Grey%20Cards/products/Jessops/Grey%20Card%208%20x%2010in-9652/Show.html Jessops]. This is calibrated to be a mid grey (often called 18% grey card) and is ideal for setting the white balance and also for getting the correct exposure as the brightness of the card is also calibrated. But if you do not have one don't worry a piece of the whitest paper you can find will be fine.

Despite the fact that white balance makes sure that white is white it should not be confused with

== Exposure Compensation ==
This ensures that white is white and not grey!!!

Basically this setting allows you to over/under expose your pictures, that may sound wrong but the reason you would need this is because all cameras have to work out the correct exposure for a given scene.

The problem comes when what you are photographing is a picture of a bead on a white piece of paper and this is certainly not typical, and the camera will under expose it. (as wrong as it might seem this is the correct behaviour as most scenes that you photograph will average out to a mid grey in terms of brightness).

Many people think that under exposed pictures like the ones shown on the right are due to not having enough light, but that is wrong, adding more lights will not solve this problem. To correct this you need to "fool" the camera into ''over exposing'' the image so that white paper actually looks white and not grey. (remember this is not to be confused with white balance as described above)

By changing the exposure compensation to add 1 or 2 [[stops]], that picture of a bead on a white piece of paper will be white and not grey and the colours in you beads will be much more vibrant, thus removing the necessity to process all your pictures in Photoshop.

== Results ==
[[Image:FinalPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|The final version that has been ''slightly'' adjusted in a photo editor, to remove the slight colour cast, and brightened just a little bit]]
[[Image:Corrected_From_Original.jpg|thumb|300px|A corrected version of the original under exposed and incorrect white balance version of the photo, but corrected in a photo editor. This is as close as I could get it to the correct look. Notice that the colour is not as vibrant as the picture above and that the shadows have a slight orange tinge. Although this may be acceptable the correct version is far superior.]]
You can see the results of these techniques in the last photograph above, but I personally would tweek them a bit in Photoshop (see the two photographs on the right).

The final two pictures are quite similar but the first one is a very ''slightly'' corrected version of the best shot from the series, this is just to correct the small amount of ''colour cast'' that was there and brighten it just a bit more, as +2 stops was not quite enough, but my camera only allowed me to add 2 stops. I could have used manual mode, but we will go into that later.

It is possible to get the pictures even better from the camera, but beware that if you push the exposure too far, then you are in danger of ''burning out'' the image, and you will then loose highlights. It's much better the leave a bit of ''headroom'' in the image and then adjust out that little bit in Photoshop as you are in complete control over the amount you can change the exposure by.

The final picture on the right is a ''[[photoshopped]]'' version of the very first underexposed and bad white balance picture at the top of this page.

Although this does not look too bad the colour vibrancy is not as good, and the ''[[grain]]'' of the camera's sensor is also visible and detracts from the image. The picture is just not as sharp or as crisp, especially when viewed large or printed.

Click on the images to see larger versions...

== Manual Exposure ==

If your camera has a full manual mode (i.e. allows you to set both [[shutter speed]] and [[aperture]] together this is the way to go.)

If you don't have a [[grey card]] and you want to get a good approximation for 18% grey for metering you can do a lot worse than using the back of your hand....(assuming you are a white skinned Caucasian that is) I'll tell you how to do this, but I would suggest getting a [[grey card]] anyway, they are also useful for [[white balance]] as described above...

Basically, set up your [[photo studio]] [[lighting]] as usual then fill the frame with your hand and try to take a picture of the back of your hand (in the same position as the bead would be), remember try to ensure that as much of your hand fills the fame as possible, don't bring your hand closer to the camera than the bead, but zoom in with the camera to the level that you would want to photograph anyway.

Now note down the [[exposure]] and [[aperture]] that your camera used to take this shot. e.g 125th second at f5.6

Now if you set your camera to manual and dial in the same settings as noted above. Now any pictures you take should be exposed correctly for the scene, assuming the [[lighting]] does not change.

The camera will desperately be trying to tell you the picture will be over exposed... but don't believe it... It's lying (after all what does it know, it's only a camera, it isn't as educated as you in glass beads)

And that's it... if you '''do''' have a [[grey card]] then you do exactly the same thing but replace your hand with the grey card... well... keep your hand attached to your wrist, just put the card in front of your camera where you hand once was. (I think you understand!)

It is sometimes also useful to leave a bit of the [[grey card]] visible in the corner of a shot so that when you come to crop and edit your shots later you can double check both the white balance AND the [[exposure]] in Photoshop as they grey card should read at 50% grey in Photoshop and with an even [[white balance]]. You can click it with the eye dropper tool to select the white balance setting.

== Technical bit - Why can't I just edit in Photoshop? ==

Well.. of course you ''can'', but if you have managed to read through the information above then you should now know why photoshopping your images to correct these basic problems is a bad idea... but for a technical reason then read on.

But if you are easily ''geeked out'' then stop reading now!

One of the problems is with dynamic range... a picture on a computer can only store a limited number of colours. In fact although it can represent over 16.7 million different colours it can only store a paltry 256 levels of grey. This is because each colour is made up of varying quantities of red green and blue. Each of these 3 primary colours is represented by a byte (with a value ranging from 0 to 255) the problem comes when grey is concerned. Grey is made up of equal values of each colour. So 50% grey has a value of 127 for red 127 for green and 127 for blue. As you can see (or perhaps not) as they have to be the same you can therefore only have 256 different levels of grey. This restriction is also true for other colours, but is generally not noticeable in the same way.

To cut to the chase, if you take a picture where you have not correctly set the camera for white balance and brightness then when you edit in photoshop it has to ''stretch'' the colours and levels that ''are'' available in the picture to make it look right, this ultimately reduces the quality of the end result, because you have less colours and shades in the picture than you should have, you can really notice it in greys and gently shaded areas as mentioned above so by only using a few of the available colours in your original image by not exposing correctly, then you are starting out from a bad position and the end result will never be as good.

== Light cubes ==

To help with photography and reduce reflections you can use a light cube.

These are [[translucent]] boxes, usually made from cloth, that allow you to photograph your work in an easy way. You still need to follow all the instructions above, but be warned that unless you introduce deliberate [[reflections]] your [[glass]] will appear dull or [[matt]]

== Further information ==

*[http://www.tabletopstudio.com/HowTo_page.html Tabletop Studio Techniques]
*[http://www.beadybugs.co.uk/hintsandtips.htm How to clean up photos - by Helen P]

Photography

2008-12-03T01:32:57Z

Dickie: /* Basic Set-up */

[[Image:AutomaticPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|A Picture taken on fully automatic under tungsten light, notice the orange tinge to the picture and the fact that it is also underexposed (i.e. too dark)]]
[[Image:WB_Adjusted.jpg|thumb|300px|This picture is now taken with the white balance set to manual in the camera by setting it from a grey card, notice the fact that although the picture is still underexposed the white paper is now grey rather than orange]]

Photography is an entire subject that could take up a whole Wiki all by itself. What follows here are some hints and tips for [[beadmakers]] wishing to get good photographs of their [[beads]] or [[glass]] work.

It is generally regarded that the better your original image (off the camera) the better the final result will be. Yes you can adjust pictures in Photoshop afterwards but the final quality of the image will suffer (see final pictures).
For the best image quality you should aim for an image that is as close to how you would like it before it even touches Photoshop. Then all you need to do in there is a bit of sharpening (perhaps) cropping and maybe adding a watermark.

== Problems with glass ==
Generally speaking [[glass]] is actually quite a difficult subject to photograph due to its reflective nature, but given a few simple tips a bit of patience and some quite simple equipment it is possible to get very good results.

== Basic Set-up ==
[[Image:Plus_1_stop.jpg‎|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with one stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is still a slight shade of grey...we still need a bit more compensation]]
[[Image:Plus_2_stops.jpg|thumb|300px|The same as above, but now with two stop of exposure compensation added. Notice that the white paper is now much closer to white, but interestingly now has a slight pink tinge. This is because the camera is not adjusting correctly for the white balance of the light as the exposure has changed.]]
The basic set-up required to photograph beads is actually very simple.
* A light source (desk light or window).
* White piece of paper.
* A Digital Camera.
* Oh yes and some glass work to photograph.

You do not really need more than this to take basic good quality photographs of your work.

When taking pictures with this type of equipment it is important to set up the camera correctly to get the best shot, because if you just turn your camera on and take a picture you will generally be very disappointed with the result.

Just to make a point all the pictures on this page were taken on a white piece of card (balanced on a clothes airer) under a halogen ceiling spotlight. (OK the camera was a Canon 20D but I could have (and have) got very similar results with a point and shoot camera, as long as it has white balance and exposure compensation adjustment)

There are two setting that are very important that you understand to be able to take good bead photographs.

* White Balance
* Exposure Compensation

== White balance ==

===What is white?===
As many of you may know there are many types of white, our eyes are very good at compensating for different light colours and different shades of white, and we just ''know'' that something is white. Cameras on the other hand are dumb, and have to be told what white is, otherwise they will get it wrong.
Therefore the white balance setting in a camera is to make sure white is actually a white and not yellowy orange or blue.

Most cameras do this automatically when you take pictures, but quite often get it wrong, especially if there is a lot of one colour in the scene. Higher end cameras will often allow you to take a picture of something grey or white and set the cameras white balance from that picture, many low end cameras often have this feature as well, so it is well worth checking your user manual for "'''Manual white balance'''".

In real life, due to the nature of white not always being ''pure white'' I would thoroughly recommend buying a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_card grey card] from the likes of [http://www.jessops.com/online.store/categories/Accessories/General%20Camera%20Accessories/Grey%20Cards/products/Jessops/Grey%20Card%208%20x%2010in-9652/Show.html Jessops]. This is calibrated to be a mid grey (often called 18% grey card) and is ideal for setting the white balance and also for getting the correct exposure as the brightness of the card is also calibrated. But if you do not have one don't worry a piece of the whitest paper you can find will be fine.

Despite the fact that white balance makes sure that white is white it should not be confused with

== Exposure Compensation ==
This ensures that white is white and not grey!!!

Basically this setting allows you to over/under expose your pictures, that may sound wrong but the reason you would need this is because all cameras have to work out the correct exposure for a given scene.

The problem comes when what you are photographing is a picture of a bead on a white piece of paper and this is certainly not typical, and the camera will under expose it. (as wrong as it might seem this is the correct behaviour as most scenes that you photograph will average out to a mid grey in terms of brightness).

Many people think that under exposed pictures like the ones shown on the right are due to not having enough light, but that is wrong, adding more lights will not solve this problem. To correct this you need to "fool" the camera into ''over exposing'' the image so that white paper actually looks white and not grey. (remember this is not to be confused with white balance as described above)

By changing the exposure compensation to add 1 or 2 [[stops]], that picture of a bead on a white piece of paper will be white and not grey and the colours in you beads will be much more vibrant, thus removing the necessity to process all your pictures in Photoshop.

== Results ==
[[Image:FinalPhoto.jpg|thumb|300px|The final version that has been ''slightly'' adjusted in a photo editor, to remove the slight colour cast, and brightened just a little bit]]
[[Image:Corrected_From_Original.jpg|thumb|300px|A corrected version of the original under exposed and incorrect white balance version of the photo, but corrected in a photo editor. This is as close as I could get it to the correct look. Notice that the colour is not as vibrant as the picture above and that the shadows have a slight orange tinge. Although this may be acceptable the correct version is far superior.]]
You can see the results of these techniques in the last photograph above, but I personally would tweek them a bit in Photoshop (see the two photographs on the right).

The final two pictures are quite similar but the first one is a very ''slightly'' corrected version of the best shot from the series, this is just to correct the small amount of ''colour cast'' that was there and brighten it just a bit more, as +2 stops was not quite enough, but my camera only allowed me to add 2 stops. I could have used manual mode, but we will go into that later.

It is possible to get the pictures even better from the camera, but beware that if you push the exposure too far, then you are in danger of ''burning out'' the image, and you will then loose highlights. It's much better the leave a bit of ''headroom'' in the image and then adjust out that little bit in Photoshop as you are in complete control over the amount you can change the exposure by.

The final picture on the right is a ''[[photoshopped]]'' version of the very first underexposed and bad white balance picture at the top of this page.

Although this does not look too bad the colour vibrancy is not as good, and the ''[[grain]]'' of the camera's sensor is also visible and detracts from the image. The picture is just not as sharp or as crisp, especially when viewed large or printed.

Click on the images to see larger versions...

== Manual Exposure ==

If your camera has a full manual mode (i.e. allows you to set both [[shutter speed]] and [[aperture]] together this is the way to go.)

If you don't have a [[grey card]] and you want to get a good approximation for 18% grey for metering you can do a lot worse than using the back of your hand....(assuming you are a white skinned Caucasian that is) I'll tell you how to do this, but I would suggest getting a [[grey card]] anyway, they are also useful for [[white balance]] as described above...

Basically, set up your [[photo studio]] [[lighting]] as usual then fill the frame with your hand and try to take a picture of the back of your hand (in the same position as the bead would be), remember try to ensure that as much of your hand fills the fame as possible, don't bring your hand closer to the camera than the bead, but zoom in with the camera to the level that you would want to photograph anyway.

Now note down the [[exposure]] and [[aperture]] that your camera used to take this shot. e.g 125th second at f5.6

Now if you set your camera to manual and dial in the same settings as noted above. Now any pictures you take should be exposed correctly for the scene, assuming the [[lighting]] does not change.

The camera will desperately be trying to tell you the picture will be over exposed... but don't believe it... It's lying (after all what does it know, it's only a camera, it isn't as educated as you in glass beads)

And that's it... if you '''do''' have a [[grey card]] then you do exactly the same thing but replace your hand with the grey card... well... keep your hand attached to your wrist, just put the card in front of your camera where you hand once was. (I think you understand!)

It is sometimes also useful to leave a bit of the [[grey card]] visible in the corner of a shot so that when you come to crop and edit your shots later you can double check both the white balance AND the [[exposure]] in Photoshop as they grey card should read at 50% grey in Photoshop and with an even [[white balance]]. You can click it with the eye dropper tool to select the white balance setting.

== Technical bit - Why can't I just edit in Photoshop? ==

Well.. of course you ''can'', but if you have managed to read through the information above then you should now know why photoshopping your images to correct these basic problems is a bad idea... but for a technical reason then read on.

But if you are easily ''geeked out'' then stop reading now!

One of the problems is with dynamic range... a picture on a computer can only store a limited number of colours. In fact although it can represent over 16.7 million different colours it can only store a paltry 256 levels of grey. This is because each colour is made up of varying quantities of red green and blue. Each of these 3 primary colours is represented by a byte (with a value ranging from 0 to 255) the problem comes when grey is concerned. Grey is made up of equal values of each colour. So 50% grey has a value of 127 for red 127 for green and 127 for blue. As you can see (or perhaps not) as they have to be the same you can therefore only have 256 different levels of grey. This restriction is also true for other colours, but is generally not noticeable in the same way.

To cut to the chase, if you take a picture where you have not correctly set the camera for white balance and brightness then when you edit in photoshop it has to ''stretch'' the colours and levels that ''are'' available in the picture to make it look right, this ultimately reduces the quality of the end result, because you have less colours and shades in the picture than you should have, you can really notice it in greys and gently shaded areas as mentioned above so by only using a few of the available colours in your original image by not exposing correctly, then you are starting out from a bad position and the end result will never be as good.

== Light cubes ==

To help with photography and reduce reflections you can use a light cube.

These are [[translucent]] boxes, usually made from cloth, that allow you to photograph your work in an easy way. You still need to follow all the instructions above, but be warned that unless you introduce deliberate [[reflections]] your [[glass]] will appear dull or [[matt]]

== Further information ==

*[http://www.tabletopstudio.com/HowTo_page.html Tabletop Studio Techniques]
*[http://www.beadybugs.co.uk/hintsandtips.htm How to clean up photos - by Helen P]