Photo Frustrations & Program Manipulation - Hmmmm....

Okay I am going to figure this new equipment (Light Cube) out!  I would prefer to get my initial exposure settings figured out but until I do that, I am going to manipulate the images I do have with my iPhoto program.

Photo I posted yesterday - Very Gray background and poor color on bead.

This one has only an exposure compensation to whiten the background.

This one is the prior photo but with shadow and highlight reduction and slight color manipulation.  Can see the colors in the bead now but still not exactly the same as if you hold it in your hand.

Posted on my last blog entry - gray background and poor bead color.

Exposure compensation.

This is the same photo as the one above but with the shadow and highlight slider bars manipulated.  What a difference!

One more example then I'll just post the better photos of the other beads.

One posted yesterday - yuck!

Exposure only manipulated.

Exposure, highlight and shadow manipulation.  A nice change for sure!

I went back to some of those silvered glass beads and tried the same manipulations on them.  It did help a bit on those too.  These are not looking like I want them to but it's an improvement for sure!

I need to check my camera metering and a few other things to see if I can get a more true original so I won't need to do all this manipulation afterwards.  I never liked commercial lighting back in my days of photography and it still seems to be my least favorite part of a hobby/career I used to love - probably why I don't love it any more huh?  That and family always handing me a camera at holidays, etc. saying "here you take the photos, you're the photographer."  I always was tempted to remind them that I didn't really want to "work" on my days off any more than they did but that's another story....

Well I'm going to see what is in the kiln from yesterday and then I'll try experimenting with my photo exposure on those beads.  I may be requesting some help from my brother in law - who has a talent for commercial lighting - Oh Derek are you busy this weekend?!!?!?!?  And no, photography is not his full time job so I'm not violating my own comment about working on off days in my last paragraph.

Happy weekend to you all!