FORVM`s Classical Numismatics Discussion Board

Numismatic and History Discussion Forums => Coin Photography, Conservation and Storage => Topic started by: Istinpolin on April 22, 2006, 02:49:01 pm

Title: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Istinpolin on April 22, 2006, 02:49:01 pm
Dear Friends

I have been facing some problems with my images. I use a Sony DSC-P150 with 7.2MP and very good macro function.

Along with that I am using a tripod to take images. I elevate the coin to bring it closer to the lense and have white paper under the coin.

I am using Photoshop 7.0 to make the coin look as natural as I can.

However, I always have some shade from the angle of light that I would like to get rid off. I couls use the magic wand but one needs a calm hand for that and it takes too much time as I process 100 coins sometimes.

Is there a way fast and good way to cut the coin out of the background completly and put it on a background that I have made myself, so that the coin seems like floating? Any andvice would be appreciated.

Best wishes,
Burak
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: slokind on April 22, 2006, 06:57:25 pm
Dear Burak,
The exact set-up can vary according to equipment and space (I have a copy stand, but I used to use a tripod, for example).
But the answer to your problem is a white dish (mine is a white oven-ware glass baking dish) and a  sheet of ground glass or any non-glare treated glass about 30 cm. square.  You buy it at a normal glass shop or at a picture framing shop, and ask them to smooth the cut edges.  The lamp I use is an Ott-Lite folding desk lamp, but any mini-fluorescent, any lamp that is diffuse, is good.
The important thing is the white dish (or shallow box) with the ground glass (so not shiny, not glinting) on it so that THE COIN IS RAISED 4-5cm above the bottom of the white dish.  Sufficient light, passing through the glass, is reflected back from the bottom of the white dish so that you get no shadow at all.
Now that I have a tiny camera for snapshots, I used it to take a picture of my Nikon 5700 mounted in position.  I have found that with 5MP and 8X zoom, the camera mounted about level with the Ott-Lite, when the lens is extended to take a picture, it is about 10 cm above the coin.  I do a pre-focus, pre-exposure off the coin itself (no matter if it is a hemiobol that does not fill the center of the frame).  This gives me enough depth of field that both the center of the coin and its edges are sharp.  I don't like to have to 'sharpen' an image in post-processing, though a little is desirable on a big image of a tiny coin.
Pat L.
P.S. here is an image of a little dark bronze 10mm coin of Klazomenai.  It hasn't been 'cut' or 'cropped' at all.  I do hate using that 'magic wand'!  With this image, not necessary.  Just use paint bucket.  I don't like orange, but for a demo, OK
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Istinpolin on April 25, 2006, 06:43:19 am
Well first of all Pat, I am impressed by your set up. It is too proffesional for my means. I have made a 15cmx15cmx15cm all black box painted with acryl, but instead of a glass plate I use a big nail with a wide head softenen with dried glue. I was thinking of using a glass plate, but I am generallz lazy when it comes to dusting ad cleaning. The problem I have with this sized box is that I cannot put the tripod around without going far from the coin, which means I am taking the image from too far away. Thats why I have switched to a primitive solution of white A4 paper, elevating the coin by 7cm from that paper and have the lense 4cm above the coin. Below you can see the an example of a Maximinus I that I photographed this way.

I defininitly will switch to your system but I would like to ask you some few questions if I may. You mention the deep dish you. I can probably use anything in this shape, but what about the material. Would wood do it? Does it have to be non shiny porcelan?  I have a custom made box like I said before, but I do not know if you have seen that specific Simpsons episode, it looks like the Spice Rack Homer built for Marge. In other words it is horrible.

You also mentioned the size of about 30cm. Is that the diagonal shape? Can I use a smaller application of about 15cm.

Also, where can I get such a copystand to attach my camera to, so that I can come as close to the coin as possible. That would be so amazing to have one, as my tripod does not go any deeper and that is why I have to elevate the coin. I live in the UK and was never able to find one.

Moreover, I have a huge lighting problem. Is fluorescent light the best I could use. I once heard that a "colder" light bulb such as for reptiles would be the best, but I could not find one of these, as well. I use a conventional horrible desk-lamp with a conventional clear 60W light bulb and always get a horrible red colour which destroys the nature of the coin vastly and takes out to fix at photoshop to only a certain degree.

You also mention "paint bucket". Do you mean the paint bucket from Microsoft Paint which comes with Windows, or some other software. I tried Microsoft Paint and it does only a minute are of the background.

Best wishes,
Burak
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Istinpolin on April 25, 2006, 06:48:33 am
The image above turned out better, but I have real problems with silver coins, copper is easy but it takes some time at photoshop and constant comparing with the coin in hand, but silver and gold is just horrible for me. Please see a silver coin below with some reddish colour that I could not get rid off without destroying the nature oif the coin.

Burak
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Numerianus on April 25, 2006, 07:40:58 am
The problem is that  we see coins but also the  coins see us!  An object is visible because it
reflects the light.
I made experiments with a stand: coins are flat and lifeless. Each coin requires an idividual
approach. Rotate the coin to the right or to the left (only to several degrees)  and you can see how the expression of the
emperor will change. You may said: one needs a standard. It is true and not true because each master had his own vision and
and put his own individual imprint. Similarly, the direction of light, deep or shallow shadows do metter.
You cannot compare the coin in hand and on the screen, by many reasons, even because the brain processes these images differently.

Dealers who have a need to handle hundred  at some point decide to take photos  using a stand. I mentioned once the example
of Ancient Treasures.  I enjoyed  their photos when they were  individually adjusted. Now they are standard and ugly.

In fact, I like some  color shadows on  silver: it may be your tee short or furniture. It is quite normal: you look at coins
and coins look at you. 
   
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: mauseus on April 25, 2006, 05:45:23 pm
Hi Pat,

What a great piece of advice, an improvised "light table" arangement.

Below is my current photo set up, no tripod but the right number of Numismatic Literature volumes from the ANS!

I used to just photograph against white paper but have started to use a piece of glass from a picture frame (no non reflective coating) on a white oven dish.

The bulb in the desk lamp is a daylight bulb.

Regards,

Mauseus
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: slokind on April 26, 2006, 02:10:51 am
What Istinpolin does and what Mauseus does both are great, only Istinpolin wanted to get rid of contguous shadows, and that is what the improvised light table does.  Once Tacrolimus sent me a picture of his set up, and I think he had glass on some blocks, or on the cannisters that 35mm film came in; Doug Smith uses dowels much as Istinpolin uses nails (!): the glass is much easier.  The oven dish (any size you wish, so long as it's flat bottomed) and the glass (any size you wish, so long as it securely rests on the oven dish) were used because that oven dish had been in the house for many years, but food sticks to oven glass, so I was glad to find a new use for it.  You also could use a white enamel pan, such as we used for developer in making black-and-white photo prints, or a white box that a shirt or handkerchiefs had come in, or writing paper, so long as it was strong enough to support the glass securely, without wobbling.  The opaque white glass dish seems to work very well, and I'd rather use it for photography than for baking lasagna and then trying to get it clean!
The lamp: almost any lamp can be made to work, but you might want to put something in front to diffuse it (as you like).  A lamp that burns cool is kinder to your camera and makes you sweat less.  But your camera has WHITE BALANCE.  This is a pre-set done over white paper or a gray card, perfectly neutral, 18% reflectivity, from the camera shop.  Without performing white balance first, you will get those peachy and purple and ochre colored coins!  Yuck!  It is so much work to try to normalize them in Photoshop and requires some skill, too.  Make the camera do it.  That is why it comes with a computer chip and software instructions built into it.  See the owner's manual, or consult with a friend who owns the same kind of camera.  It is no longer necessary to endure the agonies of buying different film emulsions.  Numerianus is right, too; a delicate tinge of environmental reflected color, whether from a red tee-shirt or from the green leafy tree outside your window, can show that your coin is in a real-life space.  These, however, need to be avoided for publications.  I took my advice from: (1) the ground glass over a light table we used to use for photographing sherds and coins, (2) everything Doug Smith wrote on his web site as cameras evolved (and half his stuff is home-made), and (3) the advice I got from Barry Murphy, who knows what CNG et al. want.  Then I took what I had and imitated.  A copy stand is a great help, and one can be bought at no great cost; you need a rather small one, not the huge ones for copying from large books and posters.
If you want to see a new 'portrait' just taken of a real silver coin, of good silver, see my Corinth stater just posted under Rupert's in Greek Coins.  With a shiny coin, the glass over the dish comes out gray, just as you see.
Pat L.
P.S. My glass is 12" X 12", which is similar to 30cm X 30cm, but it could be smaller, depending on the dish/box.
Paintbucket is a 'tool' in Adobe Photoshop.  Paintbrush just makes a daub, but Paintbucket, after choosing the hue you want, fills in the whole background (or the whole area enclosed, if that's what you need), adhering nicely to the difference in hues and levels.  Where there are shadows on a dark ground, it 'eats' them, or white areas on a white ground, too.  That is what the raised glass prevents.
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Akropolis on April 26, 2006, 12:48:11 pm
Istinpolin:

If you still want to do it your way, rather than follow the valuable advice above, you can "crop" out the shadows by using the "Pen" tool in Photoshop 7.0...it is slow but fairly precise. Click "anchor points" around the coin's edge (or even the shadow), select the encircled area via "Window" > "Paths" > click on right pointing arrow, click "Make selection" and click "Copy" and "Paste" the image into a new window with white background or, if you encircled the shadow, click delete.
PeteB
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Istinpolin on May 05, 2006, 11:09:17 am
Ok

First thanks to Pat. Indeed woderful advice. Also thanks to the moderators for making this one sticky, as I am sure it will help many people.

I have followed your advice Pat. I have bought a 75watt fluorescent light. One of those that use a long bulb. It is pretty powerful. This one is pretty flexible and can bent almost any way, so I can adjust the light according to my needs. My camera is good to detect this and it uses a scale from -2 to +2. I always get it to 0 for copper coins, +0.3 for silver and -0.3 for gold coins. I have bought a smaller oven dish than Pat has, mine is 12 by 19 cm and the dish is 3cm deep. I have bought a picture frame for 1 Pound and am just using the glass of it. I melted shoe laces around it so I do not cut myself. I am a pyromaniac, you can just use rubber as well.

Below you can see my results. Now because I have started with Maximinus I I will use the same coin. The first one is the same image above, where I used my primitive method. Then you will see the coin with the new method, the last image is the same as the second but paintbucket was used on it and I added some writing and my logo.

Thanks again Pat, this is the end of the reddish colour frustration and it all cost me only 17 Pounds Sterling. I did not buy a copy stand. The oven dish and the frame is small, so I can still put under the tripod, and elevate the whole dish to bring it closer to the lense. I looked for some copystands (mainly Kaiser here) but they are really expensive. I was offered one for 200 Pounds and thought I rather pass on that. But I am very happy with the results that you can see below.

Best wishes,
Burak
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Istinpolin on May 05, 2006, 11:11:58 am
There are universes of difference of the images of the same coin. The old lamp just gave me a horrible reddish colour. The new one well rocks.

The image below will show the same coin but I made the background black and added some writing.
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Akropolis on May 05, 2006, 11:26:54 am
EXCELLENT!
PeteB
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: slokind on May 05, 2006, 06:17:21 pm
No professor ever had a better student!  Congratulations, as Pete said.  Pat L.
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Istinpolin on May 07, 2006, 05:04:14 am
Well, in Turkey we say, a good student can only emerge from good teachers. I am sure this applies everywhere.

Thanks Pat A LOT.

Below are 2 more examples of this technique. My 2 favorite non-Ottoman coins.

Best wishes,
Burak
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Noah on June 07, 2006, 08:31:25 am
The only thing I have to take photos is a SONY Handycam w/ a Carl Zeiss Lens and Optical 20x.  I seem to get pretty good resolution with the bronzes, but am getting too much reflection on my silvers.  I have seen lots of advice on photographing coins.  My question is, does anyone have a similar Handycam who could give me advice on how to use it?   Also, I am using a desk lamp with a soft bulb 75 watts.  Do flourescent bulbs do the trick better?  If so, I can pick-up a small flourescent lamp at the local Walgreens!  I have included photos I have taken of one of my silvers (sorta shiny and fuzzy), and one of my bronzes (decent if I manipulate the background to the stark white).  The first of each is the original photo.  The second is using photoshop (Irfanview) to manipulate the photos.  Let me know which you think is better.  I suppose I expected better resolution on the coins, but often I need to mute the light source to ease the shine, and it comes out looking "fuzzy" or out of focus.  I will try to take a few photos using the raised glass on the white pyrex dish method.

Best, Noah
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Noah on June 07, 2006, 02:06:28 pm
Another question I have is:  How do you make the background for a coin a solid color (i.e. white, black, blue, etc.)?  I want to make all my coins have the same background so that my gallery is more uniform.

Best, Noah
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Tiathena on June 07, 2006, 02:39:48 pm
 
          Ave Noah,
 
  As Pat had said above (easy to lose among all the other excellent tips and careful instructions), use the ‘Paintbucket’ tool in PhotoShop or similar image editing s/w: *
 
   “Paintbucket is a 'tool' in Adobe Photoshop.  Paintbrush just makes a daub, but Paintbucket, after choosing the hue you want, fills in the whole background (or the whole area enclosed, if that's what you need), adhering nicely to the difference in hues and levels.  Where there are shadows on a dark ground, it 'eats' them, or white areas on a white ground, too.


   “I want to make all my coins have the same background so that my gallery is more uniform.
 
   I Really want to do the same thing here too – which I will when finally able to re-photograph my entire collection.
  After seeing those Galleries with such good style and uniformity of presentation, looking ay mine is just …. embarrassing.   :-[
 
   Best,
   Tia
 
 
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: DruMAX on June 07, 2006, 03:15:30 pm
This is from another thread but holds true here:

I am using black now...the black I get from keeping the scanner lid open...that also gives you more realistic lighting though I am still experimenting...I think I need to do color correction because I seem to be getting a bit of yellowing...you can also mess with brightness/contrast and levels to bring out detail that is lost in scan....I scan at around 300 dpi then knock it down from there...

if you want to cut the background out of a coin scan in PS you can use either the area select tool (magic wand 'w') with tolerence set pretty high 20-30? until you get the whole background and pretty tight on the coin edges...if you want to set it higher you can tighten it from there by going to select/modify/expand (or contract)...or you can use the polygonal lasso tool and trace the edges of each side BEFORE you put them together (its easier that way) then select inverse....then you can either use the paint bucket to put in a new color or you cant cut the old and have white (if background set to white which is usual)....your two coin halves will be layers at this point so you can use the paint bucket on the background layer (again...usually white is default) to make any color you want...

Scan with scanner lid open...flip coin...scan again...scan 200-300 dpi

Cut one...new document paste....double the width of your canvas...cut other side...paste.

Fit them up..crop canvas down to how you like it....merge layers...(here is where you can use the above instruction from taking off background if you dont want it...at this point you should have 2 coin layers and a background layer)

Use sample (clone tool) to get rid of any spots you might have gotten in the scan if you are keeping the background black from scan.

You might want to do a little brightness contrast, levels adjustment or color balance (in PS its image/adjustment)

Make sure your physical size is acceptable (image/image size) Then save here while still high resolution just in case.

Then you will want to go to image/image size and knock down the DPI to 72 DPI then go to file/save for web (make sure you have it set for .JPEG, maximum, 100 Quality and optimized checked)...if your physical size is to small...go to your history pallete, erase the last step and try 100 dpi, 120dpi until you get the screen size you want...(do NOT bump up the physical size once you have  lowered the resolution or you will get pixelation) **Always try to get you canvas size how you want it early...I am trying to keep it at the same size for every coin...what I will do is take my last coin I did...select all...delete...save under the name of the new coin...and lay my NEW coin out on that canvas so I know the size is correct.

That is how I prepared the 2 top examples though I am going to knock some size off them still and I still want to do some color correction...I am still in testing stage so...I am open to suggestions...I was thinking when i am done I am going to write down all the steps in a document that can be posted for people....
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Noah on June 09, 2006, 12:12:33 am
Tia and DruMAX, thanks for the info.  I don't want to purchase Photoshop, so I just downloaded Picasa2 from Google.  It is free!  I just highlighted the coins enough to make the background white, then I used my Microsoft editing software (which came with the laptop) to adjust the contrast, brightness, color (for bronzes), grayscale (for silvers), and so on.  The coins look much better, but the real problem is that my handycam Sony camcorder does not give me high resolution to begin with.  The coins look pretty good when viewed at a medium size, but look quite "fuzzy" when enlarged to fill the screen.  Anyway, I am quite content with this method and will use it.  The link to my gallery is under my signature.  Check it out, I quite enjoy having the uniform backgrounds instead of a hodge-podge of colors and contrasts that take away from the beauty of the coins.

Best, Noah
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: moonmoth on July 17, 2006, 03:13:14 pm
I have been trying out a cheap variation of Pat's system, something a bit less high-tech.  I have a small plastic food container.  The bottom is lined with shiny aluminium foil.  Inside part of the (clear) lid I have taped a rectangle of one ply of Kleenex man-sized tissue. (White.)

The light that illuminated the coin is a small desk lamp.  I have taped two plies of the same tissue over the end, (clear of the bulb) to diffuse the light.

The other lamp is pointing into the container and provides the background illumination when reflected onto the tissue. 

Putting the tissue inside the lid (1) keeps it clean and free of dust and (2) keeps it just far enough away from the area of focus that no textured effect can occur.

This makes bronze coins easy to do with a white background.  The paint bucket works fine with them.  Silver is harder, because the paint bucket has a tendency to paint shiny parts of the edge of the coin.  I have used select/color range, then go into quick mask mode and paint over the area of the coin to deselect it, then back to normal mode and just paint everything else white.

Here's the setup .. and an example photo.  The photo is the same coin you can see on the setup.  It's not perfect, but it's OK.

Costs:

Food container: GBP 1.50
Lamps: 2 at GBP 10.00
Photoshop .. hmm.  OK, this one does blow the budget a bit!
Camera:  This too.

Bill
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: moonmoth on July 17, 2006, 03:15:36 pm
More on this system:

- Set the exposure before turning on the second lamp.
- Take the photo in "raw" mode and use the photoshop raw plugin to get the correct white balance and ensure no blowouts or black sections.   (Though if you get good results without this, why bother?)

Bill
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: moonmoth on July 17, 2006, 04:21:30 pm
Yes, I think you are right that I need to work on the exposure a bit more. 

That is an excellent photo of a great coin.  I find a black background much easier to work with and usually nicer looking, too.   For example:  this one was taken on top of a screw against a black velvet background.  (The screw has some rubberised tape on its head.)

Bill
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: moonmoth on July 17, 2006, 04:36:19 pm
Looks good though I wonder if it isnt as bit over illuminated...

Here's a re-working of the same original photo - the re-working is made possible by taking the original in a RAW format.  Does this look better?

It always takes me a few tries with a new method of taking the photos before I get the best way to process them.

Bill
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: slokind on July 17, 2006, 05:17:45 pm
Silver is harder.  Amen, to that.  The problem with Paint Bucket I solve by having all the light on when I take the exposure.  In the old days, we used to illuminate the bounce / light table as you describe only after taking the exposure from the object.  But with denarii, if I expose with the bounce light (back light) already on, too, I get a gray background, and I find that, for silver that protects both the glints off shiny silver and the black of contour shadows.
Admirable work, Bill (in particular).  Doug Smith would approve, I'm sure.  The tissue below the plastic lid is brilliant.  Pat L.
Your method with silver works better than mine.
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Roma_Orbis on July 17, 2006, 05:37:09 pm
I think I cope with bronze coins quite well, but I still have much problems with silver. And I look to the pictures of some international auctions with envy! See this one from Tkalec


Jérôme
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: slokind on July 18, 2006, 01:03:15 am
22 12 03 AR denarius  Caracalla, laureatem draoed bust to r.  ANTONINVS  |  AVGVSTVS.  Rev., Salus, stg. l., resting her left on scepter-like staff, her snake climbing up it, with her r. raising to her feet a kneeling female person before her.  SAL GEN HVM, but the kneeling figure does not look neuter or masculine as Genus, Generis, n. would suggest.  RIC 42, marked S.  Among the young heir's more interesting reverse types.

I love this coin.  I got it just in time to send it out as a Christmas card to my more open-minded friends, and it was one of the first coins I photographed with my, then new, Nikon 5700.  I still like the gray that comes from placing silver on a transparent surface above a white dish, but look what happens when you use a lidded plastic dish and you don't think of inserting moonmoth's white tissue!  Nubbly.  Why does it have to be black OR white?
Pat L.
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: moonmoth on July 18, 2006, 02:25:08 am
Oh, I want a coin like that Salus of Pat's.  I have a page of Salus images but I don't have that one.  And now I am watching out for one ..  Nice photo, too, though I would prefer the face a bit better lit.  Has anyone tried using a ring flash?

I do get some texturing effect when taking silver coins, even with the tissue under the lid, as shown here.  (It also shows I should have wiped the lid first!  Dust accumulates overnight.)  But the paint bucket doesn't care about that.

The best reason for inserting a background of some kind is to get rid of the sharp line between the images of one side of the coin and the other, that is caused by the background illumination not being perfectly even.  But using photoshop, you could insert whatever texture you like.

Meanwhile, it strikes me that some of the comments you are making might be because I am trying with a difficult coin.  The Severus I was using has been harshly cleaned and has roughly textured surfaces.  On this coin, which has Nice surfaces, I used my setup and Pat's simple technique with auto white balance.  I followed Drumax's advice and set the exposure with all lights on.  A shorter exposure works better with silver.  (It's in my next message.)

I still has some trouble with the paint bucket filling in the shiny edges.  I tried filling with black to see exactly where it was happening, then went back and painted those areas with quick mask to protect them.  This didn't take long.

The result - using a combination of Pat, Drumax and my methods - plus a nice coin - is getting a lot better.

First two photos: showing background texture; showing a texture fill (not necessarily recommended but demonstrating the possibility).

Bill
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: moonmoth on July 18, 2006, 02:26:50 am
Here's the coin photo mentioned in my last post .. I hope these come in the right order, this thread is behaving a little oddly.

Bill
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: moonmoth on July 18, 2006, 02:30:33 am
And incidentally, here is a detail from my favourite Salus image .. Pat has seen this Macrinus coin from Deultum before.  This is Salus and her dad exchanging a fond look.

Bill
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: moonmoth on July 18, 2006, 06:27:37 am
Ah yes, I'm getting the hang of this now.  Bronzes are dead easy, using the Pat Lawrence technique of setting custom white balance and taking JPEGs.  But I did have to adjust the levels and sharpen this up a bit to make it a realistic copy of the original.

This is a coin I find interesting. From the Kushan empire sometime after 100 CE, it is full of Hindu symbols. The trident symbolises the creator/preserver/destroyer. On the reverse is Shiva the destroyer, leaning back on his bull called Joyful. Shiva is carrying another trident, though it's obscured on this example. Yet this completely alien coin has something in common with Roman and Persian coins, and no doubt other types: the king's altar.  (And the king is carrying a club, too, like Elagabalus when he played at being an invincible priest.)  What is it about this sort of simple altar that made it such an enduring piece of religious symbolism?

Bill
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Tiathena on July 18, 2006, 07:43:07 am
   
          Salve Bill,
 
   “Ah yes, I'm getting the hang of this now
 
   Indeed, I would say so too…  I rather almost wish I could hire you to photograph my collection.  I’m horrible at it.
 
  “What is it about this sort of simple altar that made it such an enduring piece of religious symbolism?

   Despite my suspecting this is most-largely a rhetorical question …
  The elegant simplicity of at-once the device and the message, reminder and importance of Piety?
 
   Best,
   Tia
 
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: moonmoth on July 18, 2006, 08:13:24 am
Hi, Tiathena.

If that question sounds rhetorical, then that shows it isn't. 

Demonstrating the king's piety is a common theme, and would reassure the population.  But why should diverse religions use an altar to do so, and show this particular expression on coins? 

1.  Why is a small, simple altar so common?  Most of these altars were used to make a physical sacrifice to a deity.  Could elderly priests perhaps not bend very easily, and needed something raised to hand height?  But they had to be limber enough to kill a cow, so maybe not.  Or, was it a good idea to raise the sacrifice to a more visible height? 

2.  Why show an altar and not something else?  I'm sure that many actual religious observances were kept by paying obeisance to objects in alcoves, but the coins don't show that.  Statues had oil or wine poured on them, or their feet washed, or parts of them touched or kissed, but not on these coins.  An altar was the symbol that everyone recognised, whether in Rome, Persis or Kushan.

Just a thought.

(Rome and Persis attached: Elagabalus, Ardashir II - both using the much easier black background method.)

Bill
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Tiathena on July 18, 2006, 08:36:04 am
   
     I really need sleep so, please forgive me if I’m just being thick here; but again, that’s just why I suspected your question was largely-rhetorical – and here you even articulate (quite nicely by the way) the answer we have both offered to it.
 
  “Why show an altar and not something else? [because] … An altar was the symbol that everyone recognised, whether in Rome, Persis or Kushan.
 
  ‘The elegant simplicity of at-once the device and the message, reminder and importance of Piety.
 
  There is an awful lot to be said for universal language in politics, religion and Empire …
 
  Of course, only my thoughts too…

   Best,
   Tia
 
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: DruMAX on July 18, 2006, 09:03:45 am

Meanwhile, it strikes me that some of the comments you are making might be because I am trying with a difficult coin.  The Severus I was using has been harshly cleaned and has roughly textured surfaces.


I was wondering if that was the case...I have a coin that was fire damaged and it was VERY hard to get a good photo because it had no luster at all and details were hard to make out. Ended up moving it well away from the light oddly and it came out rather well...I am now looking into ways to restore the luster.


(http://www.tribalsoup.com/cache/caracalasb.jpg)
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: moonmoth on July 18, 2006, 11:50:49 am
That's a good image even without the lustre, so good work!

One thing I discovered a while ago is that coins which are really low relief show up better using a flash from above.  So I tried it on this one with the white box.  It took a bit more work to remove the background - I think a slave flash illuminating the box would fix that. 

The result is maybe a bit too saturated and vivid to be an accurate representation, but it gives a much better depiction of the actual detail.

Bill
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: slokind on July 26, 2006, 12:02:28 am
Well, if you've gotten this far, you can just go your own way.  As Numerianus and I have agreed, there is no one good piciture.  It is a question of being able to get what you want, yourself.  When you go to photograph silver, you may want to diffuse that lamp with bubble wrap or tissue (watch out for heat!), but that's just a matter of experimenting.  If you photographed that lovely smooth, sharp Claudius Libertas (I am jealous!) yourself, then bravo.  Of course, they must be sharp and informative, but there are as many ways of fulfilling that requirement as there are photographers.
Since you photographed the coin on black, the camera read that as the dark end of your scale.  If in 'Levels' you slide the extreme left, the dark end just a wee bit to right, you can restore to the coin itself a couple of spots of true dark: gives it zip, if you want that.  Of course, using brighter<--> darker slide is murder; you've seen the results here.
Disregard my monkeying with your image if you don't like it.  Pat L.
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: moonmoth on July 26, 2006, 08:41:37 am
Pat and jamesicus, very interesting!  I would suggest to Jamesicus, as well as diffusing the light, try a simple reflector on the other side to the light source.  You can even use just a sheet of white paper to good effect.  You can see my kitchen foil reflector earlier in this thread.

Looking at the "Nero right" coin image, I would think the highlights were making it look a bit one-sided.  You can use "levels" just on the highlights in Photoshop by:

1. selecting a white colour range using select/color range and clicking on the whitest part;
2. feather the selection using select/feather so that there will be no sharp edges to the affected area.  A feather radius of 5 seems to work well;
3. adjust the selection using image/adjustments/levels by moving the left-hand slider in.  You need to be careful not to over-adjust.  Don't move the slider past where information starts to appear on the histogram.    This will - if the information is present in the image - remove areas of apparent white-out and allow the coin's surface to appear again.  If the original image has areas of blow-out that can't be corrected, there will be no information on the white colour range histogram at all.  Take another photo!

On this image I would also try to correct the way one side of the image is a little too dark,  by using levels, moving in the right-hand slider, and applying a gradient.  I would also sharpen the image just a bit.  This is not a cheat - digital images are usually a bit softer than real life.  Here's my adjusted version.  I'm not saying yours is a bad photo.  It's not!  I'm just taking advantage of Photoshop to make the image more like the real thing.

p.s. Nice coin! 

p.p.s. Another hint.  Be careful not to scratch the plastic surface by scraping coins across it.  Those scratches will catch the light.

Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Heliodromus on July 26, 2006, 10:10:18 am
Here's my adjusted version.

I hereby dub three "moonmothicus optimus photoshoppus"!  :)

Ben
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: DruMAX on July 26, 2006, 10:22:28 am
Thank you everyone for your great information -- and for your willingness to share your techniques. I have learned more about coin photography from this posting than any other source. I have changed my own techniques to incorporate much of what has been written here. I bought a new digital camera -- Pentax Optio W10 -- which has really excellent macro capabilities. I adapted the shadow elimination technique for white backgrounds outlined by Slokind using a turned upside-down tupperware container ..........

(http://jp29.org/ricphoto.JPG)

.......... although I am now using the simple black background technique outlined by DruMax -- I use black suede on paper squares that I purchased at a fabric shop, "Sunlight" fluorescent  light bulbs for natural coin coloration, and I did buy an inexpensive ($10) mini-tripod stand for dead still snap-off ..........

(http://jp29.org/ricphotos.JPG)


Here are two pics (Nero RIC 544 & 543 - bare headed left and right) I took using the latter set-up:

(http://jp29.org/ric05os.JPG)(http://jp29.org/ric06os.JPG)

looking good, looks a lot like my set-up save the upside down container which I dont feel is needed (for me at least) :). My light is also mounted quite a bit higher so that the light is not so close and its not so bright. I use an optio as well and you are right, they have a great macro setting among other things. Since you have a stand you can set the shutter speed pretty low and you wont need near that much light...I see a lot of coins that, IMO, over light when a good digital camera set right can get incredible detail with far less light and IMO gives it a richer, less shallow, stark look.

Also, If you are like me and look to use as little PS adjustment on the coin and to capture the coin as it looks in real life, before I start adjusting levels or brightness contrast after the fact (a well shot photo shouldnt require a lot of this at all). Move your light away from the coin a bit and that will cut down on shine. With a digital camera you have a lot of shots and I like to take ob and rev shots of the coin facing in every direction. I keep my light a bit higher and to the side a bit and then I rotate the coin to get the light hitting every angle then pick and choose which angle of light looks best (light at angle, rotate coin to get light hitting from above, facing, behind, etc...)....sometimes the angle of light makes ALL the difference in detail and richness...

anyway...like people said, to each his own but you seem to be getting it...have fun.
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: moonmoth on July 26, 2006, 05:26:26 pm
I am finding that light intensity and source positioning requires constant experimentation. Gold coins are now my greatest challenge - especially ones with a lot of wear (quite frequent due to the softness of the pure gold). Aureus of Augustus, RIC206 (note banker's test mark under portrait chin) ..........
.......... This is a "first blush" image -- lots of experimentation to come!

Nice coin .. I wish I had the problem of photographing gold!

I would say this is well on the way to being good.  A quick bout of photoshopping reveals that your biggest problem is the highlights, which are washed out.  You need to diffuse the light source more, I think, and move it further away.  This will lead to problems with the exposure time.  Best of luck with the experimentation!

Bill
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Istinpolin on August 03, 2006, 02:45:01 pm
Hi All

With Pat's system I have had the best results and I am so happy that I have asked this, or I would have gone mental.
I have experimented with different angles of the light, grey cards and also softening the light with tissue papers and so on.
I have also tried to direct the light into the dish so it goes from beneath the coin. I also tried to rebuild a copy stand using alumin(i)um foil.

For me the double 45 (I should get a copyright for this) worked the best.
With double 45 I mean this.

The light (which should be strong) should be elevated by a 45 degree (more or less) angle from the coin/glass plate. The bulb itself should face directly down by 180 degrees (either on the floor or table/desk). The light should also hit the coin from a 45 angle. So if you look at a coin it should come from either 1030h or 1330h (1:30am). The camera should be right above the coin naturally.

Now I use the 1030h angle for coins which have the writing from left to right like for example Greek and Roman coins. I use the 1330h for coins that are written from right to left like for example Islamic coins.

You can still use this method if the scripts is circular around the edge of the coin from the right or the left depending on the script.

Best wishes,
Burak
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: peterpil19 on September 26, 2006, 10:18:57 am
Hi all,

Resizing images in Adobe Photoshop results in slight bluriness. I always wondered why my final pictures lost their original focus and I discovered 2 solutions to this which work for me:

1. In the menu Image> Image size, select the"Bicubic Sharper" option for the Resampling; or
2. After resizing, select Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen (or Unsharp Mask for custom sharpening).

I found option 2 works much better. Using the "Unsharp Mask" option, you can specify how much sharpening you would like.

Compare the below images. They were taken at different times but still illustrate the point.

Peter

Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: DruMAX on September 26, 2006, 10:24:14 am
thats a big difference, thanks for the tip!
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: peterpil19 on September 26, 2006, 02:35:40 pm
Thanks Drumax!

Another tip, something I just learned a couple hours ago:

Image > Adjustment > Channel Mixer. This menu allows you to manipulate the colours in the picture more directly than Image > Adjustment > Colour balance.

I used this to remove a red reflection in a silver coin. Ideally it's best to take new photos insted, but the option is there should you require it...

Peter
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: DruMAX on September 26, 2006, 03:11:42 pm
I admit to using the channel mixer to make minor color adjustments though I do try to avoid using that as much as possible. I HAVE noticed the problem of losing serious detail when one shrinks the size, I will give this a shot for my next coin...
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: moonmoth on September 26, 2006, 05:26:42 pm
To make colour adjustments, I suggest using either a levels layer, and adjusting a particular colour; or, better in most cases, use a hue/saturation layer and desaturate one or another colour.  Other adjustments such as levels can easily add too much saturation to the colours.  On silvers, I often find I need to desaturate the yellow a bit as a second to last touch. 

The last touch is always the sharpening.  Always sharpen after changing the size.  Doing it the other way round loses lots of detail.  And always use unsharp mask; it allows for the best adjustments.  And don't over-sharpen.  Subtle adjustments are more effective in the long run.

Bill
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: slokind on September 26, 2006, 09:39:37 pm
Experience has brought me to identically the same conclusions as moonmoth's.  I have had some pretty nasty things to deal with, such as badly faded slides that had been produced by Technicolor or slides taken on defunct or generic brands, such as Anscochrome, and I had to figure out (just to get images that would decently represent the object, for teaching) how to use everything Photoshop could afford, often in ways the Graphic Design folks never dream of.  When you photograph a denarius so that it comes up the size of a dessert plate, you need to use a bit (just a bit) of Unsharp Mask just because of the size.  Pat L.
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: TRPOT on April 07, 2007, 08:08:39 pm
I do prepress work at a print company for a living, so I have a good pointer on sharpening images that many of you may not know. Instead of using unsharp mask, you should convert the image to LAB color. Instead of R,G, & B channels, there will be L, A,  & B. The L channel is the lightness/darkness. The A and B involve the colors. Now, select the A and B channels and apply a little bit of gausian blur to "smooth out" the color from any JPEG compression artifacts. Then, sharpen the L channel. You can sharpen the L channel quite a bit without making the image looks like its been over-sharpened. It really produces superior results with a bit of experimentation. Then, you can convert it back to RGB mode without any color shifting. LAB mode is the most powerful color space for any kind of color-correction or sharpening.

Once you get a feel for the blur and sharpen settings that work well for the photos you take, you can even record the whole shebang as an action, so that you can process entire batches at once. I use actions all the time at work. An example you might use is if you want to make all of your coin images the exact same size. Open the Actions pallette, have a coin image handy, and click the little paper-with-turned-corner on the bottom of the pallette. That's for "create new action". Name it whatever you want, then it will automatically be in record mode (if not, click the red circle). At this point, you can change the image size to whatever your standard is (or any other things you'd like to automate). when you're finished, click the gray square to stop recording. Then, when you have an image open, all you have to do is go to the Actions pallette, select the action you created, and press the green triangle. It will do all your stuff for you automatically. Even better, go to File>Automate>Batch and you can select a whole folder full of images and have it run the action on all of them while you sit back and sip your coffee. It's a real time-saver!

As for taking an odd color cast off of silver without affecting the color of the rest of the coin, I'd use an adjustment layer (curves) in combination with a layer mask. You can use the layer mask to control which part of the image is affected by the adjustment layer...and to what degree. The best thing about adjustment layers is that if you save the image as a TIFF or PSD, the adjustments you make are completely reversable or tweakable at any time in the future.

In the layers pallette, click on the little half-black, half-white circle at the bottom. That's for creating the adjustment layer. It'll make a menu pop up with the choices of what kind of adjustmest layer you want to make (curves, levels, etc.) once you create it, do your settings and press OK. You don't have to make it perfect at first, because you can go back and tweak it any time you like. You'll notice that there is a white box in the layers pallette in the adjustment layer. That is the layer mask. If you click on it, you can use things like the paintbrush or the gradient tool to determine what parts of the image are affected by the adjustment layer. Anything painted black will be unaffected, anything white will be fully affected. Shades of gray make things partially affected. This is very useful...and completely reversable/editable at any time. You can save as a TIFF or PSD and go back and tweak your adjustments weeks later if you feel like it. Or, you can create multiple adjustment layers and turn them on or off to compare them and see which one you prefer.

If you want to avoid that, and simply want to adjust one part of the image by selecting it and doing a quick-and-dirty adjustment, the best way to do it so that the line between the adjusted and non-adjusted part is not noticeable is to make the selection (with any of the selection tools, such as the lasso...or painting it in quick-mask mode), then going into quick-mask mode (if you are not already there) and using gaussian blur to "feather" the selection area. This gives you an excellent amount of control with the feathering. A lot of people don't realize that the "painted" areas in quick-mask mode can have filters applied to them. You can do some very nice effects this way, such as creating vignettes with edges that look like rippled glass. Try it out...it's fun.

Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: bruce61813 on April 10, 2007, 10:55:10 am
TRPOT, if you have time, it might be instructive if you could put together an example, from the 'raw' picture to final in 4 or 5 steps.  Your information has given me something to experiment with!

thank you!

Bruce
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: TRPOT on April 10, 2007, 09:01:32 pm
Hi all,

Resizing images in Adobe Photoshop results in slight bluriness. I always wondered why my final pictures lost their original focus and I discovered 2 solutions to this which work for me:

1. In the menu Image> Image size, select the"Bicubic Sharper" option for the Resampling; or
2. After resizing, select Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen (or Unsharp Mask for custom sharpening).

I found option 2 works much better. Using the "Unsharp Mask" option, you can specify how much sharpening you would like.

Compare the below images. They were taken at different times but still illustrate the point.

Peter



Instead of going through all that fuss and bother, just uncheck "Resample Image" when you resize an image. If you are making an image smaller, and you tell it to resample the image, it will still cram as many pixels-per-inch as before. This means it will have to throw pixels away. In other words, a 300ppi image at 1"x1" will have 300 pixels. Resample it to 1/2" square, and there's only room for 150 pixels...half of the original information/detail will be lost forever. If you uncheck "resample image", it will not throw any pixels away, it will just make them smaller.
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: TRPOT on April 10, 2007, 09:12:08 pm
TRPOT, if you have time, it might be instructive if you could put together an example, from the 'raw' picture to final in 4 or 5 steps.  Your information has given me something to experiment with!

thank you!

Bruce

Maybe I'll have time one day, but in the meantime, there's a gazillion Photoshop tutorials online if you google them. You can get excellent step-by-step instructions for all of the stuff I mentioned and more.

Come to think of it, have you ever just gone into the Photoshop Help menu? There's a lot of good stuff in there that will teach you how to do anything if you know what you want to do.

I tend to get a bit lazy with my images because I only have a flatbed scanner. My digital camera is no good for close-ups. As you've seen, a scanner will make the high points of a coin look sharp and the low points look blurry...no good for high-relief coins. Plus, since I do this stuff all day at work, it's about the last thing I want to do when I get home! I like my coin collection for relaxation....and Photoshop doesn't relax me any longer. LOL

One thing about PS is that there's so many different methods one can use to achieve the same results. Taking a color cast off of a coin can be done with Curves, Hue/Saturation, Levels, Channel Mixer, etc etc etc it all depends on what you are most comfortable with. I personally use Curves for almost everything when it comes to color correction because it can pretty much do it all.
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: PtolemAE on December 28, 2007, 01:13:54 am
This whole idea (deep bottomed white dish) prompted me to test it out and it works great.  I used a cylindrical translucent CD stack container cover with a white piece of paper in the bottom and a translucent plastic top to sit the coin about 4" over the white paper.  one light (compact flourescent) from above and a 2nd one that lights up only the white paper below (makes for a very bright white background) and that doesn't aim at the coin at all.  this makes for some nice photos solid white background with zero shadow and very good fidelity to the coin's actual color.  I'm gonna stick with it.  easy setup to use with my copy stand and Canon S50 'computer controlled' still cam.  nice going and thanks for the tips.

ptolemy
Title: Re: Your advice needed for cutting and cropping coins
Post by: Dan S II on September 07, 2020, 10:24:29 pm
This is an enormously helpful thread. I had no idea what I was signing up for thinking I could take pictures of my coins and share them.  I absolutely hate the pictures on the websites that coins are sold on and I prefer my fuzzy pictures over the magazine ones.

The modern means of sharing an ancient coin collection really is a photography hobby.

Thanks again for the pointers.