To my mind the easiest way to make black is to prevent light from reaching the black paper (1) background. I do this with a dowel (2) on which the coin rests and a collar (3) of craft foam that surrounds and shades the whole thing. I add a small white card that reflects a
bit of light on the bottom edge to separate the coin from the background.
Sure they look
good with silver but I have no problems with my results on bronzes either. The
Constantius II below lacks the reflector strip (4) and you can see the lack of separation compared to the
Republican semis. You can adjust the amount of separation by changing the card from white to gray or by limiting the amount of card that sticks up above the black foam. The double
goat Philip V has what I consider a
bit too much white line at the bottom so the card should have been pushed down a
bit. Reflectors do no
good on some coins that lack a taper on the edge. The Castulo below shows
good separation on the tapered
reverse but the flat was sharper edged on the
obverse so no amount of light can brighten what is not there.
Coin photography is a separate hobby just like collecting coins, cleaning coins and coin investing. You can put a lot of study and practice into it or you can just take what you get. I prefer black backgrounds but do try to do some whites on coins that resist black. People who print paper prints on a
home printer may want white to save on the ink used for all that background. I get my prints made at Costco where the photo is the same
price if solid white or solid black.
