9 Most Common Jewelry Product Photography Mistakes to Avoid

Capturing product photographs may seem easier, but it’s not in real life. Even top photographers can make common jewelry product photography mistakes as well. 

You could boost your jewelry photos from beginner to pro-level by fixing these mistakes. It’s a lot easier to identify them and improve your jewelry photography. 

We have gone through the same process and found all the flaws in our workflow. Perhaps, list down our findings, so you can learn from them. Apply this learning to your next projects.

Say no to bad jewelry photographs and get quality jewelry images by avoiding these key mistakes. 

Jewelry Product Photography Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Let’s get into the mistakes that most of us capture in jewelry product images. These faults can be some rookies or bigger ones as well. You should not underrate below mentioned aspects at any cost. While doing photography, make sure you keep these points in mind. 

1. Not Washing Up The Jewelry

We often tend to forget our jewelry can have dirt on them. Most of the time, dirt can make your jewelry look bad. Also, polishing your jewelry before staging would be the key. The jewelry must be clean and clear to create sparkle. 

In cases where the jewelry has hard-to-remove dirt, consider washing it up. While cleaning the jewelry, use mild soap and similar cleaning products. As a basic step, you could use soap and water to rinse. Afterward, rub with a microfiber cloth to dry out the jewelry. 

2. Poor Lightings

When capturing jewelry product photos, photographers may go for harsh lighting. Instead, you should use natural sunlight when possible. When the sunlight is not good, go for softbox lighting or similar. Be sure you diffuse the softbox lighting to avoid getting harsh lighting. 

If the sunlight is way too prominent, use a white diffuser cloth to dim the lighting. Hard light is not suitable for jewelry photos because it exposes imperfections in the jewelry. Harsh lighting creates tricky reflections that are hard to remove in post-production.

3. Bad White Balance

It’s most likely your jewelry color is not looking right, due to a bad white balance. Incorrect aperture can lead you to the wrong color profile in the image. To fix it up, set the white balance settings of your DSLR camera to “Automatic”. It helps you to make the image look more realistic. 

Even though the “Automatic” white balance might not be correct all the time, in such cases, change the mode to “Manual”. In the following mode, you could increase or decrease the value according to what you need. Hence, it’s essential to take quality jewelry photos.

4. Unoptimized Background

Going for a distracting and busy background is most beginner photographers’ mistake. You should not go for the backgrounds that distract viewers from the jewelry products. When staging the background, always try to make it clean and minimal.

Hence, you could select lighter colors as a background for your jewelry products. It helps your jewelry products grab the attention of your viewers. For example, use a plain gray or pastel background for your jewelry. Set up a simple background free of distraction.

5. Avoiding Contextual Images

It’s easy to forget the importance of contextual, aka lifestyle photography. In other words, these represent someone using your jewelry products. Moreover, this kind of style adds value to your product photos. Plus, it improves the conversion of your online store as well. 

Doing flat-lay jewelry photography is okay for initial projects. But, when you do have the budget, hire a model and put your jewelry on them. Or, if you are awkward working with a model, put it on yourself if you are female. Either way, don’t underestimate the power of lifestyle photos.

6. Don’t Let The Jewelry Sparkle

One of the most common mistakes we make is not letting the jewelry sparkle. Well, the jewelry needs unique lighting angles to start sparkling. You need to place the lighting in such a way that turns the jewelry shine and sparkle simultaneously. Use sparkling lights to increase the sparkle.

We all know sparkling jewelry adds more value to product images—it comforts viewers to buy the item more than a generic image. Likewise, you must make sure the jewelry ornament is polished and clean to increase the sparkle. 

7. Using A Lot Of Props

We all may think of adding pretty jewelry product photography props to you, but it’s a mistake. When choosing your props, always try to stay minimal. The props should not grab away attention of your jewelry products. Keep it in mind while working with the props.

Besides, the prop you use must be simple and distraction-free. Plus, you should not include more than one prop at a time. It’s a must for product photography as the aim is to sell products. You could check out bigger eCommerce brand hero images for better demonstration.

8. Taking Only One Picture

One mistake when capturing jewelry images is that we all do not go for different angles. That’s why you must shoot jewelry images from different angles. It would provide you with a great option to choose the best images of your jewelry product. Different angles provide customers with great perspectives as well.

Even so, eCommerce platforms need additional images other than the main image. The additional images work as extra info, which helps you to convert viewers. You should take at least an additional three photos of your jewelry products.

9. Not Using Jewelry Retouching

Optimizing your shoot can improve your image, but post-production is also vital. It will be a bad move if you don’t go for improving jewelry images because editing and retouching jewelry product photos can make them look shiny, polished, and attractive. 

 Few photographers who edit photos can have bad edits. Sometimes we over-edit the image and turn the image to look bad. If you are skeptical about using editing software, use custom photo editing services. It saves you from the hassle of learning and spending a lot of time.

Things To Remember When Doing Jewelry Product Photography

When you are in creative jewelry photography projects, always keep in mind a few things. It would help you to simplify the photography workflow. Plus, you get a quality image at the end.

• Always use a Tripod: Even if you shoot jewelry photos from your phone, you could have a tripod. Further, a tripod would add consistency to your photos. It helps you when your shooting task is taking a bit longer.

• Avoid unnecessary reflection: When doing jewelry product photography, it’s easy to get extreme reflections. You must do everything possible to minimize the reflection that harms the image.

• Place the camera close: To capture the details of a jewelry product, you need to place the camera fairly close. Placing the camera far from the jewelry can drive problems in your camera focus.  

Frequently Asked Questions

So, let’s focus on the most common questions essential to jewelry photography mistakes. 

Conclusion

Above, we have discussed the most common jewelry product photography mistakes. These can improve your jewelry photos by a large margin. When you prepare for jewelry photography projects, avoid these mistakes. It would offer you better images with less hassle.

Perhaps, don’t let these errors take away the beauty of your jewelry images. Keep these aspects in mind and get amazing results. Whether you are a beginner or a professional, these mistakes can appear. Don’t take the stress and work on your way to capture the best jewelry photos.