TCWalker

Huge congratulations to @BackyardBullion on reaching 50,000 subscribers on your YouTube channel.
I count myself among the many TSF members who found this forum as a result of watching your videos!
Roll on 100K  

#61

A mental block for me would be £1000 for a bullion sovereign,  and I would back my truck up at £330.

This is a follow-up tutorial to:
This is for those with a little more time, who want to get accurate and visually satisfying results with their photographs
There are three main techniques here, which can be used independently or together.  None of them are expensive; in fact the third one is free; but they do take a little effort and knowledge.
1. Using grey cards (‘gray’ for Americans)
A ‘grey card’ is exactly that.  A piece of card that is grey.  A professionally produced photographic grey card, from a reputable vendor, will be fade-resistance and precisely calibrated to be a neutral colour, i.e. exactly balanced with no hue.  For coins and other precious metals, I would recommend a small card, maybe 2x4 inches or thereabouts.  Should definitely cost well below £10.
A white card will also do well, although grey cards are easier to use and are less likely to fade or discolour over time.  A piece of white paper may also help, but be wary as it is easy for the paper to be slightly off-white, and this will affect the colour balance significantly.
At the other end of the scale, you can take it further and buy colour cubes, colour reference targets, and specialist software to calibrate your photographs.  Those are beyond the scope of this tutorial - if you are in the market for those, I am not going to be teaching you anything here.
There are basically 2 ways to use a grey card: a) reference shot, or b) in shot.  Both have pros and cons.
a) Reference shot
Take photograph(s) of your coin(s) as normal, but just before or after, replace your coin with the grey card.  Put the card in the same place, and at the same angle, and photograph it.  This will provide you with a reference neutral colour, that you can then adjust to.
Using photo adjustment software, you would then measure the correct colour balance or adjustments using the reference shot, and apply exactly the same to the real shot(s).  There are too many different photography applications for me to cover exactly how to do this here, but you should find it under ‘white balance’.
Advantages: the coin photograph is unaffected, you don’t need to recompose or move anything, and you should be measuring the exact same conditions because the card is in the same place as the coin.
Disadvantage: takes a bit more time, needs post-processing software, should not be used when the lighting situation can change quickly, e.g. if you are using natural light, and a cloud covers the sun, it can make a dramatic difference.
b) In shot
Here, you include the grey card in the photograph with the coin.  The card needs to be at the same angle and under the same lighting as the coin.  Just widen the shot so that the card is in the frame.  Once taken, you can crop out the card before sharing your final image.
A variation of this is simply to use a white, lighter or grey background for the coin, but this is down to the desired aesthetics.
Advantages: quicker, may enable the auto white balance feature of the camera to make a better ‘guess’, useful when the lighting conditions may change between photographs.
Disadvantages: may be awkward to compose the image wider depending on space, should not be used if the lighting is very local, i.e. only the coin is lit, because the card would not be under the same conditions and the white balance may vary across the scene.
2. Photographic lighting
This falls into 2 main categories, flashes and monitor lights.  For the purposes of coin photography, flashes are unnecessary, difficult to use and expensive.  So for this tutorial, I will focus on monitor lights.
For between £50 and £150, depending on features and brand, you can buy a ‘monitor’, ‘video’ or panel light.  It should have a high CRI value (90+), which is a measure of its colour accuracy and how natural it is.  And it should either have a known fixed colour temperature, preferably around 5,600 Kelvin (daylight), or an adjustable temperature.  (White balance is measured in temperature Kelvin - don't worry about it - just know lower numbers are yellower and higher numbers are bluer. For this tutorial, it doesn't matter.)
Simply set it to a known value, set your camera’s white balance to the same value, and snap away.  This should be all you need to do.  A modification of this is to photograph in RAW mode, and then use software to set the white balance to the light’s known temperature afterwards - see below.  If you do not shoot using RAW, adjusting the white balance later will always be harder and a compromise.
You need to ensure that the monitor light is the only (or overwhelming) light in the scene.  Lights in the room, through the window, etc, will all influence the photograph, and change the final colour.  Also, lights will reflect off different surfaces of the coin, and produce odd colour patches.  Therefore, you may want to invest in a light box to cut out all the other light sources.  They are available for around £30 upwards, depending on size, or you can make one with a cardboard box and black cloth.
Another consideration is that having a single light source can lead to bright spots, or undesirable highlights on the subject.  This is especially a problem with precious metals that are prone to reflections.  You can easily solve this by diffusing the light using cooking parchment (greaseproof paper), net curtains or similar material, or photographic diffusion paper (a little more expensive, but a neutral colour).  Simply hang the diffusion material in front of the light, preferably making the light source bigger as a positive side effect.
3. Shoot RAW
(This has nothing to do with whether you wear clothes while photographing.  Although I strongly recommend it, as coins can be very reflective. 😁)
This one is a bit more technical, but is free to implement.  You just need some understanding of the principles.
All but the earliest of cameras and phones, have the ability to shoot in what is called RAW.  You can use free, 3rd-party camera apps, e.g. Open Camera, if necessary.
You are doubtless familiar with JPEG files, the ubiquitous image files used everywhere, and by default your camera will generate JPEG files.
However, JPEG files have several disadvantages.
Lossy compression.  Detail will be lost, and noise added, in order to compress the file to a smaller size.  Worse still, every time you load the file into an editor, make a change and save it, the image will get worse. Narrow dynamic range.  JPEG can store 8 bits (256 values) for each red, green and blue value in the image.  Your camera is capable of capturing at least 10 bits, and the latest cameras 12-14 bits.  So at best, three quarters of the possible range of values are thrown away, and possibly 98% is discarded. In-camera processing.  An image, displayable in all browsers and devices across the world, needs to be produced.  So certain safe, generic assumptions are made, and baked into the file.  These include white balance, colour gamut, etc. Ultimately, you need to turn your photograph into a universally acceptable format, for sharing online, and JPEG is a perfectly adequate choice.  You could use PNG, TIFF or numerous others.  So, if you need to use JPEG anyway, what’s the advantage in shooting RAW?
Firstly, for any work you need to do after the shot is taken but before sharing, i.e. post-processing, you should work in a format that does not degrade with each save, for obvious reasons.
Secondly, and most relevant to this tutorial, shooting in RAW does not apply white balancing to the image.  I will use a physical filter analogy.  Each time an image is changed from the original, it is like adding a coloured filter to a light.  You can’t take a filter away.  So you add a filter, but then you need to correct it slightly, so you add another filter.  And then you need to correct that, so you add another filter.
So the incorrect white balance applied by your camera, needs to be corrected with another filter, which inevitably won’t be a perfect solution, so should then be corrected, again, etc.
Instead, working with RAW files allows you to get everything right with the most original possible version of the image.  RAW files should be immutable - any changes can be undone, or are saved separately, so the original is always preserved.
Use a post-processing application (or phone app) to apply the right white balance to the image, get the exposure right, crop it, and when everything is right, save as JPEG and share.
Summary
Shoot in RAW if at all possible (top advice!).  It makes everything else easier. Use a grey card to get an accurate reference for the white balance of the scene, especially if you are not in control of an accurate light source. Limit the number of different light sources.  You may want to use a photographic light and/or a light box. Examples of colour calibrated photos of gold:

Proof 100%. The problem is they got to be perfect.

Saved up enough to get either a bullion memorial sovereign when they are released at the end of this month or a proof half from chards. I really like the design and wouldn’t plan on selling for at least 15-20 years as I see it performing very well in the future. It would also help to diversify my stack into collectables too. If I am making no sense please tell me since I wouldn’t want to invest in an item that I couldn’t move on in the future if I decided to cash in.
My worry is that there will be scratches or defects on the proof as the Royal Mint aren’t too good when it comes to doing things right the first time. I missed out on proof platinum jubilee coins at the time so I was wondering what everyone else here thought of this? Also I would expect that Chards are careful enough to inspect their proofs before selling to customers but I have never bought one so would know exactly what to look for in terms of damage.
Thanks for reading, leave a comment if you can help or have any suggestions for me!

Definitely no harm in diversifying into some proofs to help make for a more interesting stack. If you feel you have a decent base and you think adding a proof will help then in my humble opinion..... you can't go wrong with these at all. It's real history as it's happening. 

I think both coins will do very well in 20 years regardless of proof or bullion. 
There's approx £160 of price difference out the gate, so only you can work out which suits you better. Bullion for pure investment, or proof for investment but also a speculative side. Are you a stacker or collector?
I do think chards will check before sending out tbh. But the half sovereign is so intricate that a small flaw may be unfortunately missed. You can just use a loupe or magnifying glass to check yourself, and I'm sure they will look after you if a problem appears. 
If I was in your position and had saved up for one or the other, I'd probably opt for bullion and buy another 1/10th gold coin with the change. More gold and in 20 years should theoretically mean more profits. But more importantly you have closer to spot price gold in your possession incase you need an emergency sale quickly. A proof coin can go in and out of favour over the years (whilst I do think these will always be sought after ) but the collector's market can be strange at the best of times. 
 

Thanks @LiquidMetalsUK for the JM Bars 👍 And received this lovely Queen’s Platinum Jubilee 1/4oz today.

I got these air tight caps and tubes today. They are so cool!

Very happy with this 1774 G3, One of my few local finds. 
Some tiny 'haymarking'?
Do you think this would get an 'MS' grade?
 

Todays arrivals
  
2003 1/10th Britannia still in mint sheet
The memorial half was from @CoinsOfTheRealmAuctions and looks to be a nice one, 
  

1/10 Krugerrand from @SheepStackerit's actually well gold, proper chuffed.
Have I been converted to the Springbok? Too early to tell, but perhaps my earlier remarks were too harsh.

Limited edition with a £10 box though!

Tell him it's worth £350, buy it off him. Put it aside for a good memory when time's gone by. I wish i held onto some things like this from my childhood. 

I'm going to say £650-700?
(That's not an offer BTW, I already have one 😊)
I could be low, but this is TSF!
I'd advise your son to not sell his coin. It will always be in demand as a special year reverse whereas the game will be in the bin within the year 😎

9am, Atkinson's email, sorry if already posted. 

The Problem
Do you take photos of your lovely sovereigns, ¼oz Queen's Beasts, or (for the wealthier) 1oz gold bars and coins, only to find that they look like silver?  Where has all the yellow gone?  Why aren't my bargain coins selling?  Why am I not as rich as my wildest dreams indicated?

Gold ¼oz Eagle, incorrect White Balance
Well, it's because your camera* isn't as smart as you thought it was.
(*When I say camera, I am including phones, bridge cameras, digital SLRs and mirrorless cameras, for brevity.)
If you want a quick fix to this problem, and don't care why, scroll down to the end.  First, I am going to go into why this happens, which some people won't care about.
Disclaimer
This is not meant to be a detailed and accurate analysis of photography, colour balance, chromatography, or the psychology of colour perception.  The solutions presented are basic and will suffice for the majority of photographs; they are not perfect.  There are more advanced options that are out of scope.
Why does this happen?
I'm glad you asked.  It's because your eyes are amazing.  They do loads of things in the background that you don't notice.  For example, they automatically correct for the colour of light.  The light you get from an old-fashioned light bulb is very different from the light you get from an LED bulb, which is very different from the light you get from sunlight.  And even sunlight varies depending on whether it has gone through clouds, reflected off the sea, etc.
So, regardless of where you are, when you look at a gold coin, it looks lovely and golden.  Even though the light might be really blue or really orange.  Your eyes, and brain, just adjust and you don’t really know anything about it.
Unfortunately, although your camera is very clever, and does lots of things in the background you don’t know about, it’s not that clever.  In most ‘normal’ photos, like parties, holidays on the beach, pictures of mountains, the bright thing is the light source - the sky, or a light bulb on the ceiling.
But when photographing a coin, the light source is hardly ever visible in the picture.  
If you show it a picture of a coin on a table, it only has that information.  It does not know how it is lit.  So it guesses.  All it has to go on is a bright thing in the middle of a (usually) dark background.  So it takes the bright thing as the reference, and assumes that is the colour of the light source.  Then it adjusts the whole picture, so that the ‘light source’ is a neutral colour.
How does it adjust the picture?  Do you remember your colour wheel from school?

Gold is orange/yellow, and blue is opposite that.  So the camera makes everything in the picture more blue, in order to make the gold ‘light source’ more ‘white’.
How do I stop it happening?
The best option is to stop the camera ‘guessing’ what colour the light is, and tell it.  You should be able to change a setting on your camera called “White Balance”.  Move it from Auto to something approximating what you are using for light.  There are usually options for daylight, cloudy, old bulbs, LED, etc.  If there is a mixture, e.g. you are inside but near a window, then try Sunlight and then try LED, and see which is best.  Keep trying different options until you find one that produces nice golden golds.
There are more advanced ways of getting this exactly right, but those are beyond the scope of this tutorial.
Oh, and don’t forget to put it back to Auto if you plan to take photographs of other things later.  Otherwise, all your pictures of beaches and mountains will look terrible.
How do I fix pictures that are already wrong?
This is always going to be a bit of a compromise, but you can get good results with a tiny bit of effort.
If you are using a phone, it probably has some basic ‘filters’ built into the camera app.  Find one that reduces the blue.  It might be called “Warming” or something like that.
For cameras, there are lots of PC or Mac applications for basic editing of photos.  Again, look for warming filters.  If you have a slightly more advanced program, look for the ‘curves’ feature, select the blue channel, and drag it down to reduce the blue.
Summary
Silver sovereigns look ugly.  Now you have no excuses.

The same gold ¼ oz Eagle, corrected White Balance, aligned and cropped
 

Received today from @BullionMan89, a PF69 1oz Gold Nugget.
What I should say is the PF69 1oz Gold Nugget, as there are no others, nor are there any PF70's (NGC).  So this is currently the best NGC graded coin of its type.  That blows my mind.

IMO if one zooms into a coin at this level of magnification, one is certain to find some perceived “flaw” or another.
After all, a coin is a physical object; not a digital creation.
My personal thinking is if a coin looks good enough to my naked eye, I’m pleased, as I don’t care about some person at a third party corporation deciding how good my coin is. I am obviously not a grading type of guy. 😉

Mate..... if you magnify any coin enough it will show tiny flaws. Honestly, if you use a 5x magnifier to check it over and nothing obvious pops up then there's no issue. Especially if you're not grading. 

Hello and thank you for this interesting point raised.
I personally have not been scammed on here or ebay when purchasing items but I do quite alot of due diligence 100% feedback lots of sales wording ect basic stuff really.
As a new member myself I can only speak from personal experiance. When I found the forum via byb y tube channel i was looking to learn a little a more regarding the pm subject, it wasn't with a view to selling or buying straight away as I understand the trust issue we all have in place to keep safe.
I went on to join as a platinum member not to get the "bargains" from the sales thread early but to join in with discussions gain trust in others and learn i have since had 2 transactions on the forum both for purchases not sales with no issues both required me to place trust in the sellers and them to place trust in me. 
I don't think that sales are solely based on feedback several factors come into play as they should on a trust based system.
I think your question may have been better presented possibly, I may be wrong ( i usually am). It appears you are disgruntled your items did not sell straight away.
Whilst your items are not in my sphere of interest your items do look nice and are well presented in the photos and the descriptions are clear and I am sure they are reasonably priced.
Your items do appear to be quite a specialist subject and may only be of interest to certain specialists I too have a cpl of items that I could realistically only sell to dealers.
You could try using byb intermediary service but i would imagine by them time you payed the fees a dealers prices would be similar.
I personally sent a few kilos of silver in my 1st trade for a cpl of gold coins i wanted but because of due diligence I never once felt that other than the postal service I had anything to worry about.
Sorry for the long ramble but I thought another new members perspective can't hurt.
 

Hiya Spyder. I only joined the forum in July of last year. Personally I started off buying a few items before I sold but for the first few sales I sent the item and got paid upon receipt. Even did that recently with a larger sale, despite my decent rating/feedback. Was a trusted member and was happy to send first. Also, one of the members here backyardbullion offers an intermediary service which you could make use of to help shift your gear. Good luck and stick around. I’ve personally found it a great place to be the last few months 👍🏼