Guide / Tutorial Photographing gold so that it looks like gold

[Charliemouse]

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
 

[James32]

I'll take it please, shoot details when time permits 😆 

[Darr3nG]

Still available?

[ShineyMagpie]

Great information here thanks for taking the time to write the article, I'm sure many will find it helpful and beneficial when they come to do a sales post!

[AaaGee]

Ive noticed a few gold coins for sale looking silver. Great tutorial 👍

 

Think ill have a play with my phone camera settings next time im down at the bunker with my coins.

 

AaaGee

[LawrenceChard]

31 minutes ago, Charliemouse said:

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
 

Try shooting with a white background!

😎

[Charliemouse]

18 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

Try shooting with a white background!

😎

That actually can cause just as much problem.  Especially if it is not 'perfectly' white.  The camera will take the slightest variation of a bright near-white, and amplify the problem.

That's why professionals use a grey card, not white, to calibrate white balance.

It's a more advanced technique, but it is possible to photograph a small piece of light grey card or paper in the background, which you can later crop out.  This would give the camera something to use as a reference.

Edited January 15, 2023 by Charliemouse

[modofantasma]

46 minutes ago, Charliemouse said:

Silver sovereigns look ugly.  Now you have no excuses

Please forgive me 🥲

[Charliemouse]

36 minutes ago, James32 said:

I'll take it please, shoot details when time permits 😆 

You're OK with the 400% premium?  Excellent.

[modofantasma]

I think this one has the Wuhan mintmark 

[Charliemouse]

1 minute ago, modofantasma said:

Please forgive me 🥲

I think you just melted it.

[Gordy]

never touch my phone but i do use that photo gizmo i bought off here and my example are two 1/4 brits.... one of each

[James32]

Just now, Gordy said:

never touch my phone but i do use that photo gizmo i bought off here and my example are two 1/4 brits.... one of each

Gold looks very Gold

Silver looks nearly gold 

Doing well 😆 

[ShineyMagpie]

4 minutes ago, Gordy said:

photo gizmo i bought off here

Now you got me curious, what's the photo gizmo?

[dicker]

I am dreadful at taking photos and need to improve.  
 

@Gordy The 22 quarter is really good!

[Silverlocks]

10 minutes ago, dicker said:

I am dreadful at taking photos and need to improve.  
 

@Gordy The 22 quarter is really good!

@Charliemouse and @DrDave have been really helpful.  I've still not got colour balance correct but that's on my hit list.  I got one of the grey cards mentioned the other day but haven't sat down to figure out what to do with it.  You can get them off Amazon for a few quid.

Apart from my phone, my total spend on kit is sitting around the £150 mark, including lights, a macro lens for the phone, tripods and an adjustable stand for taking macro shots, so the kit isn't necessarily that expensive.  

The gizmo @Gordyis referring to is an axial lighting stand that holds a sheet of glass at 45 degrees, reflecting light onto the coin, which you shoot from above with the camera.  @DrDave makes these for about £25, so you can go hit him up and see if he's up to producing one for you.

 

[LawrenceChard]

1 hour ago, LawrenceChard said:

Try shooting with a white background!

😎

 

1 hour ago, Charliemouse said:

That actually can cause just as much problem.  Especially if it is not 'perfectly' white.  The camera will take the slightest variation of a bright near-white, and amplify the problem.

That's why professionals use a grey card, not white, to calibrate white balance.

It's a more advanced technique, but it is possible to photograph a small piece of light grey card or paper in the background, which you can later crop out.  This would give the camera something to use as a reference.

I was keeping it simple.

"Pure" white should work.

Sure I could have added "or grey", but then you need to ensure you have a perfectly balanced grey.

It is possible to buy "grey card" especially for colour balancing cameras.

More here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_card

😎

[Gordy]

53 minutes ago, Silverlocks said:

The gizmo @Gordyis referring to is an axial lighting stand that holds a sheet of glass at 45 degrees,

yeah, Gizmo is easier to say 😂

its pretty cool, made with a 3D Printer, but it gathers dust quicker than James hoovers up gold

[James32]

2 minutes ago, Gordy said:

yeah, Gizmo is easier to say 😂

its pretty cool, made with a 3D Printer, but it gathers dust quicker than James hoovers up gold

Multi use too...quite clever. 

[Charliemouse]

1 hour ago, Gordy said:

never touch my phone but i do use that photo gizmo i bought off here and my example are two 1/4 brits.... one of each

The 'gizmo' will definitely help to give you an even, diffuse light across the coin, emphasising the depth by providing some percentage of light from the top of the image.  Because it is dark grey when lit, I guess it might provide a better reference for the camera, if some of it is in the shot.  But it won't, in itself, help with white balance.

Your image does still have quite a lot of blue in it, even though the coin is still yellow.  Compare to this version, where I have reduced the blue channel.  The gold is definitely a deeper colour.

[Charliemouse]

1 hour ago, LawrenceChard said:

 

I was keeping it simple.

"Pure" white should work.

Sure I could have added "or grey", but then you need to ensure you have a perfectly balanced grey.

It is possible to buy "grey card" especially for colour balancing cameras.

More here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_card

😎

You're not wrong.  Using a photographic white box would help, but that's not to some people's taste or budget.

A grey card, or even a white piece of paper just off the side of the shot, would accomplish the same thing, without changing the look of the shot.

Yes, true photographic grey cards are available at popular online retailers and photography shops for a few quid, and that would get you a very close to perfect white balance.

But as I said in the original post, all of this of well beyond the scope of the basic article.

[James32]

10 minutes ago, Charliemouse said:

You're not wrong.  Using a photographic white box would help, but that's not to some people's taste or budget.

A grey card, or even a white piece of paper just off the side of the shot, would accomplish the same thing, without changing the look of the shot.

Yes, true photographic grey cards are available at popular online retailers and photography shops for a few quid, and that would get you a very close to perfect white balance.

But as I said in the original post, all of this of well beyond the scope of the basic article.

I'm on your team, let's plan a heist and you can take the photos?

[Gordy]

I use a back light to shine through the opaque back panel, well, a desk lamp lol..

[James32]

4 minutes ago, Gordy said:

I use a black light to shine through the windows and press my back against the wall, well, I'm a pirate after all lol..

My mind is blown 😳 

Isn't a black light an oxymoron?

Edited January 16, 2023 by James32

[Gordy]

Haha, damn phone,  backlight!!!