Hey Mo, the pics are ok, they show the knives pretty well. Anyways, the 3 most important things are lighting, lighting and lighting
You want enough light that your camera will shoot as fast without the flash as it will with the flash (we're talking digitals here). You want bright and even light, but no direct light that will make uneven reflections on the surface. The best way for most knives, assuming you dont have a lighting set-up is to shoot outside. Nice sunny days but shoot in a lightly shaded area. Or, a lite overcast day will also give plenty of light with no unwanted shadows. Remember though, shadows are not always bad...they 'work' in some pics. Here is your pic that I touched up with photodeluxe.
Now, the better the original pic, the less adjustment you will need, but this will work for an example. I took the blade and made it lighter and took the unevenly lit spots out by adjusting lighting and contrast. I then blocked off the 'cooper' logo and darkened it a bit and sharpened it up. Where the grind starts, I darkened a bit also, so it would stand out. The handle I blocked and brightened up quite a bit so it didnt hide itself in the background. Then sharpened it a bit to help bring the wood out. The OGG necker was brightened and sharpened. Afterwards, I took the entire pic and 'smoothed' it a bit. Any rough spots in the pic were softened, and also the background doesnt look near as grainy. Anyways Mo, if ya make it to the get-together, bring your camera and some knives and we'll both get some good knife pic practice in.
Good that you shoot sporting events...I tried to shoot pics at my sons basketball game, they were terrible. Just a buncha blurry things in the middle of a blurry court.
Hope this helps some.
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Richard Todd - Digital knife photography
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