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Knife pictures
- Thread starter TomW
- Start date
Hey Tom, to use a scanner (can't afford a digital but I guess the developer can put regular pics on cd) lay the knive on the scanner bed and cover it with a cloth. I use a light colored t-shirt for covering (be sure to keep sweat-stained armpit areas out of the pic : \) and a piece of plexiglas under the knife to protect the scanner from harm. An imaging program like Adobe PhotoDeluxe, that came with my scanner, can be used to adjust the pics contrast, brightness, etc.. I also bought a Philips video cam but it doesn't take very good pics. The scanner does a much better job but a digital camera would be the best.
jeff
jeff
- Joined
- Oct 2, 1998
- Messages
- 5,461
Ahhh.. We do this everyday!
OK Digital camera tricks.
First and most important is lighting. Unlike a 35MM you do not have many options on shutter speed or focal length. About the only thing you can do is "force" the camera to choose the proper exposure.
How do you do this?
Well.... PRACTICE!
First there is no substitution for natural sunlight. Place your knives on a black or dark background. Go get large sheets of white foam board to act as light diffusers and reflectors. Do not take a picture in direct sunlight. Use the diffusers to control lighting and act as sheilds. Here are a couple of pics to show the difference.
The first pic is with direct sunlight.
As you can see there are shadows and the exposure is not very good. To the untrained eye however this is an acceptable picture.
The second pic is taken using a white foam board to hide the direct sunlight and shadow the whole scene wile letting in plenty of late afternoon ambient light.
Now you are ready to edit the pic in Adobe or whatever program you use.
Now scanning a knife is not fun if the knife has a satin of polished blade. You can just about forget it. But with practice you can get acceptable results.
The image below is a scan.
You will need to angle the knife so the blade does not reflect directly back at the scanner. About 45 degrees works in most cases.
Jim Mattis liks to use backgrounds on his scanner. Laying a sheet or colored material (Blue is good) over the knives will produce exceptable web results. Again you will need to practice.
The link below is to an image I made for OutDoor Edge. It is their Calendar shot and will be in next years Blade Magazine Calendar.
The image is large (About 407K) but not near as large as the 135 Meg original but it will give you an idea of what you can do with the proper equipment and experience. All images in this OEC image are scans! Even the marble background was a scan. I literally laid a peice of marble on my scanner.
www.bladeforums.com/images/calendar.jpg
Have fun!
------------------
Best Regards,
Mike Turber
BladeForums Site Owner and Administrator
Do it! Do it right! Do it right NOW!
www.wowinc.com
[This message has been edited by Mike Turber (edited 05 October 1999).]
OK Digital camera tricks.
First and most important is lighting. Unlike a 35MM you do not have many options on shutter speed or focal length. About the only thing you can do is "force" the camera to choose the proper exposure.
How do you do this?
Well.... PRACTICE!
First there is no substitution for natural sunlight. Place your knives on a black or dark background. Go get large sheets of white foam board to act as light diffusers and reflectors. Do not take a picture in direct sunlight. Use the diffusers to control lighting and act as sheilds. Here are a couple of pics to show the difference.
The first pic is with direct sunlight.
As you can see there are shadows and the exposure is not very good. To the untrained eye however this is an acceptable picture.
The second pic is taken using a white foam board to hide the direct sunlight and shadow the whole scene wile letting in plenty of late afternoon ambient light.
Now you are ready to edit the pic in Adobe or whatever program you use.
Now scanning a knife is not fun if the knife has a satin of polished blade. You can just about forget it. But with practice you can get acceptable results.
The image below is a scan.
You will need to angle the knife so the blade does not reflect directly back at the scanner. About 45 degrees works in most cases.
Jim Mattis liks to use backgrounds on his scanner. Laying a sheet or colored material (Blue is good) over the knives will produce exceptable web results. Again you will need to practice.
The link below is to an image I made for OutDoor Edge. It is their Calendar shot and will be in next years Blade Magazine Calendar.
The image is large (About 407K) but not near as large as the 135 Meg original but it will give you an idea of what you can do with the proper equipment and experience. All images in this OEC image are scans! Even the marble background was a scan. I literally laid a peice of marble on my scanner.
www.bladeforums.com/images/calendar.jpg
Have fun!
------------------
Best Regards,
Mike Turber
BladeForums Site Owner and Administrator
Do it! Do it right! Do it right NOW!
www.wowinc.com
[This message has been edited by Mike Turber (edited 05 October 1999).]
- Joined
- Aug 23, 1999
- Messages
- 41
Have a Sony Digital Camera zoom, full exposure control and great pic's. But, Mike is correct lighting is the main problem for most bad pic's. Diffused lighting is best. If youwant to supplement lighting go to the hardware store and get a light cover for a florescent light fixture,( it will diffuse the light and you can even use a spot light behind it - JUST DON'T GET IT TO CLOSE). One other thing that you may need to do with a digital camera is to move the camera angle to get the best overall contrast for the blade, after youtakea few pic's you'll understand what I mean. Unlike wildlife Photos Knives don't MOVE so move the camera to get the best overall angle. You may also use a small spot lamp if so one that works well is a small clamp type spot with a 60W or 100W Halogen bulb using a digital camera what you see is what you get, so the difference in lighting or light colors does not affect the camera as with a regular file type camera. I hope thisis of some bennifet to those of youwho own a digital camera or for those of you who are thinging about getting one. I will say this if you are like myself and you take a lot of photos such as at the Blade Show, ect. then I would consider a digital camera that uses floppy disc's instead of photo cards in the long run it's a lot chepper.
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Curtis Wilson -
Wilson's Custom Knives, Engraving, and Scrimshaw
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Curtis Wilson -
Wilson's Custom Knives, Engraving, and Scrimshaw
- Joined
- Oct 3, 1998
- Messages
- 3,264
My more recent scans involve a rather inexpensive Agfa scanner and the image editing software (Corel) that came with it.
I now scan at high resolution and then reduce to a more web-friendly size. 15% or 25% compression gives a dramatic reduction in .jpg file size.
Mirror polish is hard to scan. Bead blast or black tefflon is easy. With a satin finish, whether it's 150 grit or 1500 grit, I lay the knife on the glass so that the grit lines are at a diagonal (experiment!) to the scanner. If the grit lines are lengthwise to the scanner, it's as if I had a mirror polished blade, and I get black or glaring white or both. If the grit lines are at a right angle to the scanner, I get a grey blade showing off the grit lines, but I lose definition of the bevels because I don't get the shadows.
I put a cloth over the knife. The blue cloth I've been using is a pretty good contrast to most blade and handle material it encounters.
I hope that helps.
I think I do better scans now than I did a year ago, and I did better scans a year ago than I did two years ago.
Experiment.
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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
I now scan at high resolution and then reduce to a more web-friendly size. 15% or 25% compression gives a dramatic reduction in .jpg file size.
Mirror polish is hard to scan. Bead blast or black tefflon is easy. With a satin finish, whether it's 150 grit or 1500 grit, I lay the knife on the glass so that the grit lines are at a diagonal (experiment!) to the scanner. If the grit lines are lengthwise to the scanner, it's as if I had a mirror polished blade, and I get black or glaring white or both. If the grit lines are at a right angle to the scanner, I get a grey blade showing off the grit lines, but I lose definition of the bevels because I don't get the shadows.
I put a cloth over the knife. The blue cloth I've been using is a pretty good contrast to most blade and handle material it encounters.
I hope that helps.
I think I do better scans now than I did a year ago, and I did better scans a year ago than I did two years ago.
Experiment.
------------------
- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
- Joined
- Oct 3, 1998
- Messages
- 3,264
Here's a scan, which I haven't linked to text in my web page yet, of some (mostly cheap) knives that were more difficult than most.
high resolution:
www.chaicutlery.com/mora/redmoraknives.jpg
and reduced:
The basic Swedish cheap carbon steel work knives come with polished blades, buffed lengthwise along the flats, and crosswise on the zero edge bevels. The diagonal lets you see details of the knife. You have to just know that the contrasting flats and bevels actually are polished to the same level.
The little laminated stainless Helle knife on the end has a very bright mirror polish, buffed lenghwise mostly. The best I could do with it was find an angle where the flat would come out grey and the edge bevel would be near-black, instead of a bright glaring white with a flair on the edge that looked like the steel was on fire.
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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
high resolution:
www.chaicutlery.com/mora/redmoraknives.jpg
and reduced:
The basic Swedish cheap carbon steel work knives come with polished blades, buffed lengthwise along the flats, and crosswise on the zero edge bevels. The diagonal lets you see details of the knife. You have to just know that the contrasting flats and bevels actually are polished to the same level.
The little laminated stainless Helle knife on the end has a very bright mirror polish, buffed lenghwise mostly. The best I could do with it was find an angle where the flat would come out grey and the edge bevel would be near-black, instead of a bright glaring white with a flair on the edge that looked like the steel was on fire.
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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
- Joined
- Oct 3, 1998
- Messages
- 3,264
Pearl is fun material to scan. It happened that this angle got me decent results for both handle and blade. I laid the knife on the scanner a little off of lenghwise. "Top" for the scanner is to the right of the picture, which I rotated in my editing program. The bright side of the pivot screw and the edge bevel is "bottom" for the scanner. The grind line on the blade would have been more clearly highlighted if the blade had been closer to crosswise to the scanner, but I would have lost the figure in the pearl.
Your mileage may vary.
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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
Your mileage may vary.
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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
