A pair of pearl rings

[ps_bond]

Since we've been talking about Revere's book, here's one of the projects -

4905

Forged from 3mm square wire, 6mm pearls. Done primarily for the practice in forging as precisely as possible.

Still messing with exposure, I've had to darken the background a chunk & remove some dust spots. 1 or 2 stops less might be worthwhile.

[ps_bond]

Comments *are* welcome, BTW, both on content & technique. I'm still having aggro with cleaning fingermarks off which aren't visible until I see the shot fully blown up; I've been using cotton gloves to handle things to try and reduce the problems; the dust is annoying me, despite using an antistat gun on the backdrop.

[ShinyLauren]

Lovely rings - I like the contrast of the chunky square wire with the delicate pearls.

No matter how careful I am I ALWAYS get dust on a dark background! I think it's one of life's certainties I'm afraid.

[Dennis]

Very splendid rings. "Remove spots and blemishes" for the dust. Dennis.

[Nick martin]

They look lovely. Can I ask how the pearls are set, and whats the technique called please?

Nick

[pearlescence]

Nice pearls. Unusual colour..were they matched to the metal?
I iexpect they are half drilled and set on a peg (about 3-4mm long). The scoop of the design makes a semi-cup. Fxed with epoxy?

[ps_bond]

They're just greys - peacock grey IIRC; I wonder if the reflections might be shifting the apparent colour. They are indeed half drilled & epoxied - the pegs were carefully notched with a pair of cutters, just enough to give a rough surface but not weaken the peg. There's enough room either side of the pearl to get a piece of paper in, not much more; it took some trial fitting to make certain the orientation of the pearl was correct - they're not completely symmetrical (never are). I wondered about making a pearl seat burr to get the solder joint truly flush but decided against it in the end. Oh, the solder was sweated onto the end of the peg, then the peg was held in a burred depression on the ring while I heated the ring (not the peg) to get it to flow.

Dennis, I did use the dust & scratches filter, with a small amount of spot healing brush (when it gets it right).

[pearlescence]

You'd find it easier to drill a hole where you want to seat the peg and drop it into that hole to get a fixing. And instead of worrying about solder around the base of the peg, take a 1mm or 1.5mm drill bit and just make a countersink into the pearl drill hole
I've never done all that with the peg to make it more adhesivey. Glue works by suction so you want a tight flush fit

[willem parel]

Very nice rings Peter, congratulations.
I do the same as Pearlescence does, making a countersink in the hole of the pearl with an old ball burr.
This way you don't have to weaken the soldering of the peg, I make pegs by drawing a round wire to square to 1 mm and then twist this in a hand drill.
When you make a length of about 10 centimeters you have enough pegs for years ( ah well, lets say months....) cutting of 5mm. each time when you need one.

[ps_bond]

At the point that I did them, I didn't have a square drawplate, only round & D. Now, however... Anything that increases the surface area helps the adhesion. I do like the idea of countersinking the pearl - should have been obvious given I was opening out the hole slightly anyway.

Now I quite fancy doing them in 18k, but maybe I should get an order for one first!

[Tabby66]

Probably a very basic question!!..........is epoxy essential as the fixate?? Is there a reason not to use superglue??
Thanks
Tabby xx

[ps_bond]

I don't trust the stuff much around wet environments is all.

[pearlescence]

Because superglue is not as good as epoxy for holding pearls. We don't use it and we are glueing pearls all day every day.

[pearlescence]

We just use scraps of round wire. no twist.

[Dennis]

Dennis, I did use the dust & scratches filter, with a small amount of spot healing brush (when it gets it right).

I'm surprised you should say that. I use Photoshop Elements 10, and out of laziness mostly the 'Guided' option. The spot healing brush will hoover up each bit of dandruff at a click. I have it about 2.0mm in diameter and zoom in a little so it shows up more.

For larger background defects, I use the clone stamp in 'Full', which needs a little more care. Dennis.

[ps_bond]

I'm using v9 and every now & again the spot healing brush seems to pick up unassociated detail, particularly near the edges.

[medusa]

Those are beautiful, though I really don't like the reflection on the surface. It is too distracting. I shoot my stuff either on white cartridge paper or the black cleaning cloth for my iMac. It's like an artificial suede, very black and very matte.

[mizgeorge]

Just realised I've never commented - despite coming back to look again a couple of times.

I think they're just lovely Peter.

I'll freely admit I don't particularly like black backgrounds - I find them too heavy. Interestingly, they don't seem to be popular with etsy views or for galleries. If I want a reflection, I find a grey reflective surface kinder, though I've almost entirely switched to white for most things now. I recently got an LED lightpad for pushing in some extra light from below, and I'm very happy with how it's working.

[ps_bond]

That's 2 against the black background; I think I'll give them another clean & redo the shots on a white background. The other thing I might change is do it in portrait instead, I think there's too much wasted space around them like that. The idea is to show off the rings, not the background...!

[Dennis]

Well I think the black background is very dramatic and I have admired it, but you can have too much of a good thing so it can become boring if used for everything. As for the orientation, I keep all of mine in landscape, because I think it is less distracting to have them all the same way in an album. Dennis.

[mizgeorge]

I don't know if it helps, but if you're putting them up for sale, most online galleries are pretty keen on square up. I tend to shoot in landscape and crop as appropriate, but it does help with not having quite so much background to deal with!

[caroleallen]

I know I keep harping on about Notonthehighstreet but they do know their stuff. All the images are cropped square and they really don't like black or dark backgrounds at all.

I think the rings are fab too.

[ps_bond]

I don't know if it helps, but if you're putting them up for sale, most online galleries are pretty keen on square up. I tend to shoot in landscape and crop as appropriate, but it does help with not having quite so much background to deal with!

They'll be up for sale shortly, but not online. The amount of background is mostly because I've used landscape, but Carole's comment would negate a lot of that.


I know I keep harping on about Notonthehighstreet but they do know their stuff. All the images are cropped square and they really don't like black or dark backgrounds at all.

Don't suppose they say why? Is that just the fashion at the moment? Square is interesting, I still tend to go for 4:3 aspect ratio - 1:1 could be worth playing with.


I think the rings are fab too.

A saleable exercise :)
(and thank you!)

[caroleallen]

I don't know Peter but they like to keep things light and airy. In their photography guide they say "As a rule, stick to white or light-coloured backgrounds – black is always a no-go"

[Wallace]

they are super Peter.

Sorry, have been a little occupied with final days of the office and more practice.

Pictures, as anyone knows, I often buck the trend. I can and do use my makeshift white background light box-esque thing. But get bored easily and love colour. Skin pictures are often helpful, but I like grey backgrounds to show off the silver and a little greenery, preferably not aphids though!

[ShinyLauren]

I tend to do a landscape and a square version of each picture to cover all eventualities!

A white background is something I am sadly yet to master, but haven't had any time to play with photography recently.