Back Grounds

thanks Malissa what about cloth vs paper

elevated or flat

ok thats an option

In Photoshop, there is a tool for selecting area. It's normally a square by default but if you click on the corner of the button (usually) you will get the choice of a circular one.

If you click and drag with the circle-select tool, you'll get an ellipse which is a bit random in shape. If you click and drag while holding the alt and shift keys, you'll get a perfect circle that radiates out from where you clicked.

Now, find the middle of your coin, alt-shift-click and drag until you have your selection circle just encompassing your coin image. Then press ctrl-I to invert the selection.

Take your Eraser tool and erase the background, or alternatively take the Paint Bucket tool with some white or black paint and fill the selected area.

Might be a bit of trial-and-error here but that's the basic idea.

I use a black lens cap. It helps to eliminate stray side shadows and gives me good contrast.

Here's an example of a recent one that I did:

Thanks for cleaning that up.

I'm from Ars. I saw the link from the thread in the Lounge.

I agree that placing coin photographs against a black background looks best. However, when photographing the coins, it's best to use (based on some professional photographers that I took an ANA class from) to use a photographic gray that the coin lays on.