Creating photos for products like jewelry means producing vibrant results that showcase every intricate detail of every piece. To capture the attention of potential customers, your jewelry needs both the skills of a professional photographer and jewelry photo editing services that enhance its show-stopping features. But focusing on the product is not enough, and your background for jewelry photography plays an important role in creating high-quality images.
When planned, shot, and edited correctly, the background for your jewelry pictures can enhance the purpose of your images. Whether it’s showcasing the best areas of your product or selling a story you want to tell viewers, the best background for jewelry photography is one that complements your aesthetic and purpose. Here are some background ideas to consider the next time you shoot one of your big jewelry photography ideas. These backgrounds can be created during your photoshoot or added in post-production with our photo manipulation services.
The Classic Choice: White Background
A popular choice for all types of product photography, the white background never goes out of style. Often used for images for product pages, ecommerce pages, catalogues, and other uses that lean more towards sales than branding, a white background is best for putting the focus on your jewelry. With a white background, you don’t have anything – even color – distracting the viewers’ attention from the main product. This allows potential customers to look at each jewelry piece and view the intricate details at a glance.
A white background is the simplest you can get, contrasting the high-end luxury of your jewelry. While you could opt for any other colored background, a white background is cleaner, minimizes the shadows that can hide smaller details, and naturally brightens the appearance of your jewelry.
Creating a white background can be done during shooting or added in post-production. Photographers can place your jewelry in front of a white backdrop and use at least three lighting fixtures pointed at the jewelry piece, the background, and from behind the item as a backlight. If you don’t have these, you can also opt to buy a lightbox or DIY your own lightbox for a crisp and endlessly white background.
For photographers with limited space and equipment, you can also simply take a photo of your jewelry in a room with plenty of natural lighting from the window. The white background can then be edited in during retouching. Be sure to adjust the brightness in the different parts of your jewelry (as luxury metals and gemstones can have different reflective properties depending on the elements and lighting used). While some shadows can be retouched to brighten your jewelry’s appearance, avoid taking out all the shadows. This can take out the depth of your jewelry and make it look flat.
Dramatic But Neutral: Black Background
While you could go for any other colored background, there’s a reason why black and gray are popular color choices as a backdrop for jewelry photography. Black is a good neutral color that add to your image’s mood by adding drama and flair. It makes for a great contrast when used in contrast with light and transparent elements like metals such as silver, white gold, and platinum combined with gems like diamonds, moissanite, and phianite. And for colored gemstones, this creates a neutral background that can still help the real star of the show – your jewelry – pop on screen.
Another reason many jewelers and product photographers use black backgrounds for jewelry pictures is because of its opposite effect on glares, shadows, and light reflection when using a white background. Black can help photographers avoid the unnecessary glares that can affect the final output, allowing the natural shimmer and shine of your jewelry to naturally pop on screen. It also helps that a black background is often associated with high-end luxury jewelry.
For your shoot, make sure you have at least half a meter distance between your jewelry and the black background. This can minimize the glaring effect your flash can have on the background. For a pure black background, this can be edited later on in post-production.
Modern Alternative: Gray Background
Independent jewelers and jewelers selling modern, everyday-use jewelry tend to lean towards different shades of gray as their background. Compared to black and white backgrounds, gray is the middle ground that’s not too dramatic but not too focused on the product itself. When used correctly, a neutral gray background isn’t distracting while emphasizing the jewelry just enough to command the attention of viewers without it being too focused or too dramatic.
Aside from its use in more modern styles of everyday jewelry, gray backgrounds are ideal for images used in banners, online ads, and product pages. This makes it a more versatile color if you can’t choose between black and white.
Keep in mind that shooting with a gray background may need some tweaking with the lights. Since the background is already gray, creating a backlight isn’t necessary as it can add too many unnecessary shades that are difficult to balance in a gray background. And while jewelry photo editing is necessary for all images, you may need a bit more retouching with a gray background to enhance the colors and clean up the overall look.
For a Deep Focal Point: Gradient Background
Color gradient backgrounds are good jewelry photography background ideas for pieces with a focal point like rings and pendant necklaces. Aside from the effect the color has on your image, the lighter side can shift a user’s attention to a certain area of the jewelry.
For instance, a solitaire diamond ring with a simple band can be best displayed by focusing on the jewel itself rather than bringing attention to the entire band, since there isn’t any detail. During your photoshoot or in post-production, make sure that the diamond is right in front of the lightest part of the gradient. This will bring more attention to a certain point of the ring rather than the ring as a whole.
The choice of the color gradient is up to you, but pick colors that match the style and aesthetic of your brand. Also, make sure the color you choose doesn’t clash with colored gems on the jewelry piece. Avoid picking loud colors that take away focus, rather than highlighting the details of your jewelry.
Tell a Story: Themed Background
Themed backgrounds are good for ads that are indirectly selling your product by selling a story. For example, you can use backgrounds and props associated with weddings. Or, if you’re selling jewelry inspired by pieces from books or TV shows, you can use backgrounds associated with that specific show and then create either a regular setup or a flat lay of your backdrop and props.
Depending on what you want to achieve, your background in jewelry photography can either be used during your shoot or added later on in post-production. Also, keep in mind not to make your background and props too distracting that it takes away the focus from your jewelry. Remember: you want to enhance your jewelry on social media copies, ads, and other promotional materials, so don’t add anything that shifts the focus away from your product.
Captivating Images for Ads: Textured Background
If your main goal is to create attention-grabbing images on blogs and social media, plain backgrounds may make it harder to grab the attention of users quickly scrolling through their feeds. One way of creating noticeable images is to skip plain colors and go for textured backgrounds. These can cover anything – from natural textures like florals and wood to materials like marble and granite. With some of these materials, you might have to do a flat lay instead of the usual shoot setup.
Keep in mind that different materials have different reflective levels. This means having to adjust your lighting accordingly followed by some retouching.
To Sell Your Brand: Backgrounds with Branding
Ideal for social media posts, print advertisements, and other types of marketing and advertising materials to establish your brand. How you add your branding in the background can vary depending on your aesthetic. Some jewelers opt to use backdrops that feature their logo, while others use props like jewelry boxes and other branded props, while others opt to add in their brand name or logo in post-production.
But just like themed backgrounds, make sure that your branding doesn’t overpower or distract viewers from your jewelry. Ideally, you should have a brand name and logo established by now, and adding that into the photo in a visually pleasing way can help improve brand recognition. Later on, once you’ve established your brand’s unique aesthetic, you can try making more subtle logo inserts. You can also remove the logo or brand name entirely by using color combinations associated with your brand.
Choose Backgrounds That Push Your Jewelry Into the Spotlight
There’s no right or wrong answer when choosing the right background for jewelry pictures. However, you should choose the background that best fits the purpose of these images. If you want images that will look great on ads and promotions, more detailed and textured backgrounds that help sell a brand or an idea can catch the right viewer’s attention. But for jewelry photography ideas that sell a piece’s intricate details, go for a simple picture touch up in Photoshop and a quieter background that puts all the attention on your jewelry.
At Paper Boat Creative, our team can help you achieve unparalleled images with our jewelry photo editing services. For backgrounds that need to be edited or retouched in post-production, get in touch with us. Let’s talk about the high-end product photography results you need for your business.
