What do you think of this method of photographing/listing coins?

Hi everybody,

I'm trying to find a better way of showing a coin's luster and color as well
as surface imperfections. If you have a minute please check out the link
below and see if it works for you and if you think it's a good idea. This is
hosted on my server but I listed it exactly this way on ebay. By the way,
the auction is over and the coin sold so no offers please

http://www.clifflawless.com/auction_...82-O_vam4.html

Thanks!

Cliff Lawless

On Tue, 11 Jul 2006 10:18:46 GMT, "Cliff Lawless"
wrote:

Hi everybody,

I'm trying to find a better way of showing a coin's luster and color as well
as surface imperfections. If you have a minute please check out the link
below and see if it works for you and if you think it's a good idea. This is
hosted on my server but I listed it exactly this way on ebay. By the way,
the auction is over and the coin sold so no offers please

http://www.clifflawless.com/auction_...82-O_vam4.html

Thanks!

Cliff Lawless

Very clever! Nice way of illustrating cartwheels. And this requires no
fancy HTML except for a little JavaScript that even older browsers can
understand.

--
Bob Hairgrove

On Tue, 11 Jul 2006 10:18:46 GMT, Cliff Lawless wrote:
Hi everybody,

I'm trying to find a better way of showing a coin's luster and color as well
as surface imperfections. If you have a minute please check out the link
below and see if it works for you and if you think it's a good idea. This is
hosted on my server but I listed it exactly this way on ebay. By the way,
the auction is over and the coin sold so no offers please
http://www.clifflawless.com/auction_...82-O_vam4.html

That is really clever. I wonder; can you do it from more angles? 8
different images depending on which segment of the coin your pointer is?
It'd be like having it in your hand and manipulating it that way. You
could put pointers on the outside of the coin showing where the image
map sectors are. Very creative.

There's a techinque similar to this that I've wanted to try for
visualizing the lettering on old tombstones. Light from one angle, you
can see some of it; light from another, you can see more of it, and so
on. I think you've just handed me an answer to that question as well.

I like it, a lot, is what I'm saying. More angles might improve it
without making setup too bad.

I like it. What camera and lighting did you use?

Cliff Lawless wrote:

I'm trying to find a better way of showing a coin's luster and color as well
as surface imperfections. If you have a minute please check out the link
below and see if it works for you and if you think it's a good idea.

It's beyond a good idea; it's well executed. Well done!

--
Stefano

Cliff,
What a great idea...Conveys a lot of visual information without a lot of
complexity...minimizing the length of the page you are loading.
[one of my pet-peeves is having to scroll all over the place to get at
relevant info].

I would agree with a previous post that a couple more angles would make the
transitions between pics less drastic but it adds complexity as you
would have to cycle thru more pics and complicate using the mouse as a user
control. I think if you select the appropriate lighting angles [as you did]
2 pics per side IMO is optimal.

Anyone looking at a listing like this will realize that the seller is not
trying to hide anything. Serves the expert collector and the newbie like me
that usually as a result of
ignorance tends to be more cautious.

I am impressed.

Jorge





"Cliff Lawless" wrote in message
...
Hi everybody,

I'm trying to find a better way of showing a coin's luster and color as
well
as surface imperfections. If you have a minute please check out the link
below and see if it works for you and if you think it's a good idea. This
is
hosted on my server but I listed it exactly this way on ebay. By the way,
the auction is over and the coin sold so no offers please

http://www.clifflawless.com/auction_...82-O_vam4.html

Thanks!

Cliff Lawless

That is really clever. I wonder; can you do it from more angles? 8
different images depending on which segment of the coin your pointer is?
It'd be like having it in your hand and manipulating it that way. You
could put pointers on the outside of the coin showing where the image
map sectors are. Very creative.

There's a techinque similar to this that I've wanted to try for
visualizing the lettering on old tombstones. Light from one angle, you
can see some of it; light from another, you can see more of it, and so
on. I think you've just handed me an answer to that question as well.


That can easily be done (code-wise) using "hotspots" and the swap image
command. I've been thinking about this off and on all day. You could almost
view it as if it were cartwheeling in your hand. The actual work is taking
good shots.

I stumbled on the idea by accident trying to get good shots of a clashed
die. You barely move the light and the clash marks totally disappear. Move
it another way and it jumps out at you. I was clicking through the pics,
slide-show fashion, and hit two shots of the same coin with different
lighting angles. That's when I realized swap image might be cool.

You could end up spending a lot of time on it but it would be fun to do.
Actually, create a template and you could switch the pics out fairly
quickly. I'll be experimenting in the future and I'll post again.

Wes asked about the lighting and camera. I'm using a Nikon Coolpix 4600. I
have a desktop tripod and I'm using a cheap metal lamp that clamps on the
side of the desk. More like a droplight. I actually set the camera timer and
hold the light where I want it. I know, that's not very professional The
bulb is a GE 60 watt Enrich. The Rich White version. Seems to work better
than Soft White.

Thanks to everyone who posted back. Your input is appreciated.

Cliff Lawless

On Tue, 11 Jul 2006 20:53:41 GMT, Cliff Lawless wrote:
That is really clever. I wonder; can you do it from more angles? 8
different images depending on which segment of the coin your pointer is?
It'd be like having it in your hand and manipulating it that way. You
could put pointers on the outside of the coin showing where the image
map sectors are. Very creative.

That can easily be done (code-wise) using "hotspots" and the swap image
command.

That's what I was thinking too.

I've been thinking about this off and on all day. You could almost
view it as if it were cartwheeling in your hand. The actual work is taking
good shots.

That wouldn't actually be that bad. A fixture with either 8 light
sources you turn on one at a time (or 3 at a time to get one side, etc)
and then a tripod for the camera to keep registration of the images
together.

I stumbled on the idea by accident trying to get good shots of a clashed
die. You barely move the light and the clash marks totally disappear. Move
it another way and it jumps out at you. I was clicking through the pics,
slide-show fashion, and hit two shots of the same coin with different
lighting angles. That's when I realized swap image might be cool.

There was an article somewhere a few years ago (horrible cite, sorry)
about a researcher using sort of this to read ancient cuneaform tablets.
The shadows were faint but getting the many angles going you could
digitally subtract the images to take out the common points (the
non carved features) while emphasizing the differences (recesses).
I can't google up the article because my memory of the details is vague,
but they had a fixture with 4 or 8 lighting points and a fixed camera,
just as you've done for your 2 images.

You could end up spending a lot of time on it but it would be fun to do.
Actually, create a template and you could switch the pics out fairly
quickly. I'll be experimenting in the future and I'll post again.

I could write a shell script that would take 8 images and generate the
HTML for it, as long as they can be sorted in 1-8 order in some
recognizable way.

Thanks to everyone who posted back. Your input is appreciated.

Seriously, if you want to send me a stack of 8 images or even 4 of one
coin, I'll come up with a script. If you're on Windows that'd be a
problem but not an insurmountable one.

Dave Hinz

"Cliff Lawless" wrote in message
...
Hi everybody,

I'm trying to find a better way of showing a coin's luster and color as
well
as surface imperfections. If you have a minute please check out the link
below and see if it works for you and if you think it's a good idea. This
is
hosted on my server but I listed it exactly this way on ebay. By the way,
the auction is over and the coin sold so no offers please

http://www.clifflawless.com/auction_...82-O_vam4.html

Thanks!

Cliff Lawless

Nice but a bit slow for us dial-up guys. Had it been a real auction, I would
have given up the wait and moved on.

On Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:33:37 GMT, Brian Blackwell wrote:

Nice but a bit slow for us dial-up guys. Had it been a real auction, I would
have given up the wait and moved on.

Cliff, I can help with the .jpg compression too. You'd be surprised how
nice you can get an image with some small size.