Good editing between photographing your coins and posting your coins is an important part of the process.

With a fair degree of frequency, I have noticed a number of journal posts on the subject of coin photography. Most of the posts I have read seem to focus on lighting and cameras. These issues are very important, and I agree to be central to good coin photography. More often than not, I have had to take a picture up to a dozen times to get the effect I desire. Issues I contend with are holder glare, highly reflective surfaces, shadows, and focusing. Coin luster diffuses light in different directions and introduces different problems with which to contend. One of the coins in my collection is a proof French coin commemorating the international year of astronomy and the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. To make matters worse this coin has a concave reverse and convex obverse. The shape of this fascinating and beautiful coin has made photographing it next to impossible. All these issues, while important, are on the front end of the equation.

In between taking the picture and posting it, is editing the picture. There is any number of software packages with which to edit and prepare your photos for posting. Adobe Photoshop is one of the best software packages with which to edit your pictures. However, this software is expensive and in my opinion, over kill. Frankly, I?d rather spend my money on coins than on software. There are several free downloads that will work quite nicely. The software I use is Picasa 3, developed by Google. This software has many features that I like. Before I do anything to enhance my picture, I crop the picture, rotate it, and straighten it. Then, I typically use the auto-fix features to adjust my lighting and color. If I choose, I can do these edits manually also. I may choose up to twelve effects to accent my pictures in a pull-down menu. With this menu, I often choose the sharpen feature to sharpen the details on my pictures. Next, Picasa 3 saves both the edited and original pictures on my hard drive. Finally, the export feature allows me to resize my pictures to just the right size for posting. Additional features allow me to do collages.

Overall, I am pleased with this software; however, there are idiosyncrasies with how Picasa 3 saves export files that annoy me. Try it; you can hardly go wrong seeing that the software is a free. Then go and spend the money you save on that next coin you want. I am posting a photo collage of my latest purchase, a 1907-O MS-61 Barber Quarter. I took the pictures with an old Kodak Easy Share ?DX6490? 4 megapixel digital camera using incandescent lighting.

Finally, there is no substitute for taking the best picture possible, the old adage garbage in, garbage out applies here. However, for minor flaws, a good software package enhances the picture and covers over a ?multitude of sins?. Happy collecting all!