@kylie.smiley wrote:Thankyou so much for your help. I will definately do what you have suggested for next time. I have bought and returned 4 different lights, lamps, spotlights which I wanted to use to brighten up the photos but they didn't help much.
Jewellery is my main category, and I think a lot of people would be surprised at what my original photos look like... 
I do a bit of editing afterwards to improve them but before that they are actually quite drab looking.
A few extra tips based on my personal preferences:
Natural light only, and indirect (i.e. no electric lights of any kind, and no direct sunlight - I usually take photos next to and underneath a window on a bright day).
I only have a cheapie point-n-shoot digital camera, but with the right settings I can get some really nice detail - no flash, and macro is the default. I also take fairly wide angle shots, so there is a lot of blank space around the items, then when I go in to edit I can crop and frame them myself.
For dark images, I load them into Windows photo gallery and use the editing tools to brighten them (change the exposure, reduce shadows, increase contrast if necessary). It's free software, and the results can make a huge difference. 🙂
