Some Simple Boxes...and a Photography Question

[Lee DeRaud]

Here are a couple of boxes I made recently. They're made as two-layer shells, with box joints to let the inner layer show through.

The first is maple over mahogany, with bloodwood inlay in the rosewood top.
It was given to some friends as a wedding gift, with a picture of them and a quote from their invitation inside the lid.

The second is walnut over maple, with padauk inlay in cherry for the lid.

The photography question is, how do I get a decent picture of high-contrast woods like these without having the grain disappear on either the dark or the light wood?

(Secondary question: how do I keep the pictures from clumping together at the bottom of the post?)

[Corey Hallagan]

Nice stuff, those are great looking. That is something I want to do is start making some boxes like that and using box joints. What do you use to make your joints with? Table Saw or Router, home made of purchased jig?
Photography.... I can't help you there but I think your photos look pretty good. On lumping together I guess you mean you want a space in between them or want to put text inbetween the photos. When the image first inbeds into the post, scroll down and out to the very bottom right edge of the photo and put your cursor next to the photo. You will see the cursor blinking there. Then hit enter the number of times to give the space you want in between and then either start your typing or load your new photo in the spot you want. Hope that helps!
Corey

[John Hart]

Nice boxes Lee!!! Those are definitely my taste.
I take my pictures with the camera resolution set to give me a picture at 1024 X 768 resolution. Then, before I post, I make a copy of the pic and open it in Adobe photoshop and knock the image size down to 110 pixels per inch and save it at medium resolution. This gives me the size and definition that I'm after...Plus the original at a much higher resolution for the future.
The pictures bunching together is a function of picture size and the forum software spacing. Make the pictures larger and they wont do that...plus you'll get your grain more visible.

[Lee DeRaud]

Nice stuff, those are great looking. That is something I want to do is start making some boxes like that and using box joints. What do you use to make your joints with? Table Saw or Router, home made of purchased jig?Nope: the whole thing is cut on the laser, down to the hinge mortises. I wrote some VBA code for Corel to draw the designs: I input dimensions, material thicknesses, joint finger widths, kerf allowances, etc, and it spits out the outlines of the inner and outer side panels.

Photography.... I can't help you there but I think your photos look pretty good. On lumping together I guess you mean you want a space in between them or want to put text inbetween the photos. When the image first inbeds into the post, scroll down and out to the very bottom right edge of the photo and put your cursor next to the photo. You will see the cursor blinking there. Then hit enter the number of times to give the space you want in between and then either start your typing or load your new photo in the spot you want. Hope that helps!Hmmm...sounds like I've got something set wrong: when I'm editing a post, all I have is a text window. The attachments are handled in a separate dialog box. Everybody told me not to use the 'preview' button when uploading pictures, and as near as I can tell, I can't change the positioning after the fact.
This is ridiculous: I wrangle 1's and 0's for a living, I oughta be able to hack some HTML without hurting myself...

[Corey Hallagan]

Yes, this all takes place in side the large text box. When you hit the image button on the menu, it brings up the URL window to type in the address of the photo and then you click ok or whatever. The image then gets placed in the message box and you are ready to put in your next photo. That is when I go to the text window and find the lower right hand corner of the photo that has been placed and put the cursor there and hit enter and it will space down for you. Hope this helps.

WOW, that sounds pretty cool on how you are doing your box joints. Second thought, if you can write that code, you definitely can fix the photos!!
Corey

[Bruce Overholt]

Bracket your exposures, and try different lighting for a start. Of Course, contrast and sharpness is indicative of Quality Glass in a lens.

Bruce

[Kevin Arceneaux]

One of the mags from this month had a finger joint jig in it. I made it and it is good to use. I had tried to make other ones I saw in magazines and bools, but this was the first one I could see how it went together.

I have been experimenting with it and found a dado blade makes a better cut. When I tried to use a router, I noticed the wood wanted to turn when the bit first contacted the wood.

[Lee DeRaud]

Yes, this all takes place in side the large text box. When you hit the image button on the menu, it brings up the URL window to type in the address of the photo and then you click ok or whatever. The image then gets placed in the message box and you are ready to put in your next photo. That is when I go to the text window and find the lower right hand corner of the photo that has been placed and put the cursor there and hit enter and it will space down for you. Hope this helps.(yet another forehead slap) Well, that's the problem: I'm not using the image button, I'm uploading the pictures as attachments. Don't mind me, I'm having a senior moment.:p

[Lee DeRaud]

Nice boxes Lee!!! Those are definitely my taste.
I take my pictures with the camera resolution set to give me a picture at 1024 X 768 resolution. Then, before I post, I make a copy of the pic and open it in Adobe photoshop and knock the image size down to 110 pixels per inch and save it at medium resolution. This gives me the size and definition that I'm after...Plus the original at a much higher resolution for the future.The camera saves both a full-resolution (1472x1104) copy and a 320x240 "email" version. I've been using the small ones here partly because of the upload size limit and mostly because I'm lazy. Sounds like I need something in between...either that or break down and learn all the bells and whistles on my newer 5MP camera.
And I have to admit my photography chops are very rusty: most of my experience is doing things like sports events and landscapes, not small stuff like this.

[Jules Dominguez]

The problem with contrast in a picture is that dark areas require more exposure than light areas to be properly exposed. Exposure is the amount of light that hits the film in a film camera or the imaging device in a digital camera and is a function of shutter speed and aperture opening. Auto-exposure cameras have built-in light meters that sense the light coming in from the subject and do averaging calculations to determine the "proper" exposure for a given scene and lighting situation.
The way most people handle high contrast is by "bracketing", or shooting at the automatic setting and then at higher and lower exposures. Some cameras have a bracketing function that will do that for you automatically, others have manual controls that let you over-ride the automatic setting. Low-end point-and-shoot cameras may not have these options. The instruction manual for your a camera should cover what it will do and how to use it. Some digital cameras have an electronic view finder and can do all of the above and also let you see what the shot will look like at various settings before you take the picture.
Lighting is very important and you need to always position light sources and the camera to avoid any reflected light. Light is reflected from a (reflective) surface at the same angle that it hits it, so it's pretty easy to eyeball whether a light or window is going to be a problem. Shoot at an angle if you use a flash so the light doesn't bounce right back at the camera.
Hope this is reasonably clear. I learned it the hard way.

[Ian Abraham]

On the photography question...
Have a read of these pages.
http://www.dansdata.com/phototute.htm

Dan is a somewhat eccentric Aussie, but he has some very good ideas on photographing small 'widgets' for displaying online.
A tripod and some 500w workshop floods can make a huge difference to photo quality no matter what camera you are using.

Cheers

Ian

[John Foote]

Soft-box it. Put the object inside a white `tent' you somehow cobble together, with the light source well outside shining through. Set the white-balance appropriate to your light source. Use a tripod (or a bag of rice), not a flash. And shoot at f-11 or more for DOF (assuming you want the entire subject to be in focus). It'll look great.

[John Hart]

Soft-box it. Put the object inside a white `tent' you somehow cobble together, with the light source well outside shining through. Set the white-balance appropriate to your light source. Use a tripod (or a bag of rice), not a flash. And shoot at f-11 or more for DOF (assuming you want the entire subject to be in focus). It'll look great.

I agree with John....The flash certainly ruins most of my wood pictures. My shop lighting is pretty well distributed so I usually take my pictures in there without a flash...and the tripod is invaluable.

[Lee DeRaud]

I agree with John....The flash certainly ruins most of my wood pictures. My shop lighting is pretty well distributed so I usually take my pictures in there without a flash...and the tripod is invaluable.My (garage) shop lighting is more suited to cave drawings than photography. In fact, it looks like my motto is "Normite tools, Neander lighting".

Can't do everything at once ya know, I've only lived there for 25 years. :cool:

[Jeff A. Smith]

Use an external (not built-in) flash and point it toward the ceiling... this allows the light to bounce onto the object rather than hitting it directly and causing shadows and glare. The glare is what's "removing" your wood grain.

Jeff

[Perry Holbrook]

If it helps, here is my photo set up. Pretty straight forward except for the mylar backdrop. A solid color polyester fabric works pretty well as a backdrop, be sure it has not wrinkles and nothing else is in the frame but your object.

The other picture is one I took last night of my lastest glass box using this set up. I've already posted most of my wood box pictures at other times.

Perry

[Chuck Harris]

Hi,

A lot of times I shoot the object with my 35mm film camera. when I have the film processed I have them make a CD at the same time. There have been some great posts here on shooting . Try a web search on shooting weddings. The challange of shooting a Black tux next to a white wedding dress parallels the problem you have. Keep in mind that the camera only sees how much light is or isn't comming from an object. Expose for the low light area and the high reflected light area "burns" the image. Go the other way and you lose any detail in the low light(darker) areas. Most newer cameras have weighted light meters that average the ammount of light comming into the lens. Some higher end cameras will allow you to adjust how much of the frame the camera will meter. Be carefull with using a flash as it may change the settings in the camera, to how much light the camrea "expects" the flash to throw into the shot.

[Tim Farrell]

Great Boxes. Really pretty stuff. I love the use of multiple woods.

A question. I am just finishing some box joint boxes myself and am having trouble with trimming the ends. I made the fingers a bit long so the joints would be tight. Now i need to trim them.

How did you trim up the joints after assembly?

[Lee DeRaud]

Great Boxes. Really pretty stuff. I love the use of multiple woods.

A question. I am just finishing some box joint boxes myself and am having trouble with trimming the ends. I made the fingers a bit long so the joints would be tight. Now i need to trim them.

How did you trim up the joints after assembly?Flush trim bit in the router table. I sand a small chamfer on the "trailing" edges first to minimize tear-out.

[Vaughn McMillan]

Beautiful work, Lee. I was guessing you used a laser for the picture and quote on the inside lid, but I didn't realize they could also be used for cutting material. (I guess it makes sense; I just hadn't thought of it.)

In addition to the good picture advice already posted, I thought I'd throw in my two bit's worth. John mentioned using Photoshop to resize the pictures. I have Photoshop and use it a lot, but my "go-to" graphic resizing software is Irfanview. It's free and easy to use, and it does a wide variety of graphic conversion and resizing jobs. I use it almost daily for all sorts of graphic manipulation (I write English descriptions of what our engineers are doing with ones and zeros). If I need to tweak the color or edit elements out of the picture, I use Photoshop. If I'm just converting a .BMP to .JPG or turning a 4 megapizel picture into a thumbnail-sized image, I use Irfanview. (I can open Irfanview, edit a file, and close the program in the length of time it takes Photoshop to open on my desktop. It's nice, tight code.) Irfanview is at www.irfanview.com. (I have no affiliation whatsoever with the guy who produces it. I work for a software company, but not this one.)

Again, loved the boxes...

- Vaughn

[Jim Becker]

Photography of these boxes is best handled the same way that photographing turnings is done...in a small, but simple light box using bounced light...and with the camera on a tripod with the settings correct for the light sources. Outdoors with a neutral background (18% gray preferred, but white is fine, too) on an overcast day (or with a diffuser) is also fine. Flash is bad news for any of these shots. A pic of my booth is shown below and I posted a thread awhile back on the subject (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=14240).

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=13027&stc=1

[Lee DeRaud]

Beautiful work, Lee. I was guessing you used a laser for the picture and quote on the inside lid, but I didn't realize they could also be used for cutting material. (I guess it makes sense; I just hadn't thought of it.)I never even thought about buying one as an "engraver": what got the check written was the concept of the laser being "The Mother Of All Scroll Saws".

In addition to the good picture advice already posted, I thought I'd throw in my two bit's worth. John mentioned using Photoshop to resize the pictures. I have Photoshop and use it a lot, but my "go-to" graphic resizing software is Irfanview. It's free and easy to use, and it does a wide variety of graphic conversion and resizing jobs. I use it almost daily for all sorts of graphic manipulation (I write English descriptions of what our engineers are doing with ones and zeros). If I need to tweak the color or edit elements out of the picture, I use Photoshop. If I'm just converting a .BMP to .JPG or turning a 4 megapizel picture into a thumbnail-sized image, I use Irfanview. (I can open Irfanview, edit a file, and close the program in the length of time it takes Photoshop to open on my desktop. It's nice, tight code.) Irfanview is at www.irfanview.com. (I have no affiliation whatsoever with the guy who produces it. I work for a software company, but not this one.)I'll take a look at it. I've already got four or five different image editing tools, I'm mostly just too lazy to use them. And I think most of my problem with photographing this small stuff comes down to lighting. Despite close to 40 years of photography, this is something new to me: I'm more used to dealing with natural light and big subjects.

[Tim Farrell]

Flush trim bit in the router table. I sand a small chamfer on the "trailing" edges first to minimize tear-out.

Thanks Lee, I'll give it a try tonight. Once again - terrific work.
tim