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I wrote out a detailed workflow for a potential system client and thought I'd publish it here as well. It is geared toward Canon cameras and Digital Photo Professional.
- Turn on Camera
- Set Mode dial to Av (Aperture priority)
- Turn on Live View
- Set ISO to 100; Picture Style to Faithful
- Place the coin on Velvet Tansfer Disk and place on the stage roughly in center of screen (note: the grid function can be turned on to help with coin placement. I use 20x20 grid)
- Adjust the magnification and focus until it nearly fills the vertical space (I zoom to 90%) (note: this is a manual and iterative process for each different coin size)
- Remove the Velvet Transfer Disk and coin
- Place a grey reference (Grey backside of velvet transfer disk, 18% grey card, white index card, white paper, etc) on the stage
- Perform Manual White Balance (click on the eyedropper and then click eyedropper near center of the Live View image)
- Snap a shot of the white balance reference
- Digital Photo Professional will open and the new image will show up in the main window
- Open the image and check the RGB values in various places across the image. If any R, G or B is higher across image, adjust the WB shift and repeat process until RGB are equal as possible.
- Replace the Velvet Transfer Disk and coin
- Move the Disk + coin to the center of the screen and adjust rotation (note: this is the function of the XY stage, or manually moving the coin if no XY stage. Rotate the camera to "rotate" the coin on-screen)
- Move the white zoom box to the optimum area of the coin for critical focusing (this is different for each type of coin)
- Hit the zoom button and a zoom window will open
- Critically-focus on a middle height feature, then check quality of focus on the highest and lowest features. Adjust aperture if depth of field is insufficient and you're single-image shooting.
- Close the zoom window
- Move the zoom box so it's encompassing the brightest area of the coin. This forces metering on this area.
- If brightest area still appears to be over-exposed, adjust the Exposure Compensation until there is no over-exposure
- If the shadows are too dark, reduce contrast
- Snap the shot
- Open the image and adjust Levels, Saturation, Sharpening, and Cropping to taste
- Use Batch Process function to downsize the image to desired publishing size (I recommend integer 2, 3, 4, etc ratio downsizing to maintain sharpness)
- Review final image before publishing
Additional workflows are needed for lighting; focus stacking; and image editing...
- Turn on Camera
- Set Mode dial to Av (Aperture priority)
- Turn on Live View
- Set ISO to 100; Picture Style to Faithful
- Place the coin on Velvet Tansfer Disk and place on the stage roughly in center of screen (note: the grid function can be turned on to help with coin placement. I use 20x20 grid)
- Adjust the magnification and focus until it nearly fills the vertical space (I zoom to 90%) (note: this is a manual and iterative process for each different coin size)
- Remove the Velvet Transfer Disk and coin
- Place a grey reference (Grey backside of velvet transfer disk, 18% grey card, white index card, white paper, etc) on the stage
- Perform Manual White Balance (click on the eyedropper and then click eyedropper near center of the Live View image)
- Snap a shot of the white balance reference
- Digital Photo Professional will open and the new image will show up in the main window
- Open the image and check the RGB values in various places across the image. If any R, G or B is higher across image, adjust the WB shift and repeat process until RGB are equal as possible.
- Replace the Velvet Transfer Disk and coin
- Move the Disk + coin to the center of the screen and adjust rotation (note: this is the function of the XY stage, or manually moving the coin if no XY stage. Rotate the camera to "rotate" the coin on-screen)
- Move the white zoom box to the optimum area of the coin for critical focusing (this is different for each type of coin)
- Hit the zoom button and a zoom window will open
- Critically-focus on a middle height feature, then check quality of focus on the highest and lowest features. Adjust aperture if depth of field is insufficient and you're single-image shooting.
- Close the zoom window
- Move the zoom box so it's encompassing the brightest area of the coin. This forces metering on this area.
- If brightest area still appears to be over-exposed, adjust the Exposure Compensation until there is no over-exposure
- If the shadows are too dark, reduce contrast
- Snap the shot
- Open the image and adjust Levels, Saturation, Sharpening, and Cropping to taste
- Use Batch Process function to downsize the image to desired publishing size (I recommend integer 2, 3, 4, etc ratio downsizing to maintain sharpness)
- Review final image before publishing
Additional workflows are needed for lighting; focus stacking; and image editing...