The images of your jewelry have to be organized so you can quickly access the exact image you want. After a few years you can easily end up with thousands of photographs, especially if you take 5 bracketed shots of each piece.

Set up four folders, name them, Master Raw, Edited Masters, Print images, Web images, and organize each by date created. This way you will always have your newest images in view first.

Here are the 6 versions of each image.
1. Master file – Unaltered Raw image from the camera or scanner. – Back up a copy to disc.
2. Edited Masters – corrected in Photoshop or it’s equivalent saved as a 600dpi Psd or tiff file. – Back up a copy to disc.
3. Magazine Print file – Large, optimized for print in CMYK format if possible, saved as a 600 dpi tiff file.
4. Home Print file – Medium size, optimized for print in CMYK format if possible, saved as a 200 dpi tiff or Psd file.
5. Web - Large size 300 - 400 pixels tall, 72 dpi in RGB jpeg format.
6. Web – Thumbnails 70 – 150 pixels tall, 72 dpi in RGB jpeg format.

Notes on editing.
There are different needs for your image based on intended usage.
Print –
Do not crop the image too closely as magazine editors are looking for well composed photos that will look good in print.

Web – Large images
Crop more closely to the subject as we are looking to keep the file size of the image lower to enable fast downloads. Keep to the same height for each image for a consistent look and feel.

Web – Thumbnails
Create drama, by very close crop or selecting a detail area from the original. Small in size and keep all of your thumbnails at the same height to create a consistent look and feel on your site.

Create your smaller images for the web by copying from your Edited Master files. Never resize an existing jpeg file as the picture quality will deteriorate.

I have set up a special Squidoo lens with lots of tips on Photography of Jewelry visit it to find out more.