Photographing stones well

A good photo changes everything

Whether you want to sell, to document your collection, to ask a forum for an opinion or to have a stone identified by Lapidem's AI, the quality of the photograph determines the quality of the result. A badly photographed stone is an unrecognisable stone — and the most common mistakes are also the easiest to fix.

Light: mistake number one

Never use flash. This is the absolute rule. Flash crushes colours, creates blinding white reflections on polished surfaces, and removes the relief that lets you judge lustre and transparency. It turns a deep amethyst into a flat purple pebble.

Use indirect daylight: near a window, but never in direct sun, which creates violent contrasts and falsifies the hue. This is what dealers call “north light”, the absolute benchmark for judging a gem's colour honestly.

Background, cleanliness, angles

Choose a neutral matte background: grey or white paper or fabric for dark stones, a dark background for pale ones. A coloured or shiny background contaminates the perception of colour.

Clean the stone first: fingerprints leave a greasy film that masks true lustre and blurs reflections — especially visible on cut gems.

Take several angles: from above, in profile, and one backlit shot if the stone is transparent or translucent (this reveals transparency, inclusions and colour zoning). Add a coin or a ruler to one shot: without scale, a photo of a stone means nothing.

Sharpness is king

Switch on your phone's macro mode, focus on the stone by tapping the screen, brace your elbows or rest the phone. Frame tight: the stone should fill the image. A blurred shot teaches no one anything — neither a human nor an artificial intelligence.

These tips directly improve the accuracy of Lapidem's AI identification, which accepts up to three photos from different angles.