Need more contrast

[ColinM]

Thats no knife, THIS is a knife!!! 

Thanks for that Paul Hogan moment Janne!

Now you've shown us these, we'd love to hear one or two close scrapes you got into that these baled you out of.
(Hopefully nothing like Aron Ralston from 127 Hours....)

[Peter Connan]

Thanks Everyone.

I tied a number of backgrounds, but this seemed best to me. Black did not work with the wooden scales.
Jakov, yes, at larger apertures the tip of the blade was getting very soft.

Frank, I wish I understood what you are saying?

Colin, it would mostly be for the web.

Erik, I will look into that thanks.

HCX and AFX, thanks, I will look for it. Elsa, thank you, let me look locally first, would prefer to buy since my forgettery is exceptional.

Almass, I wish I knew how you did that!

Gary, can I PM you his contact details?

Jan Anne, thanks for your redneck contribution. That is an interesting photo in itself. You might be interested in my brother's line of throwing axes too?

[Gary]

I really am looking for a knife. Thanks.

[HiltonP]

Peter, I don't photograph knives, but for my sins I do spend quite a bit of time post-processing images of knives for some of my clients. I encounter the situation you are describing here, namely a lack of contrast between the two types of steel, quite often, particularly with "Damasteel" (the product which is being used here). What I often resort to is isolating the blade using a mask or selection tool and then playing with the levels and contrast, as well as doing a little bit of dodging and burning. It does bring more life out of the blade.

I took the liberty of briefly working on your one image, just quickly doing what I mentioned above and came up with the following result (refer attached image).

Regards, HILTON

[Peter Connan]

Wow Hilton, that is a huge difference, thank you very much.

More experimentation is definitely needed.

Do you think it would be possible to get a similar result using just Lightroom, or am I wasting my time even trying?

Thank you

Gary, thank you too. PM sent.

[Frank Fremerey]

Sorry, if my message did not come across.

I was talking about the direction of light -- angle of roughly 90 deg making structural features on a (sur)face visible -- and the quality of light -- direct vs. diffuse.

You might consult one of the standard works on that topic. I can recommend this:

http://www.amazon.de/Light-Science-Magic-Introduction-Photographic-ebook/dp/B00S1DD870/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1442303043&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=lighting+magic+photopgraphy

All the best

Frank

PS: I really like the Post Production solution. So simple. But, depending on your brother's customers they migt complain about the knives looking quite different in reality than on the pictures. So keep the illusion not too far from the bare eye impression.

[Peter Connan]

Thank you Frank

Busy reading that book right now.

[golunvolo]

Jan´s image is a very good reference of how to make the blade stand out. All of the above will contribute to your goal as well. Nice blade...

[elsa hoffmann]

I like what Hilton did - and Peter - selection and masking tools are only in Photoshop. You can not be that precise with localised editing in LR according to what I know about LR

[Peter Connan]

Thanks Golunlovu and Elsa.

I think this is about what I wanted to achieve, not too extreme but enough to clearly see the Damascus in a web-sized photo.

It is the same picture, with an two identical adjustment brushes (duplicated adjustment brushes) on the blade increasing clarity, contrast and saturation.

Now I still want to see if I can achieve similar results in-camera.

Thanks for all the pointers to the book, I am enjoying it (though not understanding all of it yet).

[Peter Connan]

Still learning...

[HiltonP]

Nice work Peter on a difficult subject.

Might need to try and use a reflective card/sheet to try and get a more even lighting onto the guard and pommel. I think you did much better with the Damascus contrast this time and also managed to bring out the colours in the Mokume. The coin provides a good point of reference and allows the viewer to understand the small size of the object, which would otherwise not be appreciated.

I know you're practising at this stage, but watch out for the little spots of dirt and fluff in various places. For the final image they would need to be eliminated.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Fully agree to HiltonP's comments. Additionally, why not go for a clean white (or even black) background? The largely unsharp pattern makes the image harder to read, plus it imparts a colour cast to the metal surfaces.

[charlie]

I like what Hilton did - and Peter - selection and masking tools are only in Photoshop. You can not be that precise with localised editing in LR according to what I know about LR

Actually this can be done in Lightroom (and Bridge?) if that was your only option. With the adjustment brush you can make masks/selections and then make your contrast adjustments with the contrast, shadow, highlight, white, black, and clarity sliders. Alternatively you can lower the flow of the brush and set your exposure to +/- 1 stop (or what ever setting is fitting, highlights, shadows, etc) and do dodge and burn work. The precision is totally up to the users skill and patience of using the brush tool.

With that said, it is not nearly as intuitive as using Photoshop for this type of work where you can take several paths to achieve any one goal with much more freedom in almost every aspect. In fact it can be downright frustrating to do this in Lightroom, but it is possible.

[Andrea B.]

Peter, you might want to increase the local contrast on the knife blade to bring out that marvelous swirling effect. This is in addition to the various other suggestions.
There are several ways to do this.
I've posted a very quick example using the Detail slider in Photo Ninja applied only to the blade.

This type of effect can be done in other editors by using by using a wide radius USM - starting at around 100,50,0 and adjusting the % amount as needed.
Or by using a Hi-Pass Overlay of probably 2 pixels. Or perhaps by using a Clarity slider.

Example from Photo Ninja using Detail slider.
[1] Before
[2] After. Shows that local contrast effect shouldn't be applied to the whole shebang.
[3] Effect applied on knife blade only.
(With only jpeg to work with, there is some uneven-ness due to jpeg crunch.)
[4] Increased blade contrast made with USM tool. Background darkened. Blade also desaturated to remove green colour casts.