Help Appreciated With Evaluating Item

Maybe I just need to see more pearls, but I would probably form the same expectation of how your lovely strand of pearls look in real life based on either of those photos. I also think our brains are constantly trying to adjust for differences in context which makes it all the more difficult to evaluate things objectively. (On a tangent- I just realized that I have the brightness of my monitor on super low, bright monitors give me headaches, haha)
 
What you need is a grey card to measure the light from.
 
Thank you Amanda, I will learn how to use that for next time I photograph pearls :)
 
She's referring to an 18% gray card, used in photography. Many available online.
 
Cameras (and light metres) use a sort of average of the light they measure. So if you're taking photos that have a huge amount of white or pale stuff in them, they average it out and the photo comes out a bit darker. Taking photos of snow / ice scenes will often lead to the snow looking grey for this reason.

To compensate for this (and it's nothing to do with digital / analogue) you can buy a cheap grey card, and then measure the light from that card, then take your photo.

Does that make sense?
 
Besides the 18% gray card, there are other things that tend to be about 18% gray-- grass, and caucasian skin tones, for example. I can use the back of my hand to get the same effect as the card.
 
I just thought my skin sometimes felt grey in the morning, but didn't realise I was actually a zombie walking around in photographic terms (-:

Pattye, a grey card will set you back about ?1 or so ($1.50? Something like that) and will be very useful.
 
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