13. Another factor to consider is whether the light is sharply focused from a direct bulb (top row) or diffused by bouncing it off a white card to soften the shadows (bottom row). The enlarged section showing LIBERTY shows the difference here most clearly. Unfortunately, the diffuse light made the overall image look murky so I increased the image contrast. This change overemphasized some of the dark surface deposits and the red stain on the reverse left. You may ask which image looks more like the coin ‘in hand’? The answer depends on what light you were using for viewing the coin. Have you ever brought a coin home from a show only to think it looked different when you first saw it? Coin lighting can be important for viewing as well as for photography but ‘in hand’ we tend to wiggle a coin making it look better in certain parts. We will have trouble duplicating that look in a single, stationary photograph. I believe learning to read coin photos serves the collector well when buying coins from illustrated lists. You need to learn what part of the ‘look’ comes from the coin and what part comes from the photo techniques.