How to get more accurate results from IsItGOLD?

The single biggest factor in the quality of a scan is the photo you give it. Everything below is about removing the things that make a photo hard to read.

Light first

Light matters more than any other variable.

• Daylight is best. Direct daylight on a clear day gives the truest colour.
• Indoors, mimic it. Use a lamp of at least 5400 K, preferably 6000 K or higher. Warm household bulbs push everything towards yellow, which is exactly the colour judgement you do not want to bias.
• Soft light from the side brings out surface texture. Hard light straight on flattens it and adds glare.

Avoid flash where you can. It tends to blow out the highlights on precisely the polished surfaces you are asking about.

Give the analysis a sense of scale

Put something of known size in the frame — a common coin, or a ruler. Scale is not decorative. It affects how shape and proportion are read, and it helps anyone you later show the scan to.

Show the weight rather than typing it

If you know the weight, enter it. Better still, put the object on a tared digital scale and include the display in the photo.

Weight is the input that moves an estimated value range most. Without it, the range rests on much thinner ground, so this is the highest-value thirty seconds you can spend on a scan.

Say where it came from

Add a short, factual description: where you found or bought the object, what you were told about it, anything stamped on it. Context genuinely changes the reading — a ring from a jeweller's box and an identical-looking ring from a flea-market tray are not the same question.

Describe what you know, and leave what you do not know as unknown. Guessing in the description does not help.

Photograph the markings

Hallmarks, karat stamps, maker's marks and assay marks carry more information than the rest of the object put together. Get a sharp, close, readable photo of any marking you can find. If the stamp is illegible in your photo, take it again before you submit — an unreadable stamp tells the analysis nothing.

Camera basics

• Clean the lens. A smudge turns a good camera into a bad one.
• Distance: 10 to 30 cm. Close enough for detail, far enough to stay in focus.
• Tap to focus on the stamp or the surface you care about.
• Hold still. Rest your elbows on a table, or use a stand.
• Get physically closer instead of using digital zoom, which just discards detail.

A realistic expectation

Better photos give you a better-founded estimate. They do not turn an estimate into a certainty. A visual analysis narrows the question down; it does not settle purity on its own. For anything that matters financially, get an independent test.