A picture is worth a thousand words. But getting good images of jewelry can cost thousands of dollars. There’s a vast gap between the magic professional jewelry photographers can work and an amateur’s images.

With a few basic steps, however, you can capture some decent images with any quality digital camera. The key is the tulip.

In cameras, the tulip stands for “macro.” Macro photography takes place when you try to capture a sharp image of an extremely small object, such as a flower, which is why the tulip is the macro symbol.

Pushing the macro button gives your camera the ability to take well-focused ultra close-ups. Lighting is almost always an issue when you’re doing this kind of shooting. If there’s not enough, camera shake will blur the image. You can use your flash, but then there’s a good chance the glare will spoil the picture.

Instead, hold your camera steady and brace it against a solid surface. Push the shutter gently, and take more than one shot to be sure you get a usable image. For higher quality, buy a mini-studio setup. We’ll talk about those in a future column.