The first and most important step to better photography is learning how to light your work properly, not trying to save a poorly lit photo with all kinds of post-production magic in Photoshop. You can't create smooth even highlights on a bead or piece of jewelry in Photoshop. That's a function of the light source and reflector cards at the photography stage.
Forget about photo floods. All tungsten lights use a lot of the energy they consume to create a lot of heat and then some light. They're inefficient, very hot and not pleasant to work around. To light beads and jewelry you want a large, soft source close to the subject. The reason the sun creates hard shadows is because it's a small point source in relation to the object being photographed. Better yet to envelope the object with a fog bank or lightboxes very close to the subject. You'll fill the object's reflective surfaces with smooth even highlights and the shadows will be very soft and diffuse.
If you're looking for good lights, read this thread by another artist who's learned how to light her work:
http://lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=249840