[SOLVED]
Hey guys,

I might have missed something, like there are some circumstances where a fortify skill would be reduced by X % or a special power that would not allow fortify to works etc.
Whatever it is I can't find the reason and it's damn frustrating.

So, i have the Silver-Blood Family ring and a handmade necklace that both Fortify the Smithing skill : 15%+11%. And when equipped it doesn't seems to works.
I have an Ebony Armor that can be improved from 104 to 116, and that won't change even with both rings equiped.

I also tried to drink a potion that improve it to 30% but that won't work either.


And here comes the fun :
If I drink the potion AND equip the ring or necklace, I can improve the armor to 126...
And if I equip the second item, the number still is 126.


I'm super confused now, I really need to understand what the h. is going on...

Ok, I was confused for a second there because it seems that you have Enchanting and Improving mixed up but I'll assume that you meant Improving in your title since that is what you discuss in the post.

Take a look at the Item Quality chart and see if this helps to explain what you are experiencing: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Smithing

EDIT : ok i was about to reply a long message to explain my problem but I figured out what was the confusion about. Thanks for helping

So, for people who encountered the same problem (confusion), here is a simple explanation :
Your current smithing level (including potions you might drink or enchanted item you might wear to Fortify this skill), won't affect HOW MUCH armor point you'll improve your item, but instead WILL "unlock" it's next "Rank"
On this http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Smithing#Item_Quality you can see the different ranks.

So, if like me you thought you should wait to reach a decent smithing level and drink potions before improving your armors/weapons, because you thought your level would make each improvements better, well, wrong !

Bottom line is, we'll have the same armor rating at the end.

Well, your armor rating is going to be slightly dependant on the tier of armor that you can improve it to and without nearly 100 smithing (+enchanted items +potions) you're not going to reach Legendary without wasting perk points. With 100 smithing and all my "power ups" I can easily craft Legendary items which will give a better armor rating than just Flawless or Epic.

Either way, glad that you figured it out...took me awhile as well.