p.1 #1 · No Shadow White Backround Help - Product Shoot
I'm getting into product photography as a hobby and need some help shooting on a white backdrop with no shadows on the paper. I think the best way to achieve this is with light coming from below, I've heard frosted glass can be used? Or perhaps white plexiglass? What works best?
Right now I'm either washing out the product in an attempt to achieve a pure white or tweaking big time in photoshop.....
I have 4 decents strobes and two soft boxes and 2 umbrellas. I'm game for buying a light tent, though I figured soft boxes might give me more flexibility.
p.1 #2 · No Shadow White Backround Help - Product Shoot
There are lots of ways to light product shots.
This has a Profoto Beauty Dish with grid pointing down on white plexi (BTW any brand 18" to 22" dish should work). If you bottom lit the plexi and removed the grid it would give a look you would like (you could also use a small/medium soft box). I used one of these as a shooting table http://www.calumetphoto.com/item/CB0915/ but a 4x8 piece of white plexi would work. If the plexi has a matte surface it would look like my shot. If it were shiny you would get a reflection of the product in the plexi. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/cdembrey/Chuck_VanDyke-074-bw-crop-copy-6x4.jpg
This is just one way to do it. Product shooters have a very large bag of tricks.
p.1 #4 · No Shadow White Backround Help - Product Shoot
The best info on shooting products, or anything else, in the studio is "Light - Science & Magic" It will explain what CD is saying that there are lots of ways to skin a cat.
Shooting straight down works for some products, but not for others. The small products in this gallery each required a different lighting set up. www.charlesLwebster.com/RSG_Prototypes/
Underlighting a product is often difficult because you have to carefully balance the under light and the key from above. The best way to achieve a white background is to move the subject away from it and light it separately as is often done for catalog photography.
p.1 #5 · No Shadow White Backround Help - Product Shoot
Depends upon where you live. I'd try local hardware stores, plastic suppliers or sign shops. If they don't have it they should be able to order.
What you should try to find is 2447 Plexiglas, it has the highest light transmission. And matte on one side and shiny on the other is available. That way you have both on one sheet .
p.1 #6 · No Shadow White Backround Help - Product Shoot
cwebster wrote:
Underlighting a product is often difficult because you have to carefully balance the under light and the key from above. The best way to achieve a white background is to move the subject away from it and light it separately as is often done for catalog photography.
<Chas>
Here is another way to light the product and the background separately. Look at this http://www.fullcompass.com/product/259188.html You poke a hole in your background and stick the Maxa-Mount through the hole and attach to C stand. Product is attached to flat on end. Product is framed so that it blocks the camera from seeing rod or just use PhotoShop to remove rod. Not all products will work with this. You can also home make something like this using tubing, pipe or all thread (all thread is metal rod with threads from one end to the other,your local hardware should have it).
p.1 #8 · No Shadow White Backround Help - Product Shoot
cwebster wrote:
The best info on shooting products, or anything else, in the studio is "Light - Science & Magic" It will explain what CD is saying that there are lots of ways to skin a cat.
p.1 #9 · No Shadow White Backround Help - Product Shoot
Not sure how you are editing in Photoshop, but for products on a plain white background without shadows masking in Photoshop is a quick and easy solution which you could do with what you have. The mask features added to CS4 make masking much simpler.
All that is required is shooting the object in a way that doesn't create any shadows. Supporting it with rods or wires in space in front of a neutral background which contrasts with but doesn't reflect a color cast.
Good contrast between object and background makes selection of the background and mask creation simple: select the background with the magic wand, opt+click the mask icon in the layers window, then adjust the mask as needed to hide the support. Then you can insert a layer filled with any tone or color beneath the masked background layer.
The mask can also be used, inverted, filled with black and blurred, to create a uniform drop shadow for all the objects in a catalog. That step can be automated with an action.
This isn't to say the Photoshop option is better than the shooting options already mentioned, only to point out there are likely easier and more effect ways to do it in Photoshop than those you are using to achieve consistent backgrounds. The simplest way to get backgrounds 100% consistent shot-to-shot is via masking and creating the background numerically in Photoshop. 255.255.255 is not the ideal choice for a "white" background either. 255 represents pure light and should be reserved for specular reflections which are important for creating the illusion of 3D, especially in white objects. A "paper" white background with a value of around 250 will allow the specular highlights in your subject to contrast (e.g. rim lighting on towel in example below):
The thing to realize is that the brain will tune out the background immediately and think it is white even if it is a value less than 255. In fact the darker you make the background the brighter and whiter the things in the foreground will appear to be perceptually.
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