Dull images

[Deborah]

We are trying to take product photos for a website. We are having mixed results.

The location -- an office -- has florescent lights overhead. But, we have three basic Smith-Victor light stands with http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...Reflector.html reflector on them.

We have Eiko bulbs.. BBA 115-120 volts


Taken with Canon Digital Rebel XTi EOS 400D
Aperture Priority
F7.1
Av +2
ISO 800
Automatic White Balance


The young woman who works for me is trying to take these photos and she is having trouble getting consistent results.

She has tried changing the ISO, she has tried turning off the overhead lights with no change.

This batch looks very dull. What are we doing wrong?!

I hope I uploaded the photo correctly. I'm not around here much any more, but I think of PR often and visit the critique and viewfinder forums now and then. I see lots of the same names from when I was posting often... waaaayyy back there. My gosh, I started posting here in '99 I think... possibly early 2000. A long time ago now.

Thanks for any assistance.

Deborah

[mwfanelli]

Well, you know someone would mention it... Welcome back, even if only for a message here and there. I remember when the idea for your business was still in the category of musing. Then there were those cool late-night radio interviews.

I had y'all send a package to my niece on her ship during her last deployment in the Persian Gulf. She never gave me details about exactly where she went. Now she is being moved to some place in Washington state, I assume another ship but we don't know yet. In any case, keep up the excellent work!

As for your photo question... I have no idea. Sorry!

[Deborah]

Mike, howdy!

Where are you living now days?

Thanks for the welcome. I seem to post about once every 6 months or so.

My Air Force son is heading to Korea for a year. He leaves the first week of August. I will have the honor of caring for his Rottweiler while he is gone... should be interesting with the cats!

[Photo-John]

The white balance looks a little off to me. Your should try creating a custom white balance. It's pretty easy. Just follow the directions in the camera manual.

As for the "dull" look, I think they just need a little post-processing. When I get the light right for my studio photos, they usually look a little dull. That's because I'm shooting to preserve highlight details. But the photo is just the first step. The next step is to process the photo so that it has some snap. Don't worry - you don't have to do them individually. If you use a custom white balance and keep the lighting consistent, you can batch process them all in one whack.

You might consider getting a seamless backdrop instead of the cloth, too. I find the shadows and wrinkles on the cloth distracting. It's a nice idea, but it's not working for me.

Nice to be able to help with your successful, once secret venture!

[Deborah]

Hey John,

I got lucky and da man himself found my post.

Thanks for the comments. I will tell Katie. She is going to hate me, but I had already noticed that she did not iron the fabric this time. I will have her do that on Monday. We use several colors for various holidays. Maybe we will get backdrops and photograph everything on the next big make-over (probably summer 2008).

Thanks for your assistance.

Deborah

[kkolbo]

Number one is the white balance. While it is better to get it right when shooting, you can still recover this with the remove color cast in PhotoShop Elements. The Auto white balance in the camera saw too much blue and guessed.

Second, consider adding a backlight that is about one stop brighter than you front. Even just having one side slightly brighter than the other would help. Move one of your front lights a little farther back than the other. String backlight is not always used in product shots, but with this many elements, it will help things stand apart.

[Deborah]

Second, consider adding a backlight that is about one stop brighter than you front.

Thanks for the comment. I will add it to the list of things to do when we reshoot everything. We have come a long way from photos shot in my living room on a coffee table with the fabric draped over the backs of two dining room chairs. The light was from the skylight in the ceiling.

[Gary A. Bartholomew]

Flat lighting is the probem here. What you have is dull overcast day lighting and a little white balance out of line. Try turning off half of your lighting or move the setup off to the side to get some shape to the subjects, then use reflectors to bounce fill light from the other side. Check these lighting movie demos at: http://lightrightreflector.com and
http://lightrightreflector.com/tabletop_samples.html

A back light will help as well.

Hope this helps.

GB

[Deborah]

Flat lighting is the probem here. What you have is dull overcast day lighting and a little white balance out of line. Try turning off half of your lighting or move the setup off to the side to get some shape to the subjects, then use reflectors to bounce fill light from the other side.

Gary, thanks for taking the time to reply. We are taking all thoughts into consideration. I will watch the demos and tell Katie about them.

[DEvianT]

The white balance needs correcting. Invest in a grey card. Shoot the first shot including the grey card with a fixed white balance. In post process then correct white balance in the grey card shot using the card as the point of reference. Then batch process all other images to this value.

Shoot with fixed aperture, white balance, shutterspeed and ISO so all shots can be batch processed with exactly the same settings.

As side note. The color profile of your images when you take them may well be Adobe RGB 1998. When images are place on the web using this profile they appear significantly duller than they are on the monitor. They should be converted to the sRGB color spce before upload.

Make sure monitor is calibrated so what you see is what you get when printing and when others view your images.