Glass Photo

[patkennedy78]

I know this may need to go in the Photography Gallery but I'm posting it here anyway.

As the in house designer I get asked to do lots of misc photography. I shoot our new products when they come out, and some old product shots when needed. I feel competent enough to deliver the quality a few notches above what this company needs. But for this post anyway, I'll let you be the judge.

I've never had to try and photograph glass before, it's tricky! I guess we have it left over from a few years ago, before my working here, and now they want it out of the warehouse. So I shot 14 different pieces today. Here is one example. Tell me what you think, and most importantly: Do you think the photo on the Left or the Right Looks Better?


http://digitaltaffy.com/Images/Glass.jpg

[Jackimalyn]

looks great. I think i like the left... but you need to take the UPC sticker off. Nice work, glass is tough

[patkennedy78]

Yeah, I knew I'd get dinged on the stickers. Thanks though!

[capezio]

I think left looks best too

[Red Kittie Kat]

lol @ dinged... thats cute :D


Nice job Pat :) I think I like the right one best as well.

[BJMRGTIVR6]

perhaps a cross of the two?
at first, i like the right better, then i move to the left and then cross my eyes.

[(gra-ph!c-D'sig-nah)]

I like the left best!

[Craig B]

Left, because the photo is clearer and not washed out. You lose more detail on the right and it looks too "light". The left has more depth.

[budafist]

They're still both quite hard to see. If I were to view it in a catalogue and wanted to buy it, I'd want to see a clearer image.

[D-Frag]

I didn't really like either of them personally, its good, but it has alot of possibility to be better. Just to see if I could help you out, I tried my hand at it using a threshold/curve technique that I have mentioned on here before.

Here is what I came up with, the far left one is my color corrected version. You could even take this another step and clip the glass out, add a pure white background and a fake drop shadow, just for displaying purposes really.

http://img385.imageshack.us/img385/912/glassbn4.jpg

[peder]

I don't think the pictures let the glass stand out as much as it could (or should in my opinion). In the left one, did you put something black for the glass to reflect outside of the picture frame? It looks a bit like it. Anyway, how about trying that, but with something with colour instead? Making sure you don't have too direct light sources could allow you to use a longer exposure, making the image brighter without burning out any spots. I'd also try to get the background brighter. How is another question... Another light source is probably not preferable. Can't think of a solution for it now, sorry.

[BJMRGTIVR6]

ok on my computer at home, PC with LCD monitor, the left side looked better in the original.

I think a bump in contrast would help too.

[patkennedy78]

Just to see if I could help you out, I tried my hand at it using a threshold/curve technique that I have mentioned on here before.


Wow, I'm really impressed with the correction you did! nice work. I searched your old posts and can't find the technique you mention, can you please repost or link?

If I were to view it in a catalogue and wanted to buy it, I'd want to see a clearer image.

That's why I was saying that I'm confident to provide THIS COMPANY with the quality of photography they need. They'll probably fax this to buyers, if I'm lucky they won't want all 14 pieces on 1 page.

In the left one, did you put something black for the glass to reflect outside of the picture frame?

That's probably a reflection of me leaning over the digital camera. :rolleyes:

[D-Frag]

i wrote a tutorial for this just for you, hope you like it....

http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=305565#post305565

[patkennedy78]

:D AWESOME :D

Thank you very much!

[Alan G]

A suggestion: Photographing glass is unlike photographing anything else. In normal product photography you are capturing reflected light. With glass you are primarily shooting transmitted light, so in most cases the dominant light has to be behind the subject. Lose the key and fill, put a light on your background (feather it so there's a shadow on the seamless paper in some appropriate place), then bring in only enough (soft!) front lighting to give slight specular reflections where you need them, if you need them at all.

Expose for the highlights and shoot raw, then you'll have plenty of room to adjust the final image in Camera Raw.