Photography Help

[RJCLOTHING]

Hi i need a little advice on product photography.

I cant seem to get the lighting right the photos i take are of clothing i have a white screen as a back drop and different types of dummies. But I do not want to spend thousands on lighting one day yes but not just yet. I am no pro but i get by with my pictures but would love them to look crisp my white background always looks slightly grey or with shadows how do i eliminate this at a low cost and without having to edit the photos.

Also sometimes it is hard to capture the true colour of the garments I find this with bright blues, purples and even white on white

Look forward to your advice

[raindropsies]

Hi i need a little advice on product photography.

I cant seem to get the lighting right the photos i take are of clothing i have a white screen as a back drop and different types of dummies. But I do not want to spend thousands on lighting one day yes but not just yet. I am no pro but i get by with my pictures but would love them to look crisp my white background always looks slightly grey or with shadows how do i eliminate this at a low cost and without having to edit the photos.

Also sometimes it is hard to capture the true colour of the garments I find this with bright blues, purples and even white on white

Look forward to your advice

What about 2 cheap halogen lights (one each side) and as they have 150w or 500w bulbs this should take away the greyness & shadows.

[astral276]

It is probably the white background throwing off the exposure control of your camera. If the error is consistent then you could alter the exposure compensation value on your camera. If you have spot metering on your camera you could use that to ignore the background white when metering. Change the background to a mid grey. Use something like Photoshop or Paint Shop to correct the images - though it is simpler to get it right first rather than have to correct each one.

Search the web on correcting exposure; there are a lot of guides (such as http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...a-metering.htm)

For the shadows; a large sheet of white card to reflect light into the shadows may be enough.

[Indigo4]

why why ?

That's the best bit the editing, seriously I could edit photos all day long.

Email them to me and i'll do them for you? I'm being serious. I am thinking of setting up a photoediting service for people, you can be my practice.

Send them to me if you like, PM me about it.
Melissa

[RJCLOTHING]

I am no whizz at the editing side of it either.

I may take you up on that Melissa.....but i am talking 100s of pics and new ones always being taken so it would be too much work hence I am trying my best to get it straight from the camera

Also my backdrop has a reverse side which is black would it be a good idea to use the black background as appose to the white

I have never got on with photoshop I had it once but could not figure it out. I will look into some halogens but will this change the colour of the product if its too light?

[astral276]

If it is a metering problem then the black background would give you similar problems. The camera, by default, will be trying to get a mean exposure over the whole image. If that is predominately light or dark then the exposure will be forced one way or the other and the focus of the picture (i.e. your item) will be incorrectly exposed.

What kind of camera do you have? A 'point and shoot' will have less scope for compensating than a high end camera.

If digital (which I would guess it is) then look for a setting something like Exposure Metering in the setup menu and see if it has a Center Spot setting (or Center Weighted). If so - try those and see if you get better results.

[RJCLOTHING]

I have got a finepix S5600.

Will the center spot (center weighted) make the exposure focus on the priamry target?

I will take a look I need to read all about my camera really dont I

Technical stuff is not a great area for me at all

[kengillam]

As already indicated in the foregoing posts, most standard metering is done to acheibe whta is called a grey scale. So a large pure white area will make the camera underexpose, the smae happens when you shoot snow scenes the camera tries to make it all look grey. Also you need to consider the colour temperature of the light, and adjust that with the white balance control if your camera has one. Normal bulbs will give an orange tinge to things, so unless you compensate the true colour of the garments will not be shown. Might be worth having a Google on 'White Balance' and 'exposure compensation' to get your head round it.

[astral276]

Will the center spot (center weighted) make the exposure focus on the priamry target?

Yes. Center Spot will take what is in the center of the image and use that as the basis of setting exposure. Center Weighted will look at the whole image but pay more attention to what is in the middle than in the surrounds.

[heartscup]

Hate to sound like a stick in the mud here but when I take photos of clothing that have been hand made, I take them outside. If I can get a day that I can manage to be outside for an hour or two I take it and use it on items that I want to take photos of.

Why? Because with clothing, the best lighting is natural lighting. Small items such as baby clothing, I will photograph inside with and without a flash. That depends on the natural sunlight coming in from the skylights that we have.

Editing programs can do wonders. There are settings on those programs where you should be able to adjust the brightness and gray scale.

I found that the best way to learn is to take one photograph, take it into a program and play with the settings. Try to remember which settings you use as you go along.

Offers may sound good from everyone to help do this for you but the best thing to do is to try to at least take one photo and play around with it. You learn by mistakes and you may actually surprise yourself in realizing that you know more then you thought.

Also on a lot of program for doing picture editing there is a "Fix" that allows you to auto fix the photo to your liking. Never learn if you don't try.

HC