Camera Labs

My company has redesigned the label to one of our most popular products. It's being promoted in both color and b/w publications and unfortunately... I'm the guy that has the most experience with the dSLR. I have a basic studio set up in a very small room; just enough for a 100mm Macro to sit at one end, with the products on the other end, in frame. I am having the hardest time lighting these suckers. The plastic bottle is a frosted opaque, like 2 milk cartons put together, while the green liquid is roughly the same color and transparently of green Jell-O. Do you have suggestions for not letting this look like tar when converting to B/W?



At the moment, my studio has:


Canon 20D
100mm Macro Glass
60mm Macro Glass
18-55mm Kit Glass
First Studio Two Light Product Kit (120VAC)
Smith-Victor K61 Thrifty Quartz Tungsten Light Kit
Elinchrom D-Lite-4 IT 400Ws 2-Light To Go Set (90-260VAC)
...and Canon Speedlite 430 EX II.

I'm baffled.

_________________
Best regards,

Daniel

dmdesign
Nikon D80 · Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF
Sigma Foveon sensor fan... future owner, promise!
flickr me!

If the question you're asking is how to avoid the dark liquid when converting to B&W then, depending on what software you're using, don't just desaturate but mess around with the colour channels. e.g. photoshop lets you mix the colour channels on conversion which turns colour scenes into different B&W ones.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

I'm using CS3, and have adjusted the Black and White Adjustment Layer at the bottom of the Layer's Palette. But the results are pretty weak:



I've changed the background to gray, and dumped the green liquid — now using water and food coloring for the B/W only. This seems to improve the legibility of the bottles. I would argue they're softer and friendlier, but the lighting feels fairly "low quality". I see those hot spots...



Maybe I should run to the local electronic store and have them sign off on some up-lighting?

_________________
Best regards,

Daniel

dmdesign
Nikon D80 · Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF
Sigma Foveon sensor fan... future owner, promise!
flickr me!

For anyone who has similar issues, I resolved it using the food coloring option. Then I used Photoshop to apply the labels and adjusted the colors for the bottle and the labels separately. Each bottle was shot together, then individually to cover any future usage. The color images were shot with more food coloring added but the process remained the same.

With regards to Lighting; I fully extended one Elinchrom and placed it to the right of the products, facing it down to light the tops and washout any unintended cast shadows. I had the other facing the wall and bounced the flash for softer highlight on left side. I used one Smith-Victor to their left in order to create a dynamic cast shadow and another under the lens and to the left, softening it with a cloth sheet for a stronger highlight.

I wouldn't say this is amazing work, but it's a step in the right direction. Cleaning the lens would help... but the boss hasn't approved the expense...

_________________
Best regards,

Daniel

dmdesign
Nikon D80 · Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF
Sigma Foveon sensor fan... future owner, promise!
flickr me!

It appears that you have edited the whole photograph (subject and background). I would have masked off the subject and only edited that.

Do you have a light/flash meter?

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Canon EOS 500D
Lenses: EFS 18-55mm IS, EF 50mm F/1.8 II

In cs3 make a new hue/saturation adjustment layer and select "greens" from the pull down menu and it will give you full control of brightness, hue and saturation of the greens in the image specifically.

And I'm not an expert on this but, if you advertise a product doesn't the photo included have to be of that product?

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Canon 40D + 70-200mm f/2.8L IS + 50mm f/1.8
Manfrotto 055CX3 + 496RC2
www.thomaslowe.com

Tell that to McDonald's. Compare their burger photos to the real thing.

Yes, that is exactly what I was thinking initially.

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Canon EOS 500D
Lenses: EFS 18-55mm IS, EF 50mm F/1.8 II