Product photography lighting tutorial – Alba watch
April 7, 2015Hello Guys
Today i thought of showing you an example on how to light a product and it's actually kinda difficult to light because it's black and semi - shiny
Couple of months ago i bought a new activ shoes and they looked nice to me that i wanted to shoot them first before i wear them and because i travel a lot for work i couldn't shoot them for over a month but eventually i had the chance.
Now you have to know an essential part of shooting products depends on that law : Angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection and you have to watch out for that when shooting products to avoid flat light or no light at all in case of a reflective/shiny product that fully reflects light.
Ok no more talk this is the final shot :
Ok first off it's a composite shot not taken all at once because it takes a lot of lights to produce that shot, so let me tell you where lights were placed .... first you have 2 50*70cm softboxes behind the shoes facing away from the shoes giving that thin edge light to the back of the shoes "number 1 "
Then there's one 70*100cm softbox coming close from the left side facing towards the shoes giving light "number 2"
Then a 50*70cm softbox from behind and above the back shoe slightly to the right giving it light
"number 3"
Then the same softbox moves to the right side at the same height and angle to give the front shoe that thick rim light "number 4"
Then the last light came from a 50*70cm softbox through a 80*120cm diffuser to create a gradient on the side of the front shoe.
In photoshop the product was cut out with its reflection and placed on a digital black background with mild white spot.
All these layers were stacked up in photoshop and lights were composited using the blend mode "lighten" and what it does basically is brighter pixel stays on top.
After that dust and scratches were removed and added some dodge to the lit areas making them brighter then Voila ..
Hope that was useful ...
till next time see you guys ..
Bye
