Help shooting on white background

[dmdellicolli]

I am trying to photograph old spoon's on a white background. Right now I am just working outside in the sun (its actually sort of overcast today) with a speedlight. I can never seem to get my whitebalance to actually capture the white background as white. I also have a lot of reflections to deal with. I really need some guidance here to get better results. I am shooting with a d40.



I have studio lights and a pop-tent at work, but have had poor results with those in the past as well (i think i need more than two lights).

HELP!

 

[GeneralBenson]

If I'm not mistaken, your speedlight and an overcast sky are no the same color temp, so whichever one you balance to, the other is going to colorcast.

I would use the light from work. Maybe something like a semi-high backlight for you main, and some low angle front fill to bring out the spoon edge? Just geuss, I'm trying to figure out lighting too.

 

[jwsciontc]

brighter closer light?

heres a fast PS i just whipped up

 

[Ls3D]

I would get a cheapo light box from office depot, shoot with bottom illumination and a few other lights indoors.. have seen great results. Then you can hopefully represent the patina very accurately, if as was pointed out your not fighting between color temperatures. -Shea

Quick PS, keeping spoon colors:

 

[motojoe]

I was cutting out a bunch of stuff today at work, so I did a quicky on this one, too. I may have over done the drop shadow. Most of the time it's easier (for me) if I'm prepping a pic for something small like this (products on a website usually), I'll just cut the item out and place it over a white layer so that I can color correct or adjust the levels on the item without worrying about the white background overpowering things. FWIW...

-joe

 

[manaheim]

I wonder about maybe suspending the spoon from something transparent or something you can clone out in the middle of a light box. Might be interesting and avoid the shadows somewhat.

 

[motojoe]

I wonder about maybe suspending the spoon from something transparent or something you can clone out in the middle of a light box. Might be interesting and avoid the shadows somewhat.

I didn't save the .psd, but if I turned off the drop shadow then it looks kind of unnatural. Since I did it as a cutout, even the slightest shadow on the edge helps clean things up...

-joe

 

[webtouchingcom]

Here was my editing technique:

I use PS (almost any version will work).
-cut my outline using a brush through a quick mask /save it as a new alpha channel
-duplicate the background layer
-make a selection of my new alpha channel (mask)
-apply that mask to my top most layer (add a layer mask)
-create a new layer between the top and bottom layers and fill it with white
For a natural shadow
-I duplicate the top layer
-and then completely desaturate the layer below it
-Then using a soft brush I bring back areas of the layer mask that were originally cut out to reveal the natural shadow.

My opinion: Shadows for product images are much more natural when they are used from the original shot. So, bringing them in through a layer mask seems to work for me. Also, when we create shadows that were not in the original photo we tend to give a more processed look. However, many of the painted in shadows on this thread look great!