Product photography C&C

[flameshots]

I've been asked by a friend to take some pictures for his web site. The problem I'm having is getting the background to be true white without blowing out the items. I am using clamp lights with 75 watt Daylight fluorescent bulbs. Any thoughts? The only Idea I have is trying to light up the background without lighting the object. Thank you for any input. The light balance is set to auto but I can't even seem to adjust it in Lightroom.

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[pmsnel]

Camera's are programmed to make gray pictures. If you would stir all the colours in a properly exposed picture you would end up with gray. Thats why so many people end up with gray snow.
You have to "tell" your camera that your background is not gray by making a custom white balance. Take a picture under the light conditions you are going to use of a white sheet of paper and enter that in your custom white balance. The rest of your pictures should turn out with a white background.

 

[Early]

You should be able to adjust the color in PS or some other program. In the future, use a filter on the lens while shooting, FLD, I think.

 

[Josh66]

Not really a white balance issue...

You just need more exposure to make the background white.

If you zero the meter out on the background - it will be gray every time.

You need 1 or 2 stops of overexposure on the background to make it white.
If you have a gray card, meter for that and the background should come out white.
You might still have to over-expose a little though. Just don't overexpose so much that the subject is overexposed too.

You don't need a filter either. Since you are using Daylight balanced bulbs, set your WB to Daylight. That's the whole point of buying Daylight balanced bulbs ... the WB will be right if you set it to Daylight.

...Though, there was another thread recently where someone was having problems getting the right WB out of Daylight bulbs... I think that was a problem specific to the particular bulbs he was using though.

If in doubt, do a custom WB or take a picture of a WB reference target.

Try adjusting the Exposure slider in LR. You should still be able to save these.