White Ceramics Turns Grey

carinaguerra · Dec 13, 2016

Hi,
my name is Carina and I'm working in a place where they sell white ceramics. They want new photos of every piece for a catalog,

but in my photos the ceramics turn grey and not white. I don't understand if it is a problem with the way that I'm using the light or anything else.

I'm showing an photo without any edition so you can understand my problem:

_MG_4753.JPG

Thank you for all your help.

Carina Guerra

tirediron · Dec 13, 2016

The problem is under-exposure. The camera is metering/exposing for the larger upright part of the white sweep, and the cup, with less light reflecting off of it is showing as under-exposed. The easy way to fix this would be to spot meter the cup, 'though that might well cause unwanted and unattractive highlights. You can also push the exposure by, I'm guessing 1 - 1 1/3 stops in post, or, you can more light to the equation and get it right in camera.

Gary A. · Dec 13, 2016

Use a 'Gray Card'.

Your meter is designed to expose for medium gray.

If you meter off a black wall, center the needle, the meter will provide settings to over-expose the black wall rendering it medium gray.

If you meter off a white wall, center the needle, the meter will provide settings to under-expose the white wall rendering it medium gray.

A gray card duplicates how the meter reads and is easy to use in a studio environment. If you meter off a gray card, you should get a proper exposure.

photo1x1.com · Dec 13, 2016

When you shoot white images on white background, they have to be somewhat grey, otherwise you would not see them in front of the white background. In your case you could push the exposure about 2/3. But you don´t have to. Light grey and white can easily be pushed in photoshop without introducing visible noise, and when I do studio work like this I tend to underexpose it a tad, just like you did. That gives you more options in post production.
A lot of work is done while editing, especially when shooting on white. You could isolate the object in camera too, but then you would have to light them from the bottom through a translucent table, but usually that does look pretty unnatural.
Here is a quick edit - I brightened the cup a bit and isolated it on white, and added a slight shadow on the bottom to make the cut out more realistic. There are agencies that offer this kind of service starting at around US$ 2-3 which is usually worth the money because they are quick and much more experienced. Most of them do offer to make 3 sample images for free to give you an idea how what their work is like.
I hope that helps.

photo1x1.com · Dec 13, 2016

Here´s one with some local contrast added (unsharp mask amount:30, radius 250px - repeated the filter 2-3 times) and finally done some rather extreme level adjustments to the letters only. It might be a little much, but it gives you an idea.