Help with light box making colors come out to true to color

[arlarr]

I have a Canon powershot sx50 . Im taking pictures of eyeshadows in a light box and the colors aren't coming out true to color like the purple is coming out blue and so on and the colors aren't coming out as vibrant as they really are. But then other eyeshadows are coming out true to color. Also the case has bright colors on it with cartoon characters and thats coming out true to color. I have my camera set to f8 iso 80 no flash macro Im using daylight 100 w compact fluorescent bulbs. Please help..

 

[bratkinson]

It would seem to me that you have a very difficult situation. While I’ve never done any photography with a lightbox, I have learned a number of things on this website.

First and foremost is lighting. Your post does not indicate how many lights you are using. From what I’ve read, lightbox photography typically uses 3 lights. Do a search on this website for “lightbox” and you’ll find a number of threads dealing with number of lights, angles, etc.

In all photography, one of the more difficult is fluorescent lighting. That’s because fluorescent light goes through a variety of colors as the electrical arc heats up the gases inside thus producing the light. This occurs 60 times per second. So, trying to consistently capture the same colors from the light (ie, same point in each cycle) is impossible except under laboratory conditions. Ideally, you can use some other kind of lighting. Even ordinary incandescent lighting would be an improvement. Multiple flash units would significantly improve the lighting issues. For what it’s worth, shooting without flash under florescent lighting ‘got me’ again 2 months ago! How soon I forget to turn on the flash to ‘override’ the florescent lights!

Lastly is white balance. Our eyes and brain easily recognize a piece of white paper, whether it is in sunlight, moonlight, fluorescent light, or even a flashlight. Unfortunately, all the millions of pixels in the camera don’t recognize the differences. So, internal software in the camera attempts to ‘recognize’ the different lighting and produce the proper colors. In many instances, it does so quite well. Florescent lights? Forget it. So, photographers have to resort to some means of telling the camera ‘what is white?’ To this end, grey cards were developed. By taking a picture of a grey card under the lights where the subject will be, and it pretty much fills the frame, we can set the White Balance in the camera to the image just taken. That way, all the subsequent pictures under the same lighting will have the whites, white; blues, blue; etc. Other tools for the same purpose include an Expodisk and a Color Checker. Both have their plusses and minuses compared to a grey card. Note, too, that white balance can be set in many post processing programs when working with RAW images and one of the WB devices has been photographed under those lights.

I hope this helps!

But be sure to check what others have written on the subject, too. I just did a search on "lightbox" (all one word, subject only) on this site and came up with a couple to start with...

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/lighting-hardware/278543-light-stands.html

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/photography-beginners-forum/145618-stuck-using-lightbox.html

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/general-gallery/262047-lightbox.html

 

[arlarr]

I have 3 lights I just brought a grey card thank you for helping (=

 

[arlarr]

ok so I set my white balance with a grey card my iso 80 n f8. I put the grey card in front of the lights to set the white balance like I read to do. And the purple colors are still coming out blue ??????? I also wanted to know what is this ( 15" 13" ect ect ect 0"5 1/4 1/8 ect ect ect 1/2000) I can set that too making it darker too brighter ???? I se t that too what looks the best. Its only the purples that I'm having problems with all the other colors are coming out good..HELP HELP HELP