Sharpie (C&C please)

[W.Y.Photo]

I was going to say, that's a sharp Sharpie! But it seems just a tad soft to me. Of course, I could be mistaken. Anyone else?

Could use some more DoF..

I think its focused on the name not the edges.

 

[Austin Greene]

I'm just venturing into product shots, I'd like to see what everyone thinks of this, and how I can improve it.

View attachment 93774

Would it help if I uploaded the SOOC image, or a shot of the table, etc?

You need to fix that highlight. Actually, IMO, you need to re-approach the image altogether. The pen doesn't have a good outline, try some side-lighting like a soft-box and use a piece of foam core to strip it. Or just use a light above left, mostly flagged with foam-core, and then have another light bouncing in off some foam core to provide fill on the logo. You should also have detail on the tip contours, and on the lettering on the cap.

Generally speaking, avoid crazy highlights like that, especially when they cross a logo. Even when you do have highlights, keep them to 240 and below.

 

[snerd]

I was going to say, that's a sharp Sharpie! But it seems just a tad soft to me. Of course, I could be mistaken. Anyone else?

Could use some more DoF..

I think its focused on the name not the edges.

To my eyes, the "AP" letters look sharpest. Maybe subjective, though. I did an unsharp mask and despeckle in my ancient PSP 7 and it looks a little sharper.

 

[kdthomas]

Lens was an 85mm 1.8 which only goes to f/16, I was just about at the closest focal distance, and even then had to crop. Part of the pen was slightly closer to the lens than the other. May be a better idea to shoot it straight on.

 

[Austin Greene]

Yeah their blacks don't look as deep. And is it me, or does that shadow underneath look artificial? It's just as dark at the white portion of the pen as the black ...

Would a company like that expect a transparent background?

As for the background, what I've learned from shooting products 8 hours a day for the past 4 months is that most companies expect a perfect 255 white background. Black backgrounds happen, but only for more styled products, more catalog than web integration. Get that 255 when you're shooting it by blowing out the background with an extra light and flagging the object, or do what most people do and get good at removing it in post (and sometimes adding realistic shadows in post as well). The key to the second option here is that it has to be done in a realistic way. I usually mask the object to a background, add a drop shadow, and then erase the shadow where needed at different brush opacities.

As for lens choices, for a sharpie-type object we typically use anything from a 50 1.4 to a 100 f/2, or 100 macro. The item should be sharp throughout.

 

[kdthomas]

I'm just venturing into product shots, I'd like to see what everyone thinks of this, and how I can improve it.

View attachment 93774

Would it help if I uploaded the SOOC image, or a shot of the table, etc?

You need to fix that highlight. Actually, IMO, you need to re-approach the image altogether. The pen doesn't have a good outline, try some side-lighting like a soft-box and use a piece of foam core to strip it. Or just use a light above left, mostly flagged with foam-core, and then have another light bouncing in off some foam core to provide fill on the logo. You should also have detail on the tip contours, and on the lettering on the cap.

Generally speaking, avoid crazy highlights like that, especially when they cross a logo. Even when you do have highlights, keep them to 240 and below.

Are you talking about the very first image? I made a couple of changes & I think I got rid of the highlight splitting through the logo.

Also (Again, I'm a newb) by "240" do you mean the RGB value?

 

[W.Y.Photo]

255 is white, anything below it is technically gray. It stands for the K value which adds or subtracts light using grayscale. When you look at a histagram you are looking at a chart of the tonal values from 0 (black) to 255 (white) everything in between is actually gray.