Lighting for product photography

[imgcreation]

Hi, i am still learning to shoot product photography when I came across an article in magazine showing a perfume with a weird lighting setup. Below is the picture of the snapshot from my phone camera. From my understanding, I think the picture was created using a blue gel as the background light, and a led torchlight (thus giving a small round shape light) with magenta and green color gel. Is my understanding correct? Or am I missing anything? Appreciate inputs from you guys. Cheers

*removed- do not post photos onto this site that you do not own copyright to: Admin*

[ricktas]

Although I have removed the photo cause you are breaching copyright by posting a photo that you do not own, the photo (if it was a photo) would have been taken in a light-tent and then had probably hours of work done on it in photoshop. It could well be that it was a digital creation rather than a photo at all. The skills of digital artists is such that many things we see are, especially of products are not even photographs.

Use of a light-tent is the most basic way that small products like the perfume bottle, are photographed, then using multiple lights to ensure there is no shadowing and the product is presented in the best possible way.

[ameerat42]

You're listed as a beginner, but I don't know your background, so...

A very simple background (especially for small objects) is just a piece of white paper arranged on a table so that the back is supported - by a box, say.
So the paper sits in a smooth curve between the box and the table. You place the subject to be photographed on the flat of the paper, and then experiment with
lighting sources and angles.

You will find that you still have to do some minor PP using something like Photoshop.
Am.

[Sweetmac]

I worked as a product photographer for 10 years shooting a large variety of products. Every product is different and requires different set ups. Glass bottles can come in all different shapes. What you need to get your head around is the way each shape and material reflects light. A rounded piece of glass will require a different setting to glass with sharp angles.

Although light boxes can be helpful, they can also suck the life out of a shot. Some material will become very flat when shooting with white material all around it. Stainless steel, chrome and glass are all products that don't enjoy having white reflecting in it to much.
I ended up making 2 large scrims (a lightweight white material stretched over a frame) that would sit in front of the soft boxes but still a fair way back from the products. This would give a nice even diffusion of light as it hit the product. Another methods is bouncing light of walls and ceiling to soften the light hitting the product. You can also try reflecting foils into the product to give some nice effects. Polarising filters can sometimes help with glass as well but it depends on the products shape.

As was mentioned, you may need to do a bit of post photography editing in Photoshop to really make them pop. You will probably be merging shots together as well. The lighting that works for glass may completely destroy labelling, lids etc so you will have to light and expose for each element separately. 50% of my job was editing shots in photo shop. That's the nature of product/studio photography. Majority of the time, the product is going to have some sort of blemish that needs to be edited.

Oh and here's an emoticon because this is my first proper post and I just noticed they are there to use.