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Need pure white background for jewelry photos


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<p>For a client, I've been photographing 100s of pieces of jewelry in a white-paneled lighting box. For the most part, the images look great, with a mostly white background. The client wants near-pure white background, while retaining the subtle shadows I've accomplished through lighting. I'm in the midst of the Lightroom/Photoshop work and have run into a few snags. To bring the background up to close to pure white, while leaving the jewelry exposed correctly, or close to it, I've been using the eye-dropper tool in LR, or in PS for tougher light-balancing. My problem is that that approach sometimes leaves the piece of jewelry looking washed out, over-exposed or flat, especially with silver pieces. Any advice for how to handle that? I'd love to pull together a preset because there really are a lot of images to process in not very much time. Also, for another project involving family portraits on a white backdrop, I remember using a technique in PS using a layer to identify where my background was not quite white... I was able to clean it up easily by painting with the clone tool over a layer that I made darker through levels (I think, or may it was exposure). Sadly, I can't recall each step...that technique would be useful for this jewelry project as well. Can someone walk me through that? Any other tips on LR/PS work on jewelry would be welcome. I hope this makes sense...brain not working great today -- I guess I've been looking at too many pictures of engagement rings... all wit and wisdom appreciated.</p>
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<p>shoot your product on a white plexi. Whe do this all the time for product shot.. very easy.</p>

<p>The white should be already very white.. then in Lightroom, use the Highlight slider to blowout the highlight... work every time.</p>

<p>Can you show us what you are starting from?.. that can help us to identify the problem.. could be right from the start.</p>

<p>A good start make post to a minimum.</p>

 

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<p>Thanks for quick responses... I've shot nearly all of the items, in a lighting device provided by the client just for this purpose...so, at this point, I'm dealing only with the LR/PS processing and will have no opportunity to reshoot. Patrick, attached find a typical image of ear rings... this is a fairly low-rez JPG, but I have all in original RAW files as well...</p><div>00aqPI-497219684.jpg.4495c72b9e8902cc35d68a6a342e093c.jpg</div>
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<p>Patrick...much thanks for your attention to this, and sorry to be dense... but I do most everything in LR these days and am far removed from what little PS expertise I may once have had... when you say move white point to 255 in curves, do I have to anchor a point along the curve so that it doesn't pull everything up with it? also, when you mention "a little brush," can you please spell that out a bit? I also have not worked in masks, but I suspect that would be very useful here...how would I place a mask over the jewelry piece? a quick step-by-step would be much appreciated... again, thanks so much for you help on this...</p>
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<p>cant wrote a whole how to .. but heres the basic..<br>

Since you use Lightroom, what you could do is to hold the ALT key while you are moving the white slider.. the image turn black, and when you see white that start to appear back (by moving your slider to the +) you know you have your white at the right place. Dont go to far as you might get your jewelry too look too flat and overexposed.<br>

<br />That should move the highlight a bit, so its possible that you will need to use the highlight slider to - and use some shadow slider - as well (i have use some in this example) to get back some natural light onto the jewel AND to keep your soft shadow.. </p>

<p>The secret is to find the sweet spot where you get a close enough white while retaining the jewel correctly exposed.</p>

<p>At the end, you can also use over all that the gradient tool set to exposure + and drag some *white* to each side of your image (what i have done) Then you can use this and synchronize the whole process to your entire set of image. </p>

<p>Next time, a bit over exposed on a white plexi and all should be better ; )</p><div>00aqQ9-497229584.jpg.ae0baf537f16a30e99856cd18c3bf6df.jpg</div>

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<p>I had to explain something similar to a client - they had shot 300 + pairs of shoes in a light tent they bought - along with the lighting to support it. </p>

<p>When they viewed their images, they were very disappointed to see them having white, grey and light brown backgrounds. </p>

<p>My solution? Photoshop Elements. Select the background, adjust to pure white, deselect, save and close. About 30 seconds per image. </p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

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<p>Here's my try... In Photoshop I created an adjustment layer to crank the contrast up. I then set the magic wand tool to 16 and selected the background and some of the shadow areas and deleted them (background layer is set to white). I discarded the adjustment layer. Then I did a little cleanup with the eraser tool and added a drop shadow for fun... Took about 5 minutes.</p>

<p>BTW, the suggestion about shooting on a raised piece of plexi is good. It allows you to light the background and subject separately (in this case with clear plexi and a white background)... DOF will get rid of any texture if you put an appropriate distance between the plexi and background.</p><div>00aqRS-497237584.jpg.7539c142b4b36f0f1796d7e8c6566c71.jpg</div>

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<p>guys, when you do this kind of job, kind of lookbook or ecom shot.. 5min per shot is a no no. You have to get it right in camera the best you can, and if not you need to find a solution that should take the less time as possible.. doing it in Lightroom, took no more than 20sec, and the effect can be repeat on 1, 100, 100000 in seconds... Imagine you have 500 shot of jewelry to fix and you go 5min on each of them... and normally, you will not charge for that because its not a special demand from a client.. its a mistake that you need to fix.</p>

<p>Its easy to find solution that work well when you have 1 shot.. but think about doing it on multiple image.. its a different game.</p>

<p>Whe normally only use 1 white plexi that whe bend like a small cyclorama, 2 flash head in 45 (or 1 softbox) and add a polarizer so you control the reflection and BAM.. you got everything; soft shadow, controled reflection, .. and a white background.</p>

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<p>Ah,... I get it now, Patrick.. You're using LR 4, right? I still have LR 2 on my machine, though I have the LR 4 upgrade ready to go. I was planning to hold off on the upgrade until I finish this very large project. After looking at some of the improvements in the Develop module, I'm tempted to install the upgrade now. Do you think that would be problematic, as I've already processed roughly 20% of the 1100 or so images using LR 2?</p>
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  • 2 weeks later...
<p>I have tried to photograph jewelry for my wife before. I was having a very difficult time with it, when a friend suggested I lay the pieces on a flatbed color scanner and cover them with a piece of fabric for a background. When I tried it, I was stunned at the images the scanner produced. I am not saying it is a solution for you, but it may help someone else out in the future as it did me.</p>
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  • 4 months later...

<p>If you want a white background, you should put your product in front of a white tend and put your strongest light behind the tent.<br>

Your subject my look little bit dark, but you can go PS Images>Adjustment>Brightest It will take your 10 seconds to do that. </p>

<p>Here is an example of my picture<br>

<img src="http://www.newpendant.com/resources/stanlies/s2.JPG" alt="" /><br>

I am retaking all my pictures now for my website.</p>

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