photographing marbles

<p>I have an Canon SX30is p&s and I need to photograph collectable, glass marbles - all kinds and sizes, transparent, translucent and opaque. From 1/4" to 3"+ and in between. I have a 20" lite cube ( a reflective disaster! creates giant white bat-signal-like reflections covering most of the marble). constant light source: 2 30w 5000k's w/10" reflectors and a 16w 5000k with 6" reflector/overhead boom and a Gebe light panel. Id like to knock out any background as in the pic, below, other than whats seen "through" the clear marbles but all I have is Photoshop Elements 9 and don't know (yet) if that'll do the trick. The pic posted is about what I'm after, if it can be improved upon, great. I'm willing to dump, acquire whatever it takes, gear-wise, to get the job done, but would prefer to invest only what's needed for <em>this kind of work</em>. Thanks in advance.</p><div></div>

<p>There are some things that are a challenge to photograph... a sphere is one of them. One of the things that immediately strikes me in your sample image is that you need a much larger light source. It's impossible to photograph a sphere with no reflection so you're better off making that reflection attractive and complimentary to your subject. A large light source will do that. Large doesn't necessarily mean a big, expensive light. Moving the light you already have closer to your subject will effectively make that light source bigger. The light should be diffuse and it should have some shape to it, either round, square, or rectangle.<br /><br />For the more transparent marbles I would use what is called a key light which will reflect on the marble and then I would uses another to backlight the marble which will reveal it's color and interior bubbles and texture. Remember to place your backlight outside the angle of incidence so that it doesn't reflect on the marble, you only want ONE reflection.<br /><br />Regarding PS Elements, use the ellipse selection tool to create a circular selection around the marble (holding the shift key while creating the selection will create an equal circle rather than an oval). If you don't get it just right the first time you can right click within that selection and click "Transform Selection" which will allow you to adjust the selection to the exact size of your marble. Copy that selection and paste it onto a white canvas, merge or flatten the layers and you should be good to go.<br /><br />I'm sure more people will chime in with ideas and suggestions... </p>

<p>I have a Canon Powershot SX30 IS as well. A studio light box with either compact fluorescent white lighting or LED white lighting and skip the flash all together. This way you will have a real smooth lighting effect and the camera will give you a very nice natural light look on each marble. The SX30 is an amazing camera for being a simple 14.1Mpix camera and I have captured a lot of real great photographs with it. </p>

<p>You should be able to build your own table top light box, interesting example how to build one;<br>

<a href="http://www.instructables.com/id/Light-Studio-for-Photographers-Tabletop/">http://www.instructables.com/id/Light-Studio-for-Photographers-Tabletop/</a></p>

<p>Photo.net talks about light boxes here <a href="../equipment/store/product?pgid=886147793">http://www.photo.net/equipment/store/product?pgid=886147793</a> I am sure there are other posts about tabletop light boxes on Photo.net if you do a search.</p>

<p>I build all my own studio set stuff rather then buy it in pre-set kits from photographic suppliers. It's a lot cheaper to build your own and for your project there are tons of idea's on the web just waiting for you to discover.</p>

<p>ditto on light box (aka light tent, etc.)</p>

 

<p>I would avoid using a light tent. Since you are photographing a sphere, you need to use variations in light and dark to identify the object. Ultimately, the marble you are photographing will become a product of it's environment, reflecting (opaque) or projecting (translucent) it's environment. Therefore, my recommendation would be to build yourself a light panel/soft box and place it directly over your marble. I would keep the rest of the "environment" dark. If you wish to set the marble off from the background, use a piece of white printer paper.<br /><br />In the examples below (taken just this morning), I used a homemade light box (cement mixing tub approximately 16" x 24" lined with aluminum foil and covered with white, rip-stop nylon (5500K screw-in CFL)) placed about 14" above a piece of white printer paper. I just used the one light and made sure the cluttered environment around the area was darkened so that it didn't appear in the marble. If you can't darken the environment, use black foam core or towels or sheets (you get the idea) to close off the sides of your small "studio". These photos are straight out of the camera, the only processing was to crop them all uniformly and sharpen slightly. No Photoshop.<br /><br /> <img src="http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r34/F1Addict/Miscellaneous%20Crap/IMG_4795.jpg" alt="" /><br>

<img src="http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r34/F1Addict/Miscellaneous%20Crap/IMG_4794.jpg" alt="" /><br>

<img src="http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r34/F1Addict/Miscellaneous%20Crap/IMG_4792.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="455" /><br>

<img src="http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r34/F1Addict/Miscellaneous%20Crap/IMG_4791.jpg" alt="" /><br>

<img src="http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r34/F1Addict/Miscellaneous%20Crap/IMG_4789.jpg" alt="" /><br>

Tilting the paper slightly at the top will create a gradient effect.<br>

<img src="http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r34/F1Addict/Miscellaneous%20Crap/IMG_4787.jpg" alt="" /><br>

This is just to demonstrate how the marble will function as a lens to project it's environment. In this case, the piano keys on which it was placed. Clearly, I was not particularly careful about lint and dust ;)</p>

<p>If you use a light tent you can sretch lengths of opaque paper across it to create shadow areas/shapes across the reflecting surface ... the person I got this tip from used lengths of 120 film backing paper.<br>

Controlling your lighting rather that letting it spill all oiver the place can be a big help and shooting down on the marbles with them sitting on a sheet of glass* would enable you to light the background , some distance below, separately so you can simply use 'magic Wand' tool to select it Controlling flash is easy becuase you can use cardboard 'snoots' or tunnels to funnel the light where you want it, whereas with hot lights you need metal shutters to avoid fire risk.*You might need to grind a small crater in the glass to stop ihe marble rolling.<br>

With digital and the camera firmly in place you could take two photos of each marble, first with the marble lit and second without it lit so you create a mask on the background with the opaque marble. With the two photos as layers in elements you can use the background layer to make a mask. Another tool in editing is the Threshold tool which renders the subject in black and white with no tones between. You then use the threshold layer to create a mask with the magic wand tool to in turn delete areas you want or don;t want.<br>

A useful tip here when working with layers is to double click on the background layer and rename it from 'background'. This permits you to have a transparent surround to an object instead of background insisting on some tone. [ But you cannot post it here as Photo.Net doesn't allow transparency :-) ]</p>

<p>Wow, thanks, everyone! I'm overwhelmed (in a good way) with number of members replying with such great advise.<br>

I mentioned in my OP a light cube - its a light <em>tent, </em>actually - an EZ-Cube package with the lighting and light panel - wasn't too expensive. I guess mainly the tents been a problem when I used a black backdrop and didn't go all the way with black screens to mask the whiteness of the tent. <br>

Thanks for the Elements tip, Jeff. I could only get that cookie cuter double circle close to fit my image - but not what I was after.<br>

The example pic isn't my work. It's my marble (<em>now) </em>but the pic is from an eBay listing by the seller, marblealan. Idk if he does his own pics but I know he's the top marble seller there and his pics haven't hurt him, so I thought an apt example of a ""goal" for my post here.<br>

It'll be nice to try all the suggestions instead of just re-making all the same mistakes, for a change!</p>