ernst_stjernberg

<p>Thank you, Andrew and Bill C for your suggestions. I have now bought an incident meter and made diffusion screens for the lights. This now allows me to balance the light falling on the different parts of the quilts, greatly improving the tonality and colors. Together with applying the X-rite ColorChecker profile the colors are looking quite good, i.e. the wife is happy. While I can use the AdobeRGB in-camera and also save them in that color space in Lightroom, I cannot get them printed in that color space at my custom lab as they only use sRGB in printing so I am staying with that color space in all steps.<br> The contributions here have been very helpful and a great education for me. Thank you to all who responded!!</p>

<p><img src="K:\Our%20Pictures\Our%20Pictures%202015\2015_10_11_Quilt%20photos\Shakespeare's%20Stars%202.jpg" alt="" />An update and a question.<br> I have now started to take photos with my four halogen work lights (two lights sitting side by side on stands on either side of the quilt with two bulbs in each light thus adjustable to 2400W in steps of 300W increments). The lights are positioned about 8' from the quilt and each other. I have a X-Rite ColorChecker and have created a profile that is available in Lightroom 5. My camera is a Sony NEX-6 with a 18-200mm Sony lens. I have used the ColorChecker's grey target to set a white balance which returns 2750K. The profile returns a temperature of 2800K. I cannot discern any difference. I have calibrated my monitor with Spyder 3.<br> However: my first quilt photographed is one with 42 'stars' in different colored shades (it is called Shakespeare's Stars!) on a background of (various) black fabrics. The overall quilt shows the colors quite well BUT for example the star in the bottom left corner comes out much too blue. The fabric tends toward green in reality. So <strong>my question</strong> is this: is this a function of the light source or of something else? Is there anything I can do about it?<br> I tried using the small in-camera flash but I suspect it is not the best light source either and the color is not that different - still bluish rather than greenish-blue. I manipulated one photo of the corner star color in Lightroom to closer resemble the color my wife likes but if I do that in the photo of the complete quilt the shades of color disappear and that is unacceptable. </p><div></div>

<p>[John] I am not sure it would work for me. With the number of quilts I have to shoot it will take quite a while so it would be too difficult to get consistency as the light changes during the day and over the many days it will take to do all of them. That is why I am trying to set up lighting that is the same for each quilt, i.e. have controlled conditions. I have now taken a test shot with a set of halogen lights and it looks promising, but I need to get a color checker.</p>

<p><strong>Thank you to all of you who have contributed with comments and suggestions.</strong> You have provided a lot of insight and now I will do some more research and testing based on that information. Considering that my wife has spent a tremendous amount of time creating wonderful quilts, every stitch by hand, I am committed to do my very best to document the results. It will also be a great learning opportunity for me.<br> If anybody else wants to add to the discussion, I would be very happy.</p>

<p>My project is to photograph a large number of quilts of various sizes up to 8' x 8' with the end goal of making a photo book as a record. My non-paying client (read: my wife) is most concerned with an accurate depiction of colours.<br> While I have been an amateur photographer for many years, I have no experience with the indoor lighting setup that this project requires. My plan was to set up a muslin background - white or black, depending on the colours in the quilt. I will hang the quilts about a foot in front of the background. My camera can be placed up to 16' from the quilts. I can eliminate most ambient light for consistency.<br> I have read the forum posts on photographing paintings and quilts but not found anything suitable and affordable. My idea at first was to use two softboxes with continuous lighting, placed at 45° angles and level with the camera. Another suggestion I was given was to use a halogen work light and diffuse it with a white cloth?<br> My question is: how do I light the quilts with a continuous light system so that they will be evenly lit? Is softboxes the way to go (size?; number?; light output?) or would the halogen light work if I use a grey card and adjust the white balance in Lightroom afterwards (I shoot in RAW)?<br> Renting equipment is not an option.<br> I would welcome any comments and suggestions.</p>