Hi I am new to this forum so hoping for some help, we are currently having problems photographing white garments for our website and was hoping for some tips on how best to approach it. Seem to keep getting shadows over the garments or they are coming out really grey and dark. Thanks
Are you sure they are not just underexposed? Maybe you just need to increase your exposure compensation.
Hi In camera metering systems are often overwhelmed by situations such as this which is similar to the old 'snowman in a snow scene' chestnut. The metering system is designed to meter a mixture of mid tones rather than extreme white tones and therefore overcompensates by underexposing the images. Sounds like this has happened on your product images. A couple of suggestions, use a contrasting background colour or tone to help the garments stand out, use additional lighting to add definition to the garments and light the background separately so that the garment stands out from it and experiment with your exposure compensation settings on camera by adding exposure time so that your images have sufficient light and are correctly exposed. Adam Commercial Photography - Portfolio - Adam Coupe Photography
You can use the neutral background, or a background which are not going to overshadow your model or the garment you are capturing. You must have to think perfectly regarding the background as it can deteriorate your whole hard work. So, in general you can choose a somewhat darker background while capturing the photographs in white garments. Regards Mark:happy
Correct in software? Have you tried correcting the exposure / colour balance issues in software? Many problems like this can be corrected in Photoshop Glenn
Hi Glenn, I agree with you that, editing a photograph for this purpose is another alternative, but most of the time when we do this with the images containing light colors, will deteriorate and look messy. Doing this you must be a master of photo editing software like photo-shop. Mark Denaley
The problem is that if you lose the detail on the original photo shoot, then it is difficult to compensate. However, if you have Photoshop, check out the RAW file as it may still contain enough detail to be able to recover some shading.
I am completely agree with you mark sometime it just happens..... But Glenn is also right, you can use the correction techniques for the purpose....
Photographing white garments is a nightmare for most photographers. The reason is that image can filled with washedout skintones or blown highlights. To escape that you can always spot meter for your highlights. A darker skintone can always be filled with reflector, flash or both. you can also reduce the contrast range, create your own shade or post process in photoshop.
Change the angle of the lighting, the position of the garments compared to the lighting, , or ensure that there is nothing casting a shadow on them. You need to increase the exposure, (best) by changing the camera settings, or by changing the background to something darker, so the scene photographed looks more average to the camera.
