# First attempt - knife photo



## Olympus8MP (Feb 21, 2007)

This is my first attempt at a product photograph. This isn't actually for Gerber Gear, just a pic of my favorite knife  See if anyone can guess the equipment I used.







What can I do to improve this?

Thanks


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## shingfan (Feb 21, 2007)

please forgive me for being too honest if i am......i hope you are looking for this kind of comment to help you improve

if you are not using a light tent...you should definitely give it a try...will give you better spread of the light....your current photo is more of a snapshot then a product shot

here is a previous post that did a good job on knife....you can have a look at the setup

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=69238


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## fmw (Feb 21, 2007)

It looks like you used on-camera flash.  To make it better you could use off-camera flash or a tripod and no flash at all.  Or, you could retouch it a little in photoshop as I have done.


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## Aquarium Dreams (Feb 21, 2007)

Fmw, what did you do in photoshop for that knife?  Your retouched version looks great.


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## fmw (Feb 21, 2007)

Thanks.  I wanted to do 4 things.

1.  Get rid of the color cast which is actually an overload of the CCD from the direct flast.  Film wouldn't have reacted that way.  The blown out area would have been neutral.

2.  Bring out the detail in the handle.

3.  Tone down the blown out area where the flash unit is reflected straight back at the lens.

4.  Get rid of the background which was unevenly lit.

First the background.  Auto levels to tweak the contrast.  Then white balance eyedropper in levels to set the the darkest part of the background to white. Next I used the highlight/shadow adjustment to bring down the blade and bring up the handle to highlight more detail.  I reduced saturation a lot to eliminate the color cast.  Then I used the eraser tool around the edges of the blade and handle to clean up the artifacts from all this heavy handed editing.  Finally I used a little burn tool to tone down the blown out area on the blade.  I didn't do the last part very well.  I didn't spend much time on it.  It could have been cleaned up pretty well with a little more effort.  That's Photoshop.  It would have been better to simply light the knife properly and eliminate all of these problems at exposure time rather than doing a lot of heavy handed editing after the fact.


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## fmw (Feb 21, 2007)

Here's a shot I made this afternoon of a black bladed knife. This shot got no processing at all except for a little bit of sharpening. If you light it right in the first place, there isn't much else to do.


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## Don Simon (Feb 21, 2007)

As has already been said, there are plenty of things you can do in PS but why do that if you can save time and effort by getting the lighting right for the shot instead?

fmw does not like pop-up flash, with good reason. I'd say use it in situations where you have _absolutely no other choice_ and really need the image, but otherwise do something, anything other than use that pop-up. For this you could use off-camera flash or natural light diffused in various ways. Honestly you don't even need any special equipment for this. By the way I like the composition, simple and effective.

Oh and good company to advertise. The 'Gerber multi-tool flick' makes you feel like a man, a man who can fix things   I'm sure someone knows what I mean.


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## Olympus8MP (Feb 21, 2007)

lol. There is no flash or light tent. Just hand-held lights and a custom white balance to counteract the off-white color it would normally give. This wasn't meant to be too pro, just a quick thing to do today.


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## Aquarium Dreams (Feb 21, 2007)

Thanks, fmv.  I learned a few new things from your post.  It's always helpful to see how people who do things well get things done.

Olympus8mp, are you familiar with Strobist?  There are a lot of great lighting tips there, including how to build a light tent for about two dollars.

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-diy-10-macro-photo-studio.html


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## Olympus8MP (Feb 21, 2007)

wow. thats a cool idea. I'll have to look at that. This photo was done on a pretty "redneck" rig. lol


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## Icon72 (Feb 21, 2007)

Hey, you have to work with what you have right?


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## Olympus8MP (Feb 21, 2007)

I read that article and I'm definitely gonna have to try that. I kinda figured that the original photo wouldn't be very good. lol 

Look for a better picture of the same knife once i make one of these budget light tents


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## Olympus8MP (Feb 21, 2007)

fmw said:


> Thanks.  I wanted to do 4 things.
> 
> 1.  Get rid of the color cast which is actually an overload of the CCD from the direct flast.  Film wouldn't have reacted that way.  The blown out area would have been neutral.



Something I just noticed, too. The knife's blade doesn't have a color cast on it. The blade is actually (titanium nitride i think?) coated, giving it a kind of brownish gunmetal color, so that is the proper color of the blade.http://www.excaliburcutlery.com/art/gerber/gb005b-400.jpg


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## fmw (Feb 22, 2007)

Olympus8MP said:


> lol. There is no flash or light tent. Just hand-held lights and a custom white balance to counteract the off-white color it would normally give. This wasn't meant to be too pro, just a quick thing to do today.


 
Ok, given that, then I'll comment on how to improve it.  The real issue is the hot spot - the area where the light is reflected straight back into the lens.  Whether it is flash or continuous, that blown out area on the blade is the problem.  A light tent, as you know, would eliminate that hot spot.  Even without a light tent, it can be eliminated by the angle at which it is directed at the subject.  To improve the image, experiment with different angles until you get onr that reflects the light away from the lens.


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## Olympus8MP (Feb 22, 2007)

Ok, I see it now. I'll be building that DIY lightbox if I can get my hands on a box. I might get a real light-tent from E-bay if I can find a relatively inexpensive and nice one

Thanks


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## cjm (Feb 23, 2007)

I'm sorry but it needs improvement, but hey its your first attempt so of course it will get better, if your lighting improves, then I say you got something going for you. So keep it up because other then the lighting, it seems pretty good.


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## fmw (Feb 24, 2007)

Olympus8MP said:


> Something I just noticed, too. The knife's blade doesn't have a color cast on it. The blade is actually (titanium nitride i think?) coated, giving it a kind of brownish gunmetal color, so that is the proper color of the blade.


 
I don't think so.  It is a Gerber black bladed Fast Draw folder.  The blade is black epoxy coated not TiNi.


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## fmw (Feb 24, 2007)

I spend a good portion of my life doing catalog shots of knives.  This morning I shot an interesting one and thought I would play around with it a little.  Do you like the "tactical" look?


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## rlouis (Feb 24, 2007)

Great knife shot Fred, how did you light it?


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## fmw (Feb 24, 2007)

rlouis said:


> Great knife shot Fred, how did you light it?


 
Nothing fancy.  It is just in the light tent.  The contrast between subject and background is all Photoshop.


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## Aquarium Dreams (Feb 25, 2007)

fmw said:


> Do you like the "tactical" look?




DO I????  :greenpbl:  More guns, please!

31


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## Olympus8MP (Feb 25, 2007)

fmw said:


> I don't think so.  It is a Gerber black bladed Fast Draw folder.  The blade is black epoxy coated not TiNi.



That tactical knife shot is awesome! 

Whatever this knife is coated in, however, it is not exactly black. I think the "color cast" comes from the fact that the only lights I own are tungsten. I found a picture of a paraframe knife of the same color (which my brother owns and I can say they are the same color) here I didn't take that picture, but it's a good representation of the color


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