Thats when you use a shim or prop underneath to raise it off the paper and use your lighting to separate the item from the background.
On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 9:14 PM, Bruce Walker <[email protected]> wrote: > I was just wondering about the edge case, literally. If you have a > rounded brushed metal part (eg a valve-stem), that surface will appear > very white and appear to fade smoothly into the white background. That > would cause jaggy and ill-defined boundaries when attempting the > cutout. Of course one could/should use the pen tool to define the > path, but the CS5 "refine edge" tool is just so incredibly nice for > that. > > On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 8:55 PM, David Parsons <[email protected]> > wrote: >> If he's doing cutouts, there's no point in using green. White will >> work fine, and it won't introduce any color casts that need to be >> fixed later. >> >> On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 7:27 PM, Bruce Walker <[email protected]> wrote: >>> You could do all that fiddling and tweaking, or, since this is a >>> budgeted project, you could spring for an incident light meter. >>> (Sekonic L-308S: $199 at B&H) >>> >>> 1. place lightmeter on table and arm it. >>> 2. fire flash(es). >>> 3. read meter and set camera accordingly. >>> 4. take one perfectly exposed shot. >>> 5. swap subject part for another part ... go to step 4. >>> >>> If you alter the lighting, go to step 1. >>> >>> Now with all the time you've saved, take more shots of more subjects, >>> or savour a coffee. >>> >>> >>> Since you are doing cutouts, you might consider using green screen >>> techniques. Either paint your background with green chroma-key paint >>> (eg Rosco 5711) or just get a roll of green screen background. >>> >>> You'd have to make sure that none of the green reflects back onto your >>> subjects, so this idea may not work well for you. >>> >>> >>> On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 5:58 PM, Larry Colen <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> On 1/24/2012 1:48 PM, Collin Brendemuehl wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Believe me, as someone who has magic-wanded out more backgrounds that >>>>>> I care to admit... it works really well SOME of the time. Other times >>>>>> you a messing around with the magic wand sensitivity setting to keep >>>>>> it from grabbing portions of your object. >>>>>> >>>>>> Bruce is correct. Your images are seriously underexposed. The light >>>>>> table should be white. It's the same principle as shooting something >>>>>> on a snow bank. The meter will make the snowbank 18% grey and >>>>>> underexpose the subject. That's what you've got here. You'll save a >>>>>> lot of work in post if you expose correctly. Either get off automatic >>>>>> to manual or use exposure compensation. >>>>>> >>>>>> Also, if you have photoshop you may find that working with levels or >>>>>> curves (to define your "white") will save you a lot of time with the >>>>>> magic wand. Trust me, you don't want to rely on the magic wand. >>>>>> >>>>>> Darren Addy >>>>>> Kearney, Nebraska >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I am shooting in Manual mode. >>>>> Yes, the Magic Wand has been useful. So many circular objects are more >>>>> easily cut with the oval selection tool. >>>>> >>>>> As to the exposure, I only saw that on a couple of shots, obvious on the >>>>> #3 with the PL. I took it off and have not put it back on. >>>>> >>>>> Shots #1& #2, once separated from the background (about 10 seconds of >>>>> work) displays the detail perfectly for the customer's application. The >>>>> sense of being underexposed went away with the image on a different >>>>> background -- pure white. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> The paper should not be all white, but perhaps white-er than it is. I >>>>> will be adding some reflectors in the next day. Still, the boss is more >>>>> than happy with the results achieved. >>>>> >>>>> Tomorrow I will put up one of the better, later pics with improved >>>>> exposure. >>>> >>>> >>>> Since you are shooting in manual mode (and I presume RAW), until you get >>>> the >>>> system dialed in, why not try some shots where you keep cranking up the >>>> exposure? >>>> >>>> I would suggest two variations on "expose to the right": >>>> >>>> 1) simply looking at the histogram, this will probably put the table just >>>> under clipping. >>>> >>>> 2) Expose to the right based on the object and let the table clip. >>>> The histogram should be bi-modal. There should be a peak for the table, and >>>> one for the object. When you expose to the right, ignore the the bump for >>>> the table and just keep increasing your exposure until the object itself is >>>> exposed to the right. >>>> >>>> This, of course, has issues if there are sections of your object that are >>>> close in albedo to that of the table. The alternative would be to put your >>>> subject on a dark background, do your test shots to expose to the right and >>>> set your exposure, then remove the dark background, and let the exposure of >>>> the table fall where it may. >>>> >>>> I do hope that you are keeping a notebook with good notes on your different >>>> lighting setups. Once you get things dialed in, you should have some base >>>> settings that are very close to perfect, and will probably be good enough >>>> for most of your subjects. >>> >>> -- >>> -bmw >>> >>> -- >>> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >>> [email protected] >>> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >>> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >>> follow the directions. >> >> >> >> -- >> David Parsons Photography >> http://www.davidparsonsphoto.com >> >> Aloha Photographer Photoblog >> http://alohaphotog.blogspot.com/ >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> [email protected] >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. > > > > -- > -bmw > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- David Parsons Photography http://www.davidparsonsphoto.com Aloha Photographer Photoblog http://alohaphotog.blogspot.com/ -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
