"PLEASE HELP: Best treatment for online shop photos" Topic

So I'm going to start photographing the Figurehead 1:6000 ships. I've followed the threads on the subject and it seems most people prefer unpainted but treated (wash/prime/ink) to help show the detail.

I'd appreciate some input on these ships. Take a look at the following gallery:

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And let me know which pics you like best:

1) Bare metal
2) Black Ink Wash
3) White Prime
4) Gray Prime
5) None of the above (make a suggestion if you have one)

Final shots will probably use a lighter background and will have a ruler in the shot. The big ship here is an Essex class carrier, about 2" long. The small ship is a Fletcher class destroyer about 0.6" long.

There are also some comparison shots.

Finally, I'll be having some ships from each nation painted up as eye candy/inspiration.

I'm liking gray prime. I think I might like ink wash over gray prime better, but that's two steps involved where one will probably do.

Allen

There is still too much glare on the wash only, and the gray primer doesn't show the details as well. I think combining them would work best.

Chris

Primer makes them look dead and still doesn't bring out the detail. All it does is cut down glare. You can do the same with better lighting. Are you using a lighting tent? They sell those at Walmart or you can make your own.

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Ink washes – as your examples show – won't settle into the recesses well enough to bring out the detail. Too much surface tension and no pigment.

What you need to do is what Hasslefree does. I remember reading about their technique somewhere. I think it's heavier than a wash, but then wiped off the highlights.

black wash for me please.

I would think an oil paint slightly thinned with turpentine and wiped off would be the way to go.

Considering the size, you could use a toothpick or matchstick with a lint-free photo cleaning pad to wipe off the excess.

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What you need to do is what Hasslefree does.

Seems to work well for 28mm but, YMMV

Yikes!

That is a lot of work when I have nearly 500 photographs to do…I'll see what else I can do.

Maybe a thin coat of black paint?

My personal suggestion would be to go with just bare metal or primer, and concentrate on the camera and lighting. Without pulling them into photoshop and blowing them up, checking histograms etc. it was hard to be sure, but it looks like in a few of them you're losing detail due to blown out highlights and depth of field issues. A light tent may help, but it also may not, and there are probably quicker ways to diffuse a light if that's what's needed.

If you'd like I can drop you an e-mail to take a look at the full-size originals and talk about the exact setup you're using; even if working the bugs out is beyond my depth I could probably at least point you to someone who knows more than me (and there are a lot of them to choose from ;)).

Either the grey prime or the ink wash are fine.

Rich

Better lighting I think will help in all of them.

Other than that, I like the grey primer myself. With improved lighting, the black ink might work – but without careful application of the ink, it tends to not work so well.

I agree that the lighting is most of your problem. Use a light tent, or just set up white paper over some standard desk lamps to diffuse your lights. Then TURN OFF YOUR FLASH! Or, at the very least, tape a think sheet a typing paper over your flash so that it diffuses the light and makes for a nice, soft illumination.

Once you've got your glare under control you can then focus on what type of washes & inks to use.

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By the way, my camera doesn't have a great macro (it's got one, but it's not great), so I found out with my photographs that I actually took better photos by setting up my tripod about 2-3 feet from the object and using the telephoto lens to zoom in on it the mini. The minis were under a few bright, tented lights that provided all the illumination. Being back a bit and zooming gave me very nice detail, but be aware that if you zoom too much you will get some distortion on facial features and details.

Is it too late to chime in here? I thought the gray prime looked the best. The bare metals were too bright and shiny to see any detail, except #3. The black wash were better, but not much better than bare metal #3. The white prime didn't show as much detail as gray prime. Nice job!

5) white primer with black wash

I pulled a couple of the posted images into photoshop. In all of the ones I checked, but particularly in those featuring blown highlights the clearest details emerge in the blue channel (of those I checked only Gray Prime 5 and White Prime 3 seemed to hold fairly consistent ratings across all three RGB channels) with the red being the most blown out in most cases. So what might be happening is that the camera's meter is reading mostly from the background, and not exposing the ships properly as a result. If the camera has a spot meter try using it to get a reading directly off the models themselves; if it doesn't try using a much lighter background color.

To fix the depth of field issues you want more light so you can shoot at a smaller apeture. Try using a fairly strong, undiffused directional light and a white piece of foamcore or posterboard to provide a fill for shadows. That might be a little tricky because of the models' size and position, so you might also try setting white reflectors just out of sight, and bouncing the light off them instead of aiming it directly at the models.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

First I added a second lamp from behind the camera which did help quite a bit. I then tried a new wash of diluted Charcoal gray, which also helped – see the carrier here labeled Charcoal Prime:

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Then I switched to a white background. You can also see a Fletcher DD in the new Charcoal and with a white background. I think this is very close.

A few tweaks and I can begin mass production!

BG White 1 didn't want to load for me, but aside from that these are much, much better. You might want to try even a little more light (either direct or reflected).

Aleternately about a minute or so of post production per image can help; here's an example of a quick level adjustment just to get rid of the gray overcast and help them stand out against the background.

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jbenton:

IMHO, the third link above is just what I would look for in catalogue photos!

Well done.

GregS

Thanks, though most of the credit on that one belongs to Extra Crispy; I just cleaned it up a bit to help it stand out.

I used to do the blackwash on display figures at Games of Berkeley oh these many years ago. What we used was thinned black enamel paint, thin it to about 1:3. That's thick enough that it settles in the recesses to show the detail, but not so thick that the model is painted black.

Try that, this technique should show up well in photos.