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The Dark Room -- Photo Editing and Picture Taking. Advice, tutorials, questions on all things photoshop, photo editing, and taking pictures of beads or glass.

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  #1  
Old 2008-08-21, 5:38pm
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Question eliminate glare?

I generally like the pics I take and I think my light tent and camera work well. The one thing I would like to do is elimnate the glare I seem to get on some of the beads. Especially on the focal beads - looks like 2 bright lines running down either side. Here is a pic of my set up. BTW - the camera is a Canon PowerShot S1 IS and does not have a macro function. You set things up manually.
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Old 2008-08-22, 5:07am
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Default NO ONE?

I feel neglected <sniff sniff>

Was sure someone would have an idea or even to tell me it's not possible to eliminate?
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Old 2008-08-22, 10:03am
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Unhappy

No body likes me
Nobody likes me
I'm gonna eat some wo-or-or-ms
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Old 2008-08-22, 10:05am
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Don't feel bad, I'm a bigger thread killer than you!!! I take my pictures outside, so I'm not much help am I?
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Old 2008-08-22, 11:27am
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Actually I think your pictures are pretty good, the glare is subtle and doesn't bother me a bit.
I have the same issue when photographing beads standing up and my glare is much worse. Monkeying around with my lights moving them more forward and changing their angle helped some but is still not great. This is why most of my focals pics are taken lying down. I'm also toying around with reflecting light onto the front of the bead with a mirror or bright white paper, which works well in natural light but haven't been able to give it a shot with my light set up yet.

I'm still learning so take my advice with a grain of salt. I am far from where I want to be with my images just yet but when I do find that magical combo I will nail everything down to that spot. lol.

I hope you get some more expert advice, I'd like to hear it too!
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Last edited by Bubbyanne; 2008-08-22 at 11:48am.
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  #6  
Old 2008-08-22, 5:12pm
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Well it's kinda bad when I kill my own thread !

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Don't feel bad, I'm a bigger thread killer than you!!! I take my pictures outside, so I'm not much help am I?
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Old 2008-08-22, 5:13pm
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Thank you for your critique and advice! I guess maybe I am too picky.

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Originally Posted by Bubbyanne View Post
Actually I think your pictures are pretty good, the glare is subtle and doesn't bother me a bit.
I have the same issue when photographing beads standing up and my glare is much worse. Monkeying around with my lights moving them more forward and changing their angle helped some but is still not great. This is why most of my focals pics are taken lying down. I'm also toying around with reflecting light onto the front of the bead with a mirror or bright white paper, which works well in natural light but haven't been able to give it a shot with my light set up yet.

I'm still learning so take my advice with a grain of salt. I am far from where I want to be with my images just yet but when I do find that magical combo I will nail everything down to that spot. lol.

I hope you get some more expert advice, I'd like to hear it too!
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Old 2008-08-22, 9:35pm
Mike Jordan Mike Jordan is offline
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What's you are seeing with the two vertical lines is the door to your tent. Plus the fact that your bead is long and round, it's acting like a convex mirror that gives a very wide and distorted view when you look into it. So your bead is not only seeing the darkness through the door, but the light shinning on the sides of the your tent, giving you reflective highlights.

Round and curved glass and metal is harder to light than a flat object is because of the way it reflects light. You have to really consider the angles that your lights are placed and the angle the light is reflected back from. If you position them carefully, you can reduce the reflection because your camera won't be at an angle that can see the reflection. Light bounces according to all those rules we had to learn in Geomertry (you know, the angle of the dangle and some silly hippopotumus or something like that). If you shoot pool you can think of it in terms of light bouncing like a cue ball does when you are trying to make a bank shot and hit a ball that's behind another.

It looks like your lights (or light) is near the front. You might try moving them back along the side and move your bead back inside the tent a little more. You might also need to put a white door on the front to hide the dark opening. You could also try sitting your bead inside a white frosted plastic tupperware bowl or milk jug with the top cut off. you want your bead to be just visible enough that you can get a picture. It doesn't matter if the camera can see the jug or what's around it as long as you can crop that stuff out later in your photo editing program. In fact, just getting your camera in closer might help here as well as that will change the angles of the reflected light that your camera sees. But anything that is round and reflective is a real challenge.


Mike
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Old 2008-09-14, 4:11pm
flamesofglass flamesofglass is offline
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I continue to struggle with glare. I bought my entire setup with lamps cube etc. and no matter where I seem to place the beads and or direction of lamps I just get a different glare in a cube than I do outside a cube...
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  #10  
Old 2008-09-14, 4:52pm
Mike Jordan Mike Jordan is offline
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Take a picture of your set up. That might help someone point out what could be done to improve it. One thing I've seen is that people use lights that are too strong and they just blast right though the material that is suppose to diffuse the light. Work lights that use halagon lights are a good example. Lights that put out 200 to 500 watts of narrow pin point light is going to take a lot of diffussion material to spread the light and soften it so it's usable.

A picture of your set up might help give us a visual of what you are doing.

Mike
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  #11  
Old 2008-09-14, 8:42pm
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I'll have to play with the distance of the lamps as I have aimed them back, down, straight up , etc all still with glare. I may very well just have to pick the least amount of glare and be happy with that as there even seems to be glare with the lamps off...

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  #12  
Old 2008-09-15, 3:03pm
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Personally I like a little glare/shiny spots, because it lets you know it is glass and glass shines. Your picture has very little glare actually, I think it looks really good! If you compare your pictures to mine, you will see how much more glare I have.
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Old 2008-09-15, 7:01pm
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This is almost EXACTLY my setup!!! I have my lights a little more to the front of the cube though. This weekend I tried putting them truly in front and it didnt seem much better/different



Quote:
Originally Posted by flamesofglass View Post
I'll have to play with the distance of the lamps as I have aimed them back, down, straight up , etc all still with glare. I may very well just have to pick the least amount of glare and be happy with that as there even seems to be glare with the lamps off...

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  #14  
Old 2008-09-15, 8:39pm
Mike Jordan Mike Jordan is offline
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You need another layer or two of diffusion. One advantage I have is that I use softboxes on my mono lights. Each softbox (one is 24" Octogon and one is a 32x24" rectangle) has two white nylon panels in them. So it gets diffused by the first panel, gets diffused again by the second panel and then gets diffused a 3rd time by the light tent.

What you might try doing is get a sheet of tracing paper or stencil plastic (the stencil plastic is stiff) and put it on both sides of your bead as close as you can without getting it in the part of the picture you are planning on keeping when you crop the rest away. It has to be close to soften the shadows a bit more. It won't eleminate the reflection, but it will soften it some. You probably will have to color balance, but that's not that big of a deal if you have done it before. or do it anyway.

If you use the stencil plastic you can use a clamp to hold it standing up next to your bead. Tracing paper is not as stiff so it will need to be propped up somehow.

Another option, if you have some large sheets of white cardboard, posterboard or even foam core from Home Depot, stand them up on the back side of your lights, turn your lights around and reflect the light off the posterboard back towards your light tent. This will also diffuse and soften the light. It will reduce the intensity and you will have to go for a longer shutter opening, but if you are on a tripod, that's ok. I've got some 5' x 8' cardboard sheets that I bought for a couple of dollars each at cardboard supply and box making plant. Once side is white and the other is regular cardboard color. The white works great for making reflectors out of because you can bend it into all kinds of shapes.

There are lots of ways to diffuse the light. It just takes some creativity sometimes.

Mike
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