RE: [photoshop-beginners] I have a lighting problem

In looking at a few of your images, there are harsh lighting circles on the food, or bright reflections from liquid surfaces.  Other images look good to me.  In the attached image (editedtwst_fg), there are some reflections in the foreground, bright subject center, shadows left.  A bit less light on the front and maybe some added fill lighting from the left might have helped.  Overall I would say its not a bad job at all.

I'd suggest:

Don't use shiny white backgrounds.  These often fool the camera's light meter.  I'd use an flat (not shiny) off white or colored cloth background.

Try using lighting other than the camera flash.  I often use ceiling bounce or reflector bounced flash or even ambient lighting.  Direct flash can be harsh.

To facilitate this, turn the ISO "film speed" setting up to a value that won't create noise, and use the aperture that gets the entire subject in focus.  This ISO value varies from camera to camera, but might be 800 or 1600, for example.

You can experiment with levels to avoid the wash outs in Photoshop as well, of course

From: photoshop-beginners@yahoogroups.com [mailto:photoshop-beginners@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Garden Gnome
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 2:46 PM
To: photoshop-beginners@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [photoshop-beginners] I have a lighting problem [1 Attachment]

 

 

[Attachment(s) from Garden Gnome included below]

Hi everyone! I am working on various images for my cooking blog. My readers never complain about the images I use but when I submitted this image and similar to a cooking directory they keep telling me the image is rejected because of harsh lighting. I can't figure out how to fix this problem. I don't have fancy photograph equipment and in fact the site doesn't require you to be a professional photographer on that the picture of the food you submit appears on a food blog. I'm using a Panasonic DMC-TZ5 on food setting and Photoshop® CS for Mac for editing. I've attached the image and would appreciate any advice anyone can offer. TIA

Garden Gnome
http://momskitchencooking.blogspot.com
http://gardengnomewanderings.blogspot.com

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