Teach Soap

Hi,
Well ... I got my light box set up, with a work light with a blue bulb that leans over the top plus lots of natural light.
The background is plain white art paper.
I took these using a tripod on macro setting.
Highest Resolution on original pics.

Can anyone tell what is happening here? All the colors are washed out. The background is not white, but pinkish.
The green soap is very bright, but the colors look muted in these photos. The layered soap appears to blend into the background. There are so many shadows all over the place.

I have always taken photos that I'm happy with the quality. This is a new Nikon Coolpix - no bright colors! My old Olympus finally just stopped working.
Does anyone have any ideas what could be wrong here? I need to decide if I should return this camera.

I have attached 2 of the better pictures.
Please help!
einnoc



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"Soap is to the body what laughter is to the soul!"

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"Soap is to the body what laughter is to the soul!"

It looks like a white balance issue to me. I was having that problem too, and there are two things that should help:

- Use a program that can "auto color" for you. I use Picasa and it works great! It's a pretty basic program but it has functions to lighten, recolor, retouch, and various effects like black and white, gradient, etc. You can start toying with those whenever you like, but auto color should work just fine in the meantime.

- Adjust the lighting settings on your camera. I use a Canon but yours should still have the function that allows you to choose what kind of light (day light, night, tungsten, flourescent, etc). It looks to me like you need to change the light settings to tungsten or flourescent.

Try that and let us know how it goes!

Hi Pomseed,
Thanks so much. I really appreciate all your suggestions.
This is so frustrationg! Great photos are such a big part of what sells the soap!
I will try your suggestions.
einnoc

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"Soap is to the body what laughter is to the soul!"

Hi Pomseed,
I have been using the color adjustment. It has helped quite a lot.
I'm still not satified, tho. I have never had to do this kind of editing with pics before.

Is it possible to have the resolution too high?

Can that distort an image and make it look blurry?

thank you,
einnoc

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"Soap is to the body what laughter is to the soul!"

Firstly - the soaps look great!!

The pink tones are probably coming from the colors in the soap. That can really bounce off your white walls/backgrounds and play havoc with your white balance. I haven't used PIcasa, but everyone raves about it. Give it a burl! The in-camera color settings would probably help too.

Product photography isn't easy! Some days...it makes me cry!

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Rachel
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I would try changing where your light source is coming from. In the first picture it looks like you're highlighting the back of the soap from the right because of where the shadow on the floor is pointing. If you're backlighting, the pink color of the background is definitely because the light is bouncing off of the soap and onto the white paper. Backlighting will also produce muted colors because the front of your soap is technically in the shadow. It produces effects like when you're trying to take a picture of a person in front of a bright window- the person looks very dark in the picture. I would instead place your light source in front of the soap so that the light gets bounced from the soap back to the camera and producing a brighter picture. It will also keep the color of the soap from bouncing onto the background white paper and making it looked colored, too.
If your light source seems to be too harsh from the front for your liking, you can always either move it further away from your object or place a piece of thin white paper over the light to diffuse it (sort of like the light umbrellas professional photographers use). Reversely, if the light source isn't producing enough light your can always move it closer to your object!

I hope this helps and that you can figure out a configuration that will work with your camera!

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Tamra
New to soaping, long time crafter and artisan, avid learner of new things!

I need a Brownie!!! I mean the old camera!

I have been editing pictures all day. I don't know what is easier trying to take all new pictures or fixing old pictures!

I'm using Corel Paint for my editing.

Pomseed, I didn't know about the zoom & the macro! Oh well, tomorrow is another soap & another day & and more photos!

tcmatteson, my light is coming down front the top into the lightbox which I am about to heave right now!

I like the idea about the light shining on the soaps! I'm going to try that tomorrow.

Fairy Cute, thank you. I do like the way the Birthday Cake soap came out - after all that!

Well thank you all ... back to the old drawing board ... so to speak!

einnoc

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"Soap is to the body what laughter is to the soul!"

Aaah, an idea! Does Corel Paint have a sharpen tool? When you resize your images down from the original, you usually need to do a bit of sharpening to get the lines and details back in. I always always always sharpen once in Photoshop whenever I resize images. Maybe that's why they look blurry to you?

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Rachel
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Yes, I sharpen them after I crop them & then I balance the colors.
I need to investigate about the white.
Can the resolution be too high?
Thanks, FairyCute,
einnoc

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"Soap is to the body what laughter is to the soul!"

Hi Pomseed,
Thank you for checking the resolution. My camera is also set at 4416 x 3312. This is good to know.
Yes, my camera focuses the same way as yours. I think the problem is with the lighting and how it is lighting the soap and also getting use to holding this camera away from me. I've fixed that problem with the tripod.

I'm going to go back and try my first digital camera today. The camera before the water damaged one. It still uses batteries!
I want to compare the pictures from the two cameras.

Thanks all,
I appreciate your help,
einnoc

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"Soap is to the body what laughter is to the soul!"