In this video photographer, Gavin Hoey demonstrates how you can create an eye-catching product shot using only a single light that mimics multiple lights. He looks at taking the picture (actually pictures) and doing the post-processing.
One simple yet extremely powerful technique for creating rich product shots when you are dealing with stationary objects is to combine several exposures with different lighting into a single image. There is really nothing new here but learning how to master this technique can make you into a very capable product shooter and is also a good way to learn about lighting even if you have several lights that you can use (as well as a way to challenge yourself).
Basically, the idea is simple. You start with a light in one position and you move it around to create different exposures on your product (Hoey went on a rim lighting for his shot in this video but you can do other things as well).
Next Hoey brings all four images into Photoshop and blends the 4 images he took into a single image using the screen blend mode (you can also try the lighten).
Now, this sort of multiple images/layers method does have its own advantages as it is much easier to only choose the bits that you want to include and not the rest – so if your light cast a bit of illumination on a part which you didn’t want to show in the image you can use layer mask in Photoshop and only choose the part which you do want to use.
You can check out many more helpful photography tips in our Photography tips section here on LensVid. You can also check out some of Gavin Hoey’s other videos here on LensVid.