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Old 12-11-2014, 04:41 PM
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Playing with the new light box

This kitchen knife is a Christmas present for my sister. 8 inch chefs knife. Trying to take a pic of a polished knife is interesting, because there will be a reflection on the Blade. So i put something else in to give it something to reflect.



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Old 12-11-2014, 05:05 PM
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Shoot your light source through something white and opaque like a white plastic garbage bag. This will act as a diffuser for the light, then lay your blade down or otherwise angle it to reflect the white plastic. That's about as good as it gets for mirror polished things ....


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Old 12-11-2014, 06:59 PM
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Ray. The photo was taken with a light box. All light was filtered thru the box.

Here is another I finished today. 1084 with g10 scales and brass liners.




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Old 12-11-2014, 07:13 PM
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The last picture has more of the effect I was describing. Light boxes don't have to be made with diffusers, they can provide specular light or any number of ways to filter the light. That may be a bit too diffused, that lighting is the kind of soft light you might use to light a model's head shot when you want to hide some details.

I'd change out that red background for something more neutral, its throwing off your color balance and your contrast. The knife looks good, let people see it as it really appears ...


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Last edited by Ray Rogers; 12-11-2014 at 07:18 PM.
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Old 12-11-2014, 08:15 PM
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I was also going to mention about the red background. When i got my light box I was drawn to the red background and I was getting similar results. When I tried black or blue the pictures improved without changing anything else. The lights that came with my light box were also very underpowered. Now that I have pretty good lightening in my indoor work area I don't even bother setting up the light box until I get some time to mess around with taking pictures because I don't know what I'm doing.Lol
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Old 12-12-2014, 12:34 PM
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Here is a pic of the light box with and a couple pics with a black back ground. Any better?






Last edited by ricky_arthur; 12-12-2014 at 12:37 PM.
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Old 12-12-2014, 01:17 PM
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Yes, that is a significant improvement. Now that I see your set up and can see where the problem is that's causing that too diffused look. That light on the right is shining into the lens of your camera, you need to put a baffle on the side of the light between the light and the camera so that the light only goes into the box and not directly into the camera. A simple sheet of cardboard propped against the light can perform that function. I would do that on both lights.

I PhotoShopped your picture to illustrate how the lighting should look after you tweak your lighting. You can see that your colors are now more accurate and the knife is in sharper focus ...
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File Type: jpg ricky.jpg (25.7 KB, 23 views)


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Old 12-12-2014, 01:57 PM
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Thanks Ray. By the way. I'll be on a cruise all week so I won't be in Sunday chat. I ordered all the leather supplies you suggested. It should be here when I return. So I hope to have a sheath to get some input on by the next Sunday chat.
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Old 12-12-2014, 11:22 PM
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Couple more pics.

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Old 12-13-2014, 10:10 AM
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That looks much better Ricky! You went to the trouble to build a light box so you obviously want your pictures to look as good as they can. From where you are now, you could continue to tweak the light box and refine the picture even more but there is an easier way. I used PhotoShop Home Edition 4.0 (old and obsolete but very easy to use) to tweak your picture, took me less than 60 seconds to do it. Compare the pictures and if you think the difference is worthwhile then go find a free copy of PS on the internet ...
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1084, angle, blade, brass, build, chefs knife, chris, christmas, easy, g10, kitchen, kitchen knife, knife, leather, lights, made, mirror, mobile, plastic, problem, scales, sheath, simple, supplies, white


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