Losing Detail with Matte Black Paint

[eggieweg]

I'm currently working with a Matte Black Paint material and I'm finding that I am losing quite a bit of detail where black items overlap. I've tried several different lighting setups and still nothing works. I'm familiar with the trick for white on white objects where you add a color gradient to the diffuse channel to make the color pop, but there is no diffuse channel in a matte paint material. Is there a similar trick for matte black paint materials? any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Will Gibbons]

I would use a rough plastic material and adjust the roughness/specular color to taste and not make the color quite so dark. You could also try making the white material darker and increasing the brightness and contrast in your lighting.

[Eugen Fetsch]

I'm currently working with a Matte Black Paint material and I'm finding that I am losing quite a bit of detail where black items overlap. I've tried several different lighting setups and still nothing works. I'm familiar with the trick for white on white objects where you add a color gradient to the diffuse channel to make the color pop, but there is no diffuse channel in a matte paint material. Is there a similar trick for matte black paint materials? any help would be greatly appreciated.

This is what a black matte paint is - it devours the light and reflects almost nothing. If you use the Black Matte Paint material from the library, then your lighting might be too homogenous and could leak bright light areas that can be reflected into the camera. I've opened your image in PhotoShop and can see by numbers that it could benefit from some level / contrast adjustment. If you push the values a little, you can make the reflection pop better. In any case - it is more a visual approach then a scientific. You can do it in the render or in post. Choose your side, there is no right one

Cheers
Eugen