Product Image and reflection on pure white background

[emcglade]

Hi Guys,

I am doing some product renders that are to go up on a website. Basically the idea is to have a plane white background and ground plane with a reflection under the product (Either product sitting on the surface or floating above it)The problem is to get a reflection the ground needs to be reflective this reflects the blue tint of light used in the HDR lighting making the ground a slight shade of blue.

Does anyone have any tips on how to get a pure white reflective ground plane that would match the background.

The idea is that these product images will blend in with the pure white background of the website with no boarder around it.

I kind of want to avoid photoshop as there is a lot of images I need to get done quite quickly.

I've added an image of beats headphones on their website. This is what I'am trying to create basically (If its easier I would use a shadow like in this image as opposed to a reflection)

Thanks!

[Ed]

If your lighting is casting a color tint onto the white reflective ground, I don't think you can correct that in KS.  I would render a clown pass, select the ground in Photoshop, and de-saturate the ground.  This would be a very fast fix.

Ed Ferguson

[richardfunnell]

If you have access to the environment editor, you can desaturate your environment and get rid of the blue tint.

[emcglade]

Hi Richard, If I desaturate the enviroment it just makes my whole model desaturated as well does it not?


Hi Ed, Ill give that a go, I wanted to avoid another "step" in the process but it looks like it can't be avoided.

Thanks for the comments guys! Much appreciated!

[andy.engelkemier]

desaturating the environment does Not desaturate your colors. Think of the environment as a light bulb in real life. If you have a yellow lightbulb your image looks warm. If you "desaturate" that and make it a white light, you still have the same colors, but they are less yellow.

One other thing to mention is that what your asking for is not possible to photograph. Every reflection you see in a photograph, the white isn't pure white. If the photographer exposes the light to be exactly 255, then the only reflection you would see is in shadow. The reason for that is because if the surface is reflective, and you want it to be white, then you have to put a white object (probably a light or a really good reflector) behind the objects so that the floor reflects only white. This means the only reflections you get are darker, so often appear to be shadows unless they are Very carefully lit.
So that might give you Some ideas on how to accomplish it.

That being said, it's not impossible in renderings. You've seen them everywhere. But also, be reminded to use those reflections sparingly. People won't know why, but they'll recognize them as renderings if you go overboard.

One thought: don't use reflections at all. Duplicate your entire group of objects and place them upside down under a transparent floor. This is an old gamer trick. In some older games shadows were hard to calculate, but there was a bit of extra room in memory for a duplicate character. You'll be able to control the amount of "reflection" you get by simply adjusting transparency. AND if you hide the plane and render yourself a depth map, you can even use that as a mask for the transparency of the reflection and adjust the depth of the reflection making parts further away from your object less visible. You could also give the reflection a Slight blur with that same mask, making the reflection seem slightly less crisp. (if you do that, be sure and keep it Very slight) But of course, all of these tricks are heavy in the photoshop, which you said you wanted to avoid.

And one last idea to try out, that will Hopefully be somewhat repeatable. Put a white light behind your objects. A really big white light. A plane that covers the entire view, so anything the camera looks at is a white light. Now put a transparent floor to gather some reflections. The white light causes the floor to reflect white for everything that isn't the product, while still allowing you to have some varied reflections on the product. The white light should be a value as low as possible, most likely 1. Too bright and you will change how your product looks to much. The further away you can move that from your product the better. I have used this trick Many times. Everyone always wants a photographic image on a white background with shadows and reflections. I Usually talk them out of the reflections and minimize the shadows. ( I do that by actually taking a picture of a product on a white glossy material, and exposing it enough that it's white. You get almost zero shadow or reflections without a Ton of work. here's an example of about what you get: http://madisonhighschoolphotography.weebly.com/uploads/1/4/4/6/14468448/7638506_orig.jpg?0) But sometimes they still want the "rendered perfume bottle" look.

From the sounds of what they want, I'd go with the last suggestion. You may not even need to desaturate your environment.Don't forget that if it's casting blue on the ground, it's casting blue on your objects. It might give a more natural look by rendering it as is, then white balance it later (easy to do with a PS action)

[emcglade]

Sorry for the late reply. Thanks for the reply Andy that information was very helpful to me. Ill give your final idea ago.

Much appreciated!