Low Contrast Studio Lighting & Shadows

[evanstuart]

Hey All,

Probably missing a past thread on this already (or maybe not), but, I'm trying to figure out how best to set up a scene to achieve similar results to the shots below. My main objectives are :

- Achieve an almost uniformly well-lit background (no harsh light blowouts on the product)
- Cast a simple one direction shadow

It looks like in all images, there is one main light (guessing the keylight) used to create the shadows. I've tried setting up a scene using a large area light, and used pins to illuminate the rest of the HDRI to provide a good balance of even lighting but am experiencing awful overexposed images.

Would anyone be willing to show (screenshot settings of HDRI or layout of scene) to help create the style of images seen below?

Thanks to any help given!

[nicordf]

Hi Evan,


Have you tried changing the background to color and selecting a let's say 90% white bg?


That way you'll still have your ground shadows but against an "evenly lit" background.


That being said, render to a 32bit psd, include a clown pass and you'll have more control of the curves and objects in post.

[RRIS]

All the light pins in your HDRI will cast shadows, but it's all about how intense they are relative to each other.
If you have one pin that is much brighter than all the others combined, that will still give you a nice clear cast shadow whilst at the same time allowing you to use the other pins purely for reflection.
For example, you can have multiple pins (think big softboxes) for your reflections, with an intensity of 1.. and then have 1 very small radius pin with an intensity of 100 for your cast shadow (and since it's so small, it will probably not even show up in your reflections, leaving you pretty free where you actually place it).
Then experiment with your background color to create more or less contrasty reflections (white softboxes on a black background are more contrasting than having a gradient or white background).

[evanstuart]

Hey RRIS,

This is brilliant advice. Thanks a million for that. From both yours and Nicordf, I figured out exactly what I wanted. Delighted!

Thanks everyone!

[RRIS]

Hey RRIS,

This is brilliant advice. Thanks a million for that. From both yours and Nicordf, I figured out exactly what I wanted. Delighted!

Thanks everyone!

Glad to hear that!

[TiewBall]

thank for your advice a lot.