# Specular Highlights... Feed Back Please



## Steven_urwin (Feb 1, 2013)

I've been trying to work on specular highlights, and I think I'm there, but might just have this completely wrong. Just looking for a little feed back please


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## agierke (Feb 1, 2013)

i would try to control them a bit more by introducing some black cards to flag of the softboxes to the sides of camera position. the highlights on the bottle are huge and distract from the label somewhat. pushing a card in front of the boxes (on camera side) will narrow the edge light towards the edge of the bottle.


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## Orangutan (Feb 1, 2013)

agierke said:


> black cards to flag of the softboxes to the sides of camera position.



The black card idea is interesting, but a studio still-life like this seems a perfect candidate to bracket exposures for a composite image. I don't (necessarily) mean feeding it to an HDR program, but more "old school" style, combining the parts of each image that are properly exposed. This would give you maximum flexibility to expose each part exactly as you like.


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## dafrank (Feb 1, 2013)

Steven_urwin said:


> I've been trying to work on specular highlights, and I think I'm there, but might just have this completely wrong. Just looking for a little feed back please



I don't quite think you've got your terms straight here, but I'll try to help. Ordinarily, specular highlights are very small areas in an overall image - usually what you might call, but are not literally, points of light which read either 255-255-255 or close to it. In any case, your picturte might have a few actual specular highlights, but I would guess that perhaps you are actually referring to the very large highlight areas in your shot and wondering how they look and how they could be improved.

Unless your image could be thought of as "high key," which this image is clearly not meant to be, there should not be very large areas of 255-255-255 (or very close to it) in it, because then these are just commonly defined as "burned out" and contain no useful color or detail. Your large broad highlights in this image are indeed burned out for the most part and are covering up way too much of the main subject - the wine bottle - to make what most people would feel was a good image. Also, your highlights are not connected everywhere where they should be, and some of the edges of the highlights are ragged looking.

The previous poster's suggestion to use black boards to reflect in the bottle is a good one. Also move your light reflectors (or diffusers - whatever they are) more towards either side of the bottle so that the bottle is not so frontlit. Furthermore, you might want to experiment with graduated flags or other similar techniques or devices to gradually "cut" the light output of the main sidelights at their forward edges, leaving a hard 255-255-255 rimlight effect around only the very edges of the bottle as well. Also rmember that, on the wine label itself, you want to show some highlight (in your example at least), but you also want to easily see the detail and color in it as well. Better controlling the highlight levels, size and shape is what you need to do.

In general, experiment, experiment, experiment; move your lights, flags, cutters, reflectors (both black and white) around quite a lot to preview the different possible effects; extra digital captures cost you nothing, so you can try lots of different scenarios without a care in the world. Last, check for flare, detail sharpness (micro contrast) and color balance, all of which you could improve upon in your posted example.

Regards,
David


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## rpt (Feb 1, 2013)

Sorry, but it does not appeal to me. It looks washed out towards the edges of the bottle and the glass. 

Besides, can you take a look again, I see a halo around the bottle and the glass. It is more pronounced between the two. OK, so I am not one of those guys with a calibrated monitor. Mine is a LCD screen of a HP Probook.


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## sanj (Feb 1, 2013)

Do not really understand what you asking, but I so do not like the bounce boards being visible...


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## rpt (Feb 1, 2013)

privatebydesign said:


> You should find this very informative. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsPYqxXNMJ0


Thank you! Looking at the video I figured what I meant by saying _*"It looks washed out towards the edges of the bottle and the glass"*_. See, in the video, he puts a light in the background and that gets the outer shape to show up... I guess it is like shooting a portrait of a model in a studio (not that I have done any - just seen great pictures on this forum) where a background light accentuates the model's hair - or glass in this case 

*Steven_urwin* I guess I have a better response here. Also the neck in your bottle needs work. Take a look a the final image in the video and you will be able to tell.


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## emag (Feb 1, 2013)

You might also want to get that wineglass squeaky clean, I find that somewhat detracting.


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## ChilledXpress (Feb 1, 2013)

emag said:


> You might also want to get that wineglass squeaky clean, I find that somewhat detracting.



+1 Yea, was about to say the same thing... can't do these types of images with dirty subjects. It just distracts and causes the eye to focus on all the imperfections. It also looks blown to me... hate seeing your lighting setup in the speculars. They are not symmetrical, another distracting aspect especially when you’re using symmetrical bounce. Crazy halos too.


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## agierke (Feb 4, 2013)

> The black card idea is interesting, but a studio still-life like this seems a perfect candidate to bracket exposures for a composite image. I don't (necessarily) mean feeding it to an HDR program, but more "old school" style, combining the parts of each image that are properly exposed. This would give you maximum flexibility to expose each part exactly as you like.



this would not work as you would see still see the reflection of the card/box (whatever it is) on each side of the bottle and glass. the black card use is to eliminate that reflection all together in order to reveal the bottle itself more. 



> Do not really understand what you asking, but I so do not like the bounce boards being visible...



this is what i'm talking about. this is a problem of Angle of Incidence = Angle of Reflectance compounded by the curved reflective surface of the bottle and glass. to minimize the effect (or size) of the "highlight" on the bottle you have to use a dark object to block that area that is being reflected.


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