# Not a pen but how is this lighting achieved?



## Carl Fisher (Aug 25, 2015)

Scrolling through some photos on fountain pen network on watches and pens and ran across this image.  Maybe the photography experts in the group can shed some light on this (no pun intended)

How is this lighting effect achieved so that the face is so well lit yet everything beyond the face is kept relatively dark. If I tried to get that kind of lighting on the face, the entire background would end up blown out along with it.

I could easily see a fountain pen nib highlighted in this way.


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## SteveJ (Aug 25, 2015)

You could do that with Photoshop, overlay one photo on another, shade the one on top and delete the face so the brighter picture underneath shows through.


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## Akula (Aug 25, 2015)

paint with light would be my guess


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## mredburn (Aug 25, 2015)

I have seen it done as an HDR using 4 or 5 shots with a small spot put in a different place for each shot with the rest of the booth entirely dark. That particular picture was for a gun add.


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## farmer (Aug 26, 2015)

*Lighting/photography*



Akula said:


> paint with light would be my guess


 

That is what I was thinking too.

Link on how to light paint 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uT6tmYqFcQ


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## mike4066 (Aug 26, 2015)

Im thinking a snoor aimed across the face


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## monophoto (Aug 26, 2015)

The conventional photographic techniques here include:
1.  Broad light source close to the subject - the key point here is that the light source had to have been larger than the watch face, but that doesn't mean that the light source was enormous since watches are fairly small.  A 2" diameter source with a diffuser and a snoot placed as closely as possible to the watch while staying outside the image frame seen by the camera.
2.  Black non-reflective background matter - obviously some fabric in there, but the photo cleverly disguises most of the background.  
3.  Significant separation between the subject (the watch) and the background.  Light intensity decreases with the square of distance, so the diffused light source had to be fairly close to the subject, but fairly far away from the background.

In addition, I suspect some kind of post-processing to further darken the background.  In the digital world, that would be fairly simple, but in the traditional workflow, creating this effect would have required significant work and skill.


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## erickeithscott (Sep 24, 2015)

If you have questions about photographing products feel free to email me and ask, eric@erickeithscott.com I have been a professional product photographer for 20 years and this is what I do daily for a living.


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## MikeinSC (Sep 24, 2015)

A big soft box or a tent and properly lighting the subject. Get it right in the camera first before putting it in photoshop or lightroom.


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