products in transparent plastic bags

[schmoukiz]

I've searched all I could for some tutorials on product photography that would involve items that come in plastic packages. They prove a total nightmare for me. The obvious problem is that the plastic shines or makes the product inside indistinguishable.

I have two strobes, a product igloo, softboxes, nothing seems to nail this one. I got somewhat better results by abandoning technique altogether for these ones and using natural light and higher ISO. This gets better looking image from afar, but the details are horrible and I'm forced to clip the object out of its background.

The last I'm struggling with is a see through package of candies, the candies inside being wrapped in plastic or aluminum foils themselves! All I could find were tutorials on shooting glass bottles, but that's nothing compared to the millions of reflections these things make. Not to mention that putting them in a vertical position is impossible, which makes the tent useless.

I've faced similar problems with products that come in hard plastic casings to their shape. (You can't always convince the client to let you tear the plastic off the product ) )

So any suggestions on how to eliminate reflections of a plastic bag product and even get nice white bellow the bag would be helpful.

 

[Quantum Help]

As far a shooting the package of candies, vertical, think outside of the box. Instead of having the tent vertical and the candy bag standing up, lay the tent down and have the bag lying flat on the back of the text. Shoot the camera straight down into the tent. Drop out the BG in photo shop as a layer. Have a colored background layer under it and then use a drop shadow effect on the bag layer to give 3D effect.

 

[robertfel]

I had to shoot body lotions, sprays, etc., that were part of a gift set in a clear, reusable bag; the kind you'd use for a weekend trip.

I shot the EMPTY bag with a white background behind it. The only thing that showed was the logo on the clear plastic, the seams and the zipper.

Then I styled the products as if there were in the bag and shot the products. I then combined the two shots and added a tiny bit of reflection to the bag.
It looked awesome.
You should be good at masks and making selections.

 

[slowhands214238]

1) Get the book - Light, Science and Magic

Two approaches for this hard situation

• Cross Polarize your light sources vs Lens

Film polarize your large light source
and use a polarizer on your lens too

Read the book noted above... you should be able to get rid of darn near all glare.

• Think in layers

Shoot the bag / packaging by itself
Shoot the contents by itself
Combine in PP; adjust opacity to taste.

One easy solution - Just say NO to these types of shoots...if you can!

 

[Hugowolf]

I’d go with Slowhands on this one, either shoot the bag and contents separately, and combine in Photoshop, or use cross polarization.

I don’t agree with polarizing a large light source, apart from anything else it can be quite expensive. Just use aligned polarizing gels on the lights and a circular polarizer on the lens. You can use the modeling lights to regulate how much polarizing effect you want.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/45130-REG/Rosco_101073001720_Polarizing_7300_Filter.html

or here if you need larger sizes
http://www.polarization.com/polarshop/

A light tent is the worst possible thing to use for this. Light coming from all direction onto a reflective surface isn’t going to work.

Brian A

 

[24Peter]

I've done a little work with similar product and am wondering if all you need are one or more small, off-axis light source(s). Off-axis limits the reflections on the surface, while still lighting the contents of the bags. And a small source makes any remaining reflections along the edge of the bag easier to remove in Photoshop. Light the background so there is a gradient from light to dark so any background showing thru the bag is darker than the foreground. This way if you clip the product from the background, the transparent areas of the bag will appear more grey than white providing contrast if the items are displayed on a white web page.

Also, some reflections on the surface of certain products are perfectly acceptable and help create a natural looking image.

Why not post some images? Maybe we can give some more ideas if we can see what you've been doing.
--
View my photo galleries here: http://imageevent.com/24peter
Model Mayhem: http://www.modelmayhem.com/93181

 

[Paigee1185]

so after doing much research and googling about trying to shoot plastic bags for circular ads, without much edit work (since I am shooting MANY, and need it to move quickly) I found nothing... and then today it hit me! Why not use two pieces of glass to "squish" the product into the semi-square shape its suppose to be.. i have always used a ground set.. placed up on a sheet on glass above the background.. so that I can control the light on the background separately from the product. I use two grid lights placed a either corner of the bag, and keep them as low as possible, while also keeping the product lit. Then today I decided to take a second piece of glass and place it on top of the product so that it flattens out any wrinkles that are distracting, it also keeps any highlights that occur to a minimum making photoshop work unnecessary.. so far ) Hope this helps anyone else out there trying to figure out a good way to shoot plastic bags such as chips, or candy, or anything else plastic and highly reflective.

 

[han47]

Hello Paigee,

thanks a lot for the idea.

I did 5 kg bags and 500 g sachets with wallnuts and hazelnuts just a month ago.
It was an in a hurry thing for a trade show. The commercial people left the next day and weren't sure their samples had all been allowed in to Japan.

I tried lots of things in the night before they went, it came out pretty allright and they did a nice book with the photo's but wat a hell off a job. The best result was two softboxes very low left and right.

Plastic crinkeling with bulgy nuts under it, very hard to control for me.

Next time I'll try your suggestion, heck i'll even try it tomorrow to see if this it.

Anyway good thinking, even if it's not a 100% solition.

Ciao, Han.

Edit, they themselves did the available light thing in the patio, zero pop