Improving Lighting for Pre-View

[Mary Case GCF]

Grahame here, can't be bothered to login again..


sort of a in between question here, it isn't software related, but it is hardware/lighting related.

what method of lighting do you guys use to illuminate the area where you photograph your artwork for Pre-view?

we have a very bad lighting problem in general in our shop, LOW VOLTAGE dichroic lamps crossed with energy saving recessed fittings - over the design area we don't have any lighting pointing straight down. so i was wanting some tips on what would be best to fill in -

i had thought of using some heavy wattage retail lights - or alternatively studio lighting, such as fresnels or parcans - both of which i have used in the past - but look out of place

[John]

We have two studio flash units positioned on either side of the camera, set at a distance that will illuminate the subject at 45 degrees.

These units are always used when visualising for our customers. However, when photographing mouldings we sometimes switch off the flash as we have found that the shop lighting can often provide better illumination for 3-D objects. The shop is well lit with 29 2ft-square fluorescent fittings in the suspended ceiling, each carrying four 'daylight' tubes, so there is plenty of light.

I'm not sure that our strobes are strictly necessary, but they do provide that little moment of theatre, something unexpected, a tiny point of excitement that fixes the moment in the customer's mind in a way that just staring at chevrons could not.

[Merlin]

Hi Grahame
Like John we use Fluorescent tubes and the recessed shop lighting systems.

All our tubes are 'daylight' - slightly more expensive but well worth it.

As for pre-view. Nothing extra but the shop lighting and that gives us true colours and a very good copy for the customer.

Standard fluorescent tubes and the energy saving lights we have found give us a 'yellow' tinge to the images.