Castorfan's lightbox and wet dish rag soap

[Guest]

This is the HP soap I decided to try and smooth with a wet dish towel.
It was an afterthought after the soap was in the mold a few minutes.
I think if I had done "the wet cloth thing" as soon as I poured the soap,
it would have worked better.--Oh well, next time.

This is the first photo from the light box I made today. Thanks to you gals
talking about light boxes on this forum. I studied-up and made one! I
justify it permanently placed in the storage room in case anyone at work
needs to photo parts. I still need to learn about light placement, etc. Fun.

 

[Saltysteele]

Looks great!

What camera, lens and strobes ya using?

Looks really nice!

Do you have a pic of your light box? I'd like to make one, myself.

 

[Guest]

I use an automatic/manual Canon Power Shot SD950 IS.
It's a digital 12.1 mega pixel set on the macro setting.

Search "make photo light box" on Google and you'll see 100s of
ideas. Mine is sorta like this one:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= ... tart%3D168

I

I used a curved piece of poster paper to do away with the "horizon" =
seamless background. Bought a bunch of various colors.

 

[Saltysteele]

no way!

it's amazing how something so simple can produce such spectacular results!! yours looks awesome!

 

[Vic1963]

WOW...Ill have to try that..... I can never find a good place to soap pics..

 

[Guest]

beautiful soap , love the color.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, gang -- I've been playing with my camera a lot today.
Photos of soap for a friend -- shrink-wrapped and ready to be
picked up this week (I have about 12 for him -- here's two).

Guess I need to pay more attention to level surfaces. LOL

 

[Saltysteele]

CF

depending on how serious you want to get, there are many photo editing programs out there.

you'll run into a lot of purists out there who will use the term photoshopping, as an all-encompassing term, whether adjusting lighting or totally changing the pic, as the same thing.

#1 - okay, you show me a film photographer who doesn't use a lightroom, and i'll show you a million dollar bill. the computer is our lightroom with dig images. whoever looks down on photoediting software is ignorant.

#2 - refer to #1

anyway, if you want your images to be as true to light as possible, you're going to need a program to correct your white balance, fix any blemishes and fix alignment issues. you'll be able to fix that alignment easy as pie.

#3 - anyone who tells you their images have no adjustments done, unless a very, very talented expert, is full of dog doo. the camera, through the settings, is applying adjustments, whether you're doing it consciously, or not. i prefer to shoot in RAW, and edit in PS. it takes a little more effort, but in this case, I am choosing what adjustments are being applied, not the camera maker who sets these macros in the camera.

sorry... didn't mean to go on like this. the term photoshopping is a sore toe, and i stepped on it myself and got myself all riled up this is a subject that i've gone rounds with in other forums


crop and adjust your pic, fix the white/color balance, little bit of unsharp mask and it'll look like it's in a catalog.
[/i]

 

[kittywings]

I didn't even realize that there were photographers that tried to say they didn't use photo-editing. EVERYTHING is photoshopped nowadays.... I stayed up all night once when my friend (former graphic artist) showed me "liquify" on photoshop. I can make myself look anorexic, it's AMAZING!!!
I did this in about a minute... so it's not high quality work by any stretch,

Me backstage messing around:

Unedited- YIKES!

1 min Photoshop Job w/semi-subtle changes

 

[IrishLass]

Hey Castorfan, we have the same lightbox! They are so simple to make, so inexpensive, and they work great!

KittyWings, my hat goes off to you for being able to figure out Photoshop. That thing was like a headache waiting to happen for me. I did a couple of really cool things on it, but it took me forever and a day to figure out how to do just those 2 things. Roxio's PhotoSuite is much more my speed. I'm fairly wet behind the ears when it comes to photo editing (okay, very wet), and PhotoSuite is very kind and gentle to me.

IrishLass

 

[kittywings]

I'm pretty good with computers, but it still took me a bit and I'm still no expert... you have no idea how excited I was when my friend showed me that trick and let me borrow his HUGE photoshop reference guide. I had no idea it could do so much... I don't think I can remember most of it, but just knowing it's possible makes me feel all warm and squishy inside!

 

[Milla]

cute pics.....all of them! Told hubby I needed a light box too and you should've heard the groan. He said "What next, a studio?"

 

[dagmar88]

:| Did I see correctly you put shrink wrap around your CP bars?

 

[Vic1963]

I shrink mine after they have all dried out....but both ends are open , so it is not a complete shrink.

I want to protect my soaps from dirt and damage... lol.

 

[Guest]

I shrink mine after they have all dried out....but both ends are open , so it is not a complete shrink.

I want to protect my soaps from dirt and damage... lol.

That's what I have -- there's a pull-tab zip opening at the bottom -- ends exposed.

I'd love to have a photo section of the forum. We could upload lousey
photos, someone with experience can fix them -- tell us what they did!

I have Paint Shop Pro (very similar to Photo Shop) but I don't know how
to use all the features.

 

[Guest]

I googled how to make a lightbox. It is so easy and I am making one tonight. Ty for the idea

 

[Vic1963]

I want a photo light box..... Gonna have to work on one of those.

I also have PaintShopPro, sometimes I use it, but most times I just put my photos up as is.....that way you see what they really look like.

If I were putting them in an add to sell them, I would for sure do a better job with the photos.

 

[Saltysteele]

castorfan's picture, edited

 

[Guest]

Where did the glare go? LOL

My sister saw that photo and told me not to get glare.
HOW?
I already have tissue paper diffusing the light.
She told me to cover the light with cloth!
I did -- it helps.

Don't have a clue how you did that with Photo program.

She also told me to get white, gray and black felt cloth instead
of that too-bright poster paper background.

All tips, suggestions, tutorials welcomed.

 

[Saltysteele]

it's magic!

i used the spot healing brush on the left side of the bar, and the clone stamp (my prefered) on the right side. with clone stamp, you select where to copy from, and then the first click determines the spacing. in other words, I alt-click in one spot (clone from), then click to the right 1" (target). from that point on (until a new clone-from location is selected), when you click in any spot, it will clone the pixels from 1" to the left. the trick is to not use too much of a hardness. if you keep it somewhat smooth, you won't have noticeable definement of the clone stamps (the blend better).

i use adobe CS2, but most programs have this feature.