Studio Product close ups - just too close?!

Quicksnapper

Quicksnapper

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Sara
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Hello all ... been lurking rather than posting lately, but have an interesting issue which I'm wondering if you wise folks may be able to help me with. My friend has started a business selling horse bridles and I'm helping her with some images so she can set up a web site to sell these items. I have done some product shots for her of reins (essentially 2m long strips of leather - either plain or with with various types of rubber grips on them) and she wants some detail shots showing the hand stitching, buckles, stud billet fastenings etc. These details are close up and small and I've done a series of shots using my Canon 5DIII with a Canon 100mm macro lens, tripod mounted and with good light in a light tent. The shots themselves are good IMO, but friend thinks they make the leather look poor quality!! (it's actually very expensive, high end product!) as they show the grain and texture in the surface finish. But she still wants the close ups, so how on earth do I take close ups of this type of product detail, without showing up the texture of the leather ..... leather is a material with a texture and grain when viewed close up, so I'm a bit at a loss! I've tried it using a 50mm and zooming in which effectively gives a very similar result, I have access to other lenses and a crop sensor camera (7D) but can't think that using other kit will make a difference. Do I just need to educate my friend on the niceties of close up photography, take blurry images, modify the lighting in some way to soften the effect?? I'm a bit lost tbh ... I should add that I'm strictly an amateur and not getting paid for all this heart ache and effort .... just trying to help a friend in need, which is never a great idea ..........!!! Thank you for any thoughts you may offer.
 
Show us a shot to give us an idea what are working with.
 
If you get up close to any surface you will start to see more detail. When you stand back and look at something, even a framed picture on a wall your brain does some weird stuff and you get a more generalised view of the whole thing and you miss out on noticing a lot of the detail. You still 'see' the detail but you don't notice it so much. It's like when you first see someone from a distance and guess they are about 50, but when you get up close and see the lines in their face you know they are 64, like me!

That didn't help at all, did it... but it's an interesting question. I'll try shooting some leather later on and see if I can get different results.

Edit: one thing you could try is to put the shot in Photoshop RAW editor and push the clarity slider to the left. That will reduce the local contrast on any detail. It might look slightly soft, but it should take harshness out if the detail.
 
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I'm dipping into this section when I have limited macro experience, but I had a similar thought to Rob above - could you use the adjustment brush in Lightroom to locally reduce the clarity and sharpness, and possibly the contrast of the leather? Perhaps using a low flow and opacity on the brush so it doesn't overdo it? Good luck!
 
Quicksnapper said:
I have done some product shots for her of reins (essentially 2m long strips of leather - either plain or with with various types of rubber grips on them) and she wants some detail shots showing the hand stitching, buckles, stud billet fastenings etc. These details are close up and small and I've done a series of shots using my Canon 5DIII with a Canon 100mm macro lens, tripod mounted and with good light in a light tent. The shots themselves are good IMO, but friend thinks they make the leather look poor quality!! (it's actually very expensive, high end product!) as they show the grain and texture in the surface finish.
Click to expand...
Can you share some samples? My first thoughts are that light tents are a very poor choice for this type of detail shot as the soft multi-directional light will frequently make any finely texture surface look flat, cheap and lifeless. But I'm having to generalise here in the absence of any example photos. Directional light respecting the texture and grain, that would be my starting point for leather. And craft leather goods are a common enough product on the internet that you could task your friend with finding some examples of the type of photography she wants.
 
It may be a daft idea but would the skin softening methods used in lightroom/photshop for portraits help ?
 
For those suggesting post-processing fixes, remember these are product shots for web sales.. careful lighting is good presentation, but with post-processing there's a fine line that tips over into misrepresentation if you go too far.
 
Sounds like you are suffering from "too sharp." Remember that "details" are shown by a combination of highlights/shadows... in order to minimize the texture in the leather you need to light it very flat/soft so as to eliminate highlights and fill in shadows. Of course, this will probably have a similar effect on the details you are trying to show, but assuming they are "larger" than what you are trying to minimize it should work ok. I doubt there is really the ability to light the two levels separately.

Other than that, you can combine images (one slightly soft focused) or something like frequency separation edits.
 
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