Post on 30-Dec-2021
Cans and BottlesDealing with Different Surfaces
Along with the ever-increasing array of beers, there is an ex-
panding number of ways to contain beer. There are differ-
ent colors of glass and different shapes, each of which pose
unique lighting issues, and then there are cans. It used to be
that beer in a can was seen as sort of pedestrian. Cans were
great for cheap beers, but better beers came in bottles. Today,
however, many expensive craft beers are served in cans,
which present problems due to elaborate logos and highly
reflective aluminum surfaces. Actually, each can and bottle
presents its own unique set of issues and problems that need
to be solved. For that reason, there is no single set way to
light a bottle or a can. You need to experiment with different
techniques until you find the solution that works best.
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green, and brown bottles? Light reacting to the acids found
in hops can result in a “skunky” smell. Therefore, many
beers that contain a fair amount of hops are packaged in
brown bottles, which cuts down on harmful rays reaching
the beer. Green bottles somewhat reduce sunlight dam-
aging beer while clear bottles do nothing at all. Why not
put all beers in brown bottles? It’s primarily a marketing
issue. Green bottles reflect a certain status because many
European brewers use them. Clear bottles allow you to see
the color of the beer inside.
For our purposes, the different colors of the bottles pose
different challenges. It is easier to see the highlights reflect-
ing off a brown bottle than a clear bottle, but you need
significantly more light coming through a brown bottle to
get it to glow. With a clear bottle, it’s easy to make the beer
appear too light as you bounce light through the bottle. For
this reason, a white card is used to bounce light through a
clear bottle while a gold or silver card is often more effec-
tive when lighting green or brown bottles.
Glass Colors
Glass is very tricky to photograph. Light passes through it
and bounces off it, making it transparent and reflective at
the same time. When photographing beer, you usually want
to embrace both of these characteristics: You want light to
pass through the bottle so the beer glows a bit, and you
want light to reflect off the surface to help create dimen-
sion and sparkle (see “Reflective Surfaces” for details).
When it comes to the glass in beer bottles, another tricky
aspect is the different colors. Why is beer bottled in clear,
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Reflective Surfaces
A
Glass and aluminum cans are highly reflective. This is both
good and bad. Their reflective quality allows you to bounce
light off their surfaces, but it also means that things in the
studio or on the set can be reflected as well. Generally
speaking, when a surface is highly reflective, it makes sense
to use a broad diffused light source. This enables you to
create long graceful highlights. As we saw earlier, spraying
the bottle or can with Crystal Clear of other sprays helps
soften and diffuse these highlights.
Now, let’s look at two ways to create edge highlights to
create highlights and dimension. The first image is of a can
that has been sprayed with Crystal Clear and is lit with a
medium strip light (A). There’s a fill card on the right side
and a gold reflector to the right and behind the can. Even
with the spray coating, the can remains highly reflective. In
fact, it’s too reflective because the highlight obliterates the
first letter of the beer’s name. “Unshine” does not sound like
a particularly appealing beer.
This is the same basic lighting we used for several of the
bottle shots. It worked fine on glass and paper labels, but
it does not work here. The softbox light is too intense and
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creates a highlight with no detail. Therefore, we must find
a way to soften the light even more.
In this next shot (B), we used the same softbox but instead
of pointing it directly at the can we gradated it across a four
foot square of white foamcore. The gradated light bounces
off the foamcore and is reflected onto the can. This pro-
duced a more subtle highlight that still gives the can di-
mension while allowing us to read the entire product name.
This lighting setup reduces the overall contrast on the
can (B). If you prefer the contrast of the first image, you
can add some contrast in postproduction. The final image
(C) has increased contrast created using a curves layer in
Photoshop.B
C
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LabelsBeing able to read the label is important, so make sure the
label is very legible in the shot. In our culture we read from
left to right, so we usually place our main light to the left of
the product, making the left side the highlight side and the
right side the shadow side.
TIP:Generally, it is vitally important to clients that the name of their product is easily readable. If you have to sacrifice part of the name, lose the end of the name not the beginning. You’ll know the product if you are able to read “Bud…” much more quickly than if you can read “…ser.”
Sometimes you will need to add a specific light to just the
label. The Coors shot here had a small grid spot pointed at
the label. The human eye will go to the light area of a shot
or the area of greatest contrast. Putting a light on the label
helps guide the eye to that part of the image. Mirrors and
focusing spotlights are other good tools at your disposal.
If there is a label in the image, in most cases it should be
in focus. Like all things photographic, there are exceptions,
but 99 percent of the time the client wants to see the name
of their product tack sharp.
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TIP:Using Crystal Clear or Matte Finish spray on a label can make the letters appear slightly soft because of the way the sprays diffuse light. Make sure to view the final image at 100 percent to see if this is a problem. If it is, you may need to reduce the amount of spray on the label or eliminate it completely.
We believe you should do as much of your lighting in camera and try and get it in one image.
This is not always possible or practical, so at times you may need to shoot a separate expo-
sure of the label and strip it into the overall shot. Make sure you do not change your aperture
or it may be difficult or impossible to make the final composite.