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.