Struggling to bring out the correct colours in my colourshift pigments

Hi everyone

I have some Duochrome pigments I need to photograph, these contain colourshifting hues but when I capture the photo with my canon 450d the colours come out as one colour and do not show the colours properly in the photo.

Could anyone please tell me what I’m doing wrong ? I’ve tried to correct the white balance too but the colours are just not showing accurately. I’m having better luck with my iPhone than my slr.

Please advise

Many thanks

This is probably a function of white balance, and you will need great exposure first, then white balance second to bring out the best looking colors.


So...

Get the grey card. Take some white and put a spot on the grey card, then put black on the other side of the grey card (or get one of those 3 plastic card things you can wb with) Take a picture of that filling the frame (and put black underneath it if you cant fill the frame ) and check your histogram.. the first peak should be the white, and you want that over to the right, the grey peak in the middle, and then a peak for all the black on the left side of the histogram.

Once you have the exposure set, then set the wb. Or keep the correctly exposed grey card image as reference so you can use it to set the wb in Photoshop or Lightroom.

Also, what kind of light are you using? is it in a room? are the walls white? are there other strong colors close by? A mix of color temps could also be causing problems. Show a picture and the set up for more help.

Another thought.. what kind of color shift? if you are using flash, on the camera, that could be part of the issue, you may need a directional light that is off axis from the lens.

Hi

Thank you so much for replying with such detAil. I appreciate it.

I’ve attached some photos of what the pigment looks like when it’s swatched on fingers and then when it’s in the pot I struggle to capture the colours with my slr.

The photos I’ve just uploaded here are taken with my iPhone but iPhone is no good with macro.

If I’m honest, I don’t understand white balance very well and the card thing

Thanks again for you helpful reply

As for lighting I am not using anything special, I have a ring light with white light and I use my canon 450d I do not use flash from my camera.

When I go home I’ll post a set up photo.

Bump

Well, I'm not sure the colors will look right in the bottle/container. Perhaps a streak on a white card next to the bottle that has the pigment? so they see what they get, and then what it turns into?

The bottle doesn't do the colors justice, so better to put it on something that will show it off like it will on skin.. is that where it is to end up? Makeup? or applied to objects?

In the bottle, they are all powder and jumbled, on the skin, they are smoothed out where the light will hit it all the same and show the color shift.

The camera should show the colors on the fingers the same as the iphone does, unless the flat strait on of the ring light is causing the problem.

White balance... well, there are all different types of light, and all different color temperatures.. the sun gives off the same light all the time, but the atmosphere bends the waves in the morning and evening as it goes thru a thicker part of the atmosphere. Sodium lights are different temperatures than florescent lights - shade light is different than direct sun. So I am unsure of the conditions your are shooting in, and what color temps you are dealing with.

Since the colors are a powder, as ksbal says they won't show the colors. I'd try filling the containers up and pressing the powder down hard to give a smooth surface which may bring out the color.

The other suggestion would be to paint the color onto a cutout card that fits into the jar. A little cloning will take care of any irregularities. If your photoshop skills are up to it, just paint the colors onto a card, shoot and then drop into the jar photos.

YMMV. Product photographers cheat like this all the time.

I don't think it's white balance, it's angles. Duochrome color varies based on angle I think. You'd have a problem capturing the colors if shot with a long lens when they were painted on a flat surface I imagine, because you wouldn't be seeing enough difference in angle from one side of the sample to another unless you covered a large area.

In the pot it's just a powder right? So you're seeing the particles from every possible angle meaning on that scale you kind of just get one averaged color, I imagine.

Paint it on a flat card, and then bend that card and see if the effect becomes more apparent as you bend it. I imagine that would nail the issue as one of needing it on an irregular/curving surface, like your fingers, to produce enough range of angles between light source/paint/your eye (or camera) to see all the colors it can produce.

I could be completely wrong, it's certainly past my bedtime so I'm not terribly smart at the moment.