Wine stock shots

My take is that they did use matte dulling spray in order to get the soft diffuse highlight. The highlight looks like a strip light or a softbox turned at an angle so the highlight is narrow. Another way to get a diffuse highlight is to put a strip light behind a large diffusing panel. Also, there must be some sort of reflector fill on the right, and the highlight from it was PS'ed out. I suspect the background was stripped out and a new one put in with the drop shadow.

It just goes to show that there is about a gazillion ways to light a bottle!!
I always seem to have issues w/ reflections on the front no matter what I use.

I have tried gallons of dulling spray and really don;t like the effect on most things. I did have a friend that used talc as well as black toner powder to cut down or build up a highlight on different surfaces. This was of course pre PS.

The problem that I think we will agree with is when the client wants an "accurate" color rendition of the contents in the bottle. Back lighting, underlighting, top lighting, snoots, scrims etc all seem to get close but the actual color will probably be altered in post. Ticks me off sometimes.

"Look we added a nice amber glow" he said, don't you love it? GRRRR I think, just give me my money and do what you want to the *&^(*&^%* image.

How the hell do you get the color of a blush from a bottle that is not 100 % schott glass? HMMMM? Do I dunk my spectrophotometer in the bubbly? HMMm?

I did a shoot years ago where the client wanted each bottle sat on a wine barrell and with a glass of the stuff, cross screen stars from the rim, of the glass, fireplace in the background. And each bottle to "glow". Well we cut a hole in the barrell, stuck a regular lamp inside and viola glow. Wrong color glow. Gel it !! Red, amber, yellow, no major effect on the glow he wanted it as amber as he could get it.

So I opened the other bottle (we only had two to pick from. And showed him the liquid inside. It was a chianti...... you can't see through it. Apparently the AD had sold the idea of a reflection reversed in the bottle too.

Shot it my way after that all was good with the world...

Good luck with your AD,

Les

AD's too often have vivid imaginations and absolutely no intelligence or common sense!

Wilt wrote in post #2793958
AD's too often have vivid imaginations and absolutely no intelligence or common sense!

HERE IS ME STANDING AND APPLAUDING VERY LOUDLY!!!!

Les

Got to bed at 4am. Tried matte spray, polariser, lighting from every angle you could think of, P/shopped the hell out of it and STILL I could not match the bloody samples. I spoke to them this morning and showed them a few shots. 'Very nice,' she said,'but it does'nt look like the samples does it?'
I said she would be better off going back to the original photographer if she wanted the same result. 'He's far too expensive!' She said. The mind boggles.

Post some shots so we can see how close/far to the desired result you got. It might be a matter of a few suggestions that resolves the 'shortcomings' seen by the AD!

Will do mate. Going away for weekend so I will post them on return. Just got off phone now and she says she wants me to do the shots! Result! White wine is quite simple, red is still giving me grief. They want 18 shots in all so should be a nice earner. Just that bloody red..mmmm.

The sample shots you took look like they are floating. You need a bottom shadow if you want to match what they want. Light it from directly above to get the same shadow effect as the one you posted. (as well as a left side fill). (make sure when you dull spray you tape off the logo so you get a crisp logo).