PHOTO: Sanitizer bottle. Second try

I have just started resubmitting to iStock after taking a couple of years off. I am getting lots of rejections and wanted to run this through the forum before resubmitting in hopes that I can avoid another rejection. The first submission was rejected for lighting issues, over processing and sensor spots. I believe I have addressed all of the issues but would appreciate any feedback on problem I may not be seeing.


http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21724072/Sanitizer_Critique.jpg


Thanks in advance for any help and advise.

(Edited on 2013-01-29 09:13:20 by kelvinjay)

Shot at 200 ISO but looks very noisy to me. Lighting is problematic, there are parts of the bottle that are blown out and which just blend into the background, such as the very top of the pump dispenser.

Your background light source is too bright and the front too weak resulting in the blown areas kelvin mentioned. Or you brightened the white too much to get to 255 and lost detail in the bottle. Brightening the bottle probably introduced noise. Regarding the sensor spots, either they are spots or bubbles if they look like a spot get rid of them. There are a few on the right middle area of the bottle and the shadow. Additionally, you have a number of stray pixels where your white background is not white. Check the upper right area and around the shadow there are a number of strays I would get rid of before submitting. I would not submit this, rather I would work on perfecting the concept in camera than trying to correct it in post.


Try Image/Adjustments/Equalize in Photoshop and you will see many of the problem areas pop up quite visibly.

Thanks kelvin and Banks for the input, especially the Equalize suggestion. That is not a tool I have used in the past but will be using it heavily in the future to double check my images.

There's probably not a lot of hope for salvaging this file - it's just not cleanly executed enough. In controlled lighting situations like this we now expect pretty close to perfection. There are countless contributors here who can create a top-notch product shot of something like this with all the i's dotted and the t's crossed. This one is not properly exposed, is noisy, has focus fall-off, and problematic details such as the product inside the bottle looking not being horizontal.

I absolutely agree that this is an opportunity to perfect the shooting technique rather than attempting a post fix.

Welcome back, BTW!