Originally Posted by
Mike Buckley
That's true for all of us and it's a total pain in the neck, at least for me. If we don't regularly use a particular kind of tool, it's sometimes difficult to use it the first few times, especially for certain types of tools.
I'll only mention for now that to make all the lettering stand out, you might like the image better if you had eliminated all unwanted reflections. The only way to do that is to shoot in a very dark environment and eliminate the few remaining unwanted reflections during post-processing. Another solution is to minimize the negative effect of the bright, unwanted reflections and perhaps even make them attractive. To do that, apply dulling spray or cheap deodorant spray to the areas displaying those reflections. (Expensive deodorant spray apparently is nearly transparent and doesn't work as well as the cheap stuff.)
The style of the image (plain tabletop and background with a reflection in the tabletop) has the look of a formal, highly controlled studio style but those reflections of so many other things in the room have the look of a much more informal style as if the bottle had been sitting on a kitchen counter. For me, the two styles don't mix well. That's why it's probably important to deal with the unwanted reflections so long as you use this style of tabletop and background.
You mentioned that you didn't light the letters on the rear side of the bottle well. It might be helpful for you to clarify what you had hoped to achieve and to explain your lighting setup.