Back to glassware

[Manfred M]

Some more experiments with water and glassware. I played around with different gel combinations, but somehow the cyan / magenta look keeps working well here.

[Martin A]

I've enjoyed the series of glassware photos you have posted here, with this image being my favorite to date. However, I do find the object behind the bottle and above the rim of the leftmost glass a bit intrusive, as I can not decide what it is or it's significance in the setup. But it might just be my aging eyes and the lateness of the hour.

[Manfred M]

Thanks Martin - I appreciate the comments. That's what I look for when I post here; it gives me someone else's views, someone who does not have the same level of "ownership" that I do. Nicely said, your view is going to be more objective than mine.

Let me respond to your comments:

1. The bottle - the bottle has a hinged stopper and the dark marks are where the wires insert into the bottle. I will retouch that area to remove that distraction. I found the top of the bottle a bit boring as it wasn't doing much with the light, so I place a glass cabochon on top to create a bit of play there. I tried it without and the image works better, in my view.

2. The glass semi-sphere on the back to Glencairn glasses - I got some interesting interaction between the wine glasses and the water, but the glasses on the right created a straight line that needed to be broken up. The glass rods were not quite enough and the way the half sphere catches and refracts the light improves that side of the image.

I hope this all makes sense.

[CatherineA]

It's a serene image and the colours are lovely. The colours in your food shots were lovely too, in a different way of course because they were different subjects. The shot with the red peppers and chopping board were rich and warm colours. Do you do special colour processing?

[Manfred M]

It's a serene image and the colours are lovely. The colours in your food shots were lovely too, in a different way of course because they were different subjects. The shot with the red peppers and chopping board were rich and warm colours. Do you do special colour processing?

Thanks Catherine - I suspect the answer is good lighting; all of the images that you have mentioned were shot with studio lights using some advanced lighting techniques that take some time to set up, but give some remarkable colours. I also have a workflow where I try for a full tonal range in the colours that I use as well as ensuring good global and good mid-tone contrast. I look for saturated, strong colours, but I never either the Vibrance or Saturation sliders to boost contrast. In fact, I often use the saturation slider to reduce the impact of specific colour channels in very specific areas of the image. Virtually all my work is done in Photoshop, rather than Lightroom or Capture One.

The other thing that is unusual about my technique is that I spend a lot of time dodging and burning, so all of my work has very fine tuned local colours, often in the tiny details. I tend to not use any plugins in my processing workflow, but I did use Nik Color Efex in this image (Pro Contrast), but this is the exception, I had not used that software in months.

[Ross]

I really like this photo. The question here is: Is there anything to do with the magenta color on the sides of the cup?

[Manfred M]

I really like this photo. The question here is: Is there anything to do with the magenta color on the sides of the cup?

I'm not quite sure what you are asking here. I used cyan and magenta gels to light the scene, so these colours are refracted by the glassware and the water in the glassware. That is what I was trying to do.

[xpatUSA]

I played around with different gel combinations, but somehow the cyan / magenta look keeps working well here.

Nice choice from the cooler side of colors.

Interesting the way they merge to blue over the bottle ... just as predicted by the standard circle of hues!