Topic: How to photograph items that carry text meant to be read through the glass?

[Bernard C]

I've been struggling for two days trying to find a satisfactory way of lighting and photographing glass objects with text and decoration meant to be viewed through the thickness of the glass.

Such objects include souvenir, commemorative, and advertising items, such as paperweights, ashtrays, plates, trivets, &c.

As you will see from my dreadful photograph here, light such objects conventionally and the text and picture all but disappear.   You may find it hard to believe but that photograph was the best of about thirty I took!

I've been trying something completely different — lighting from one or more sides, against a matt black background — with slightly more success, but it's nowhere near acceptable yet.

Please would some kind member point me to or provide some authoritative guidance on this.

Bernard C. 

[Pinkspoons]

I don't know about authoritative, but I've had some luck with lighting items with moulded decoration from behind on a small white perspex stand with built-in lighting meant for tracing pictures, etc...

Back-Lit
Side-Lit

[David E]

The best way, I find, is to experiment with the angle of the lighting and the easiest way to achieve this is to hold the item and just maneouvre it until you achieve the correct contrast.

You have to try and light one edge, while keeping the other in shadow, so using a dark piece of card on one side might help as well. So lighting it from the back and to one side only should get the best result, or even reflecting the light off a white surface.

You can also try suspending a sheet of glass above the surface so the item can sit on it. The lighting can then be freely moved around the item.

But don't worry about whether the resultant photo looks too dark, as this can be compensated by fiddling with the contrast/brightness using a photo-editing program. Even fingers can be removed as required

[taylog1]

Something I've tried before with some success - use your computer screen as a backdrop for the object - gives an even light with no spots (I just open a blank word document) - you can even play around with colour and brightness reasonably easily.
I did need though a reasonably long shutter speed to wash out any lines from the CRT scanning

taylog1