April PhotoWorks Contest Voting

I agree with Robs post except one phrase which probably deserves a
'little' more calrification. Directional lights are not targeted at
the origin - all the light is parallel to the vector between the light
and the origin. Its a minor quiblle, but can make folks arrive at bad
decisions so it is worth a word or twenty.
Unlike a spot light that starts at a point and is directed at a point,
directional lights are from a source that is an infinite distance from
the object (think of the sun, which for all intents and purposes is
infinately far... any shadow convergence you see in the real world is
due to perspective, not the large distance between object and the sun)
so all the light it generates is parallel - think of an infinately
large light source where all the light goes the same way.

Why use directional lights to target highlights? Because it is
easier... in a scene where you want the left side of everything to be
brighter for composition reasons (or to carve out an object) all you
need to worry about is the vector, not whether the light is far enough
that it lights the left side of everything and not just the front. In
real-wrpld photo studios, they use large panel lights some distance
away from the product to simulate this - photo studios tend to be
pretty big because they don't have a simple button to creat parallel
light like we do.

Remember, the goal is always 'photo-realistic', not realistic. Pick an
object in your kitchen and take a snapshot of it, then look at how that
object appears in a catalog - unless you are a genius (or lucky) it
always looks better in the catalog because the photographer knew how to
set the scene and give the product its best representation by
controlling the light and reflections on the piece. That is the goal -
tell the story you want about an object by recreating the environments
used by professional story tellers, not get whatever you get by
recreating the mundane real world.

 

There was a glass and lampshade in that picture?

 

<forced hillarity> HA HA HA

Hey, Jeff, what's up? Haven't heard from you in a while.

Yeah, I know, I'm working on my P-works skills. Unfortunately I have a
heterosexual's eye for style. (Not that there's anything wrong with
that). I guess maybe the pic on the cell phone was a bit more
distracting than it needed to be.

 

Hey, it got my vote!

Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems
"take the garbage out, dear"

 

Yeah, I think my CAD nerd days are long over. I just don't get as
excited over the 250+ new features anymore. Ah, the days I used to rant
on here.

The cell phone pic was a welcome change to the grey cubes most of us
stare at for hours or sit in for that matter.