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Trouble Photographing Urethane Eyes

Feb 19, 2016

    1. I just received my first pair of urethane eyes, and I'm having some serious difficulty photographing them. The pair in question are Mako Eyes' Owl-011 in 12mm. I have them in my WITHdoll Rosa, and they look absolutely wonderful, but I can't seem to capture their beauty.

      The best photos I got of the eyes were under a normal ceiling light with incandescent bulbs. Example here.

      However, every time I try and take photos of the eyes in my lightbox or in natural lighting, they come out looking like a blue-teal color, and oftentimes have too much shadowing to properly see.

      Examples of different lighting can be seen below:

      [​IMG]

      [​IMG]

      I use Adobe Lightroom to enhance my photos, but it doesn't seem to be helping my situation even slightly. If I do manage to brighten up the eyes, they just turn in to a teal color, which is obviously not what they actually look like.

      Does anyone know how to get around this issue? These eyes are gorgeous and I'm bummed that I can't get any good photos of them. :vein
       
    2. the hair of your doll shadowing the eyes to much. Try photographing her with a light frontlight (desk lamp,flash against piece of white paper which you place at your dolls feet etc.)
       
      • x 2
    3. If the color seems "off" it is almost for sure a white balance
      problem.

      If your camera supports RAW capture use it and include a
      standard gray card in one of the shots so you can use the
      white balance tool in your RAW conversion program to set it
      correctly.

      Also be sure that the eyes are lit from the same source as
      the doll's face. In your second image above they are in shadow
      so not the same light as the rest of the face.

      If you're lighting from above you might consider using a reflector
      to fill the shadows adding light to the eyes.
       
    4. @Uminari and @TomB, here's a photo from my lightbox (which has 4 lamps and is all white), that has been enhanced with Lightroom and had as much white added to it as possible, while still looking natural:

      [​IMG]

      I'm still getting a weird dark blue-ish color.

      I don't think my camera is that advanced, as it's rather old. But I'll be sure to check out the settings and see if it supports RAW capture.
       
    5. The incandescent bulbs appear to throw a warm (yellowed) light while your light box, camera flash, and retouch software probably throw a more cool or pure white illumination. Try changing out the lamps of the lighting you use when photographing her to "warm white" or photographing her in natural light where greens and blues in the surrounding setting will bring out the rich green of her eyes. If that turns out a good result in the eye color without a lot of touch ups (& bleaching) being necessary, then the color balance is more of the issue than the white balance. Direct yellow toward the eye, so that it catches the green and gets reflected back to the camera. If you don't want the yellow to clearly appear on the rest of her, you could use the white light sources farther back to keep the rest of her illuminated "white" while the eyes still get hit only by "gold."
      A quick way to try it is with a handheld flashlight with warm white beam. Don't hold it *too* close, just get that yellow into the eyes so the camera sees it.
       
      • x 1
    6. @Lokinta, this is a great idea! I'll be sure to try it out ASAP.
       
    7. my last resort is photoshop
       
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