There’s a picture I want to take a photo of and use as a texture in Blender. The picture (actually a very large poster) is framed and glassed. I’m not going to take the poster out of the frame (it cost a small fortune to get it framed to begin with), but I need to know how if anyone has a good suggestion for taking a photo without reflections from the glass.
I don’t have a polorized lens and flash combo, and the glass is highly reflective and if I place the camera in front of the photo with sufficient lighting you can see the camera’s reflection.
I suspect that this is a pipe dream, but I thought I’d ask anyways.
You could try taking multiple pictures at different lighting without moving the camera, including a shot of a perfect mirror at exactly the picture location, and import the results into gimp/photoshop/corel/whatever as layers and work it till you’ve eliminated reflection/specular and kept just the picture.
I think SlikDigit may be on to something. I just did a couple of test pictures by uplighting the picture using a very dim light source (a small flashlight) and taking time exposures. With the right lighting setup (a couple of directional lamps and dimmers) I might be able to get something useable this way.
What kind of camera do you have? If your camera has the right settings and/or you have a good flash you should be able to get a good picture. Here are some tricks that should work (of course you need the right equipment to carry them out):
-If you have a flash with a swivel head, try pointing the flash at the ceiling or a near by wall. This will bounce the light and give a much softer lighting and should eliminate or reduce any glare.
-If you have a camera that can do second curtain flash, then set the camera to use this mode. This will pop the flash at the end of the exposure instead of the beginning and should avoid any glare off the glass.
-If you cant do the above, but your camera can take long exposures, then set the camera up on a tripod and use a long exposure with no flash.
To avoid reflection on the glass use a zoom lense, position the camera as far back from the picture as possible and shoot at an angle slightly off from direct center (either to the side or below).
Have you tried using a polarising filter for you camera?
Buy one and put it on the objective (i presume you have a reflex box) then turn it until the reflection disappear and the colors look the brightest.
ok, what im gonna tell u is a much more round about way, but it could work, and might end up giving u a better quality image… it is the way often used in films to remove camera reflections from doorknobs etc…
basically, take a shot ur happy with - dont worry about reflection, but try and get as less of it as possible… then take the image into photoshop or cinepaint - which ever software ur comfortable with, and try painting over the reflections with the appropriate colours… then just blur and smudge it around a little until it seems to be a part of the image. This involves a little skill though… and you should be able to get a non reflective image… if you can get a sample image online, i may be able to try and alter it for you.
I guess this technique really depends on the amount of reflection there is and how much time you are willing to put into the removal of the reflections.
Oh, and for the shot, use as soft lighting as possible.
Best way is to have the camera as far away(less distorsion) as possible, and have a lightsource(preferably a flash that are not fixed to the camera) at an angle where you get no reflections.
You could try putting a black cloth or something dark in the background when you take your pictures so that if a reflection does show up it is less likely to be seen because of the dark backdrop. Dark backgrounds for me always made reflections less visible. For taking the picture you could do the different exposures, angle, or just straigt on. For the lighting if at all possible have bright lights behind the picture so that you will get more ambient light and not direct flash light. If that does not work then if anything you could try putting it on a scanner… sometimes that can get things without too much glare.
if you are using a digital camera, is there a landscape setting.
My digital camera has a landscape setting. I use it when I take pictures out of airplane windows. It allows the camera to focus behind the glass, thus significantly reducing glare/reflections/etc. I don’t use flash.
Get as far away as you can and use extreme zoom on your camera - as much as you can get. That should take care of the reflection of the camera.
Also eliminate all light sources except for one (easier to do in Blender than in real life) and put that light source off to the side, i.e. not in line with the camera and picture. That should take care of the specular reflection. And don’t use a flash!
