I think one of your problems is that you are using roughness values of 0 to one, (black to white in the colour ramp.)
This is too extreme Aluminum will not normally look like a mirror (value 0) or be totally rough (1).
I would try values more like 0.15 to 0.45 (you can do variations depending on how shinny/rough you want it to look but I would not clamp values from zero to one in the colour ramp.
In the colour ramp try setting the value (HSV) to 0.15 and 0.45 and play around with those values to get the effect you want.
Obviously as has been said lighting and reflections play an important part in any metalic/shinny surfaces.
I’ve tried different textures. also the ones that DNorman uploaded, but still the effect is not what I want. Maybe it’s a matter of rendering settings or indentation of the lighting, which I’ve already tried changing. When I check the texture on a monkey or a square, it looks cool, but when I put it on my ramp, it doesn’t
Plus, don’t get overboard with surface imperfection (except that was your intention), a product photographer always chooses the best item when they can, and always wipe the product to make it finger-print free and dust-free as much as possible, i sometimes wear a glove when dealing with the highly smooth product.
Check again your bevel value, compare it to a similar object, and is it realistic or not.
Now, for the lighting part
i suggest ditching the HDRI images completely for studio shots (or at least choosing a clean indoor studio-like background with even light), and always start with complete darkness when placing/adjusting your light. And always adjust your light one by one to know exactly which light contributes to which part, and only add more light if it is necessary, more light does not equal better light.
your light placement is too flat and parallel with the object, also, what is the purpose of using 8-area light that way?
you need some light and dark gradients to create a sense of depth, you can achieve that by not putting the light directly facing the object but placing it at an off-axis angle, or you can use linear-gradient texture to simulate a light hitting a scrim/diffuser.
If you want some parts of the sheet to be darker, put a black flag/plane to block some light.
after you are done with the Key light, lift up your shadow with fill light/ambient light to reduce the contrast ratio.
If you find it difficult to control the reflection, separate your light into 2 categories, one for illumination, and one for reflection. Illumination doesn’t get affected by camera placement, but reflection does.
only use your HDRI when you really need to lift the overall brightness or ambient light.
thank you very much for the advice! I will try without hdri. As it gives the light of the area at an angle, then when viewing the camera, the light is in a different place than I want. If it gives one light on one side of the ramp, there is also a light on the other ramp. and these 8 lamps pretty much evened it out for me.
are the rendering settings ok? and maybe you know why the scale, e.g. on noise texture, works differently for me than for people on youtube videos, I mean that, for example, someone gives a scale of 5000 and I have to give 0.020 (then noise is connected to the object)
I think this is one of the problems, you try to make it “even”, so it’ll create a flat-looking image, and the Initial light from the HDRI makes it worse because you can’t completely control it.
If you look at BTS of some product photographers, you’ll realize that they use a few light but with additional item to “control” the light, like this photo
The top light with scrim at an angle to create overall light and gradient, the white card act as reflection, the black foam deepens the shadow, all the light except the main light is using snoot to limit the light-spill.
I think the render setting is ok, maybe lower your noise threshold a bit for the final render.
Are you using a realistic size/scale when creating your model? Some texture mapping setting affected by the size of the object.
I assume you talking about the top light+scrim? If yes, then just like i already write.
You can use area light with gradient texture, as using a translucent plane in front of the light will make it noisier to render. For the white card, you can use area light with a small strength. if you need black foam to block the light, you can even use a negative-strength light to absorb the light.
In short, not every light has to be directed to the object, especially for reflective object.
It always help to share the project as not all problems are shader related; if the HDR looks too flat when it shouldn’t, it could be excessive focal length on the camera (or worse, orthographic camera), and if the reflections aren’t flat enough compared to the surface it could be lack of forced flattened flat surfaces (often happens with bevel modifier, hence it’s “flatten normal” or use in conjunction with weighted normal modifier). Garbage geometry also tends to cause issues, as does imported geometry and custom normals.
