Hard light has been in vogue for a few years now, particularly when it comes to product shots and flat-lay setups. It has a bold, modern feel, and can really make colours and contemporary product design shine.
However, if you think shooting with hard light is as simple as removing the modifier and using a bare flash, you’d be wrong. In this video, product photographer Brit Girl Studios explains how she shoots a flat lay in this style and saves her back in the process.
Hard light set up
The hard light look is basically mimicking the midday sun. To achieve the very strong hard shadows associated with hard light you need a small light source. This can be tricky to imitate indoors, so use a bare bulb with no modifier, and position the flash high up and quite far away from the subject. Placing the flat lay on the floor will help increase the distance from the light source. You’ll also need to use the flash on full power most likely, unless you have a ridiculously powerful strobe.
Shoot each individual element by itself so that you can cut it out and play with it in post-production later. If you’re having trouble keeping the items still, you can use museum gel to hold them in place. It’s better than blue-tack because it’s clear, easier to remove, and doesn’t leave stains.
Post-processing
In Photoshop, select the object and its shadow and remove them from the background. With Photoshop’s latest AI tools, this is very easy. You can then duplicate the items, add other ones that you’ve shot, and basically create your composition here.
Is it cheating? Perhaps, there’s a danger that all the items will look too similar, thus giving away the fact that you created the shot mostly in Photoshop. However, it’s a useful trick to have up your sleeve if you need perfection, or need to shoot multiple items of the same thing but don’t have enough of them. You could also shoot each item a few times so that they don’t all look identical.
You can experiment with your own way of doing things as you wish. However, if you are shooting products, a flat lay is an important addition to any portfolio. Knowing multiple ways of creating one is only going to be an asset if you ever need to resort to plan B.
