On many products a shiny, polished or high-gloss, finish is either desirable or may even be essential for the product’s functionality. Anyone who has taken a snapshot in a mirror, or through a window will immediately appreciate the challenges inherent in imaging shiny surfaces.

Problem

The integrated, co-axial, direct lighting in your camera reflects directly off the material’s surface into the camera’s image sensor, producing a blob of indistinguishable light.

This, obviously, means that the camera cannot detect the surfaces edges to perform its job correctly.

Solution

In order to avoid this situation there are several possible implementations which, depending on the shape, colour and material of the product will provide a light to suit your needs.

LED Ring light with Diffusion Dome: This setup will change your surface’s effective reflectivity in the image from “glossy” to “matt”. This allows accurate detection as neither glare, nor shadow, will occur within the highly diffuse lighting zone.

Low Angle with LED Bar lights: It may be, for your particular application, that this configuration is more appropriate. With this you can arrange the bar lights in either a parallel or square arrangement to most effectively highlight your product’s surface features. The low angle creates a more diffuse, less reflective light, allowing greater contrast and an overall better image.