Tips for Lighting documents and/or books?

[Myblue]

Do you guys have any tips for lighting books/documents. Obviously a controlled environment will be the first step, but what would you recommend if what you have for lighting is: One softbox, an omni, a pro-mist, and a few gels. Thanks!

[FTOJRLST]

Go Here.....

http://www.englighting.com/

Also, if you can get to a decent public or college library you should be able to find something.

[Flash Gordon]

When lighting documents, there is one particular thing I do requires an omni, two gels, and some scotch tape. You tape the two gels together, but leave a small sliver of space between them. (You may have to play with it a little bit). When you get it right, you have colored documents and a sliver of white light that you can use to highlight specific text in your document. I tend to use blue and red with police docs for obvious reasons. Play with it, and get it the way you like it. If you dont have time for gels, use you omni with the barndoors. Instead of the direct light, use the spill coming out of the sides. There are generally cool slivers of light, and such cominig from the spill.

[Baltimore Shooter]

Didn't we have a thread about this recently? do a search on the general Discussion forum on it.

Warren

[Sportsguy]

Stripe lighting is fun! Yay!

[Lost in Alaska]

There is also a bit about this in the tips and tricks section elsewhere on this site.

[pre-set]

Use a hard light source from the side. It make the "grain" of the paper stand out and looks nice and dramatic.

[sagarian]

Beta tape cases are also handy for shaping light if you're short on time.

If you want a dramatic look, I've used a sheet of cardboard with slats cut out (think Venetian blinds) to good effect.

[goodfoot]

I've found it is much quicker to shoot the doc with even light, then use my editing software to "paint" lighting effects, highlights or streaks. We use Avid and I have a few effects stored in a bin I can recall and it only takes seconds. Not only is it faster this way, but I can get much more precise control of how the doc looks and when/where highlights appear.

[That Camera Guy]

Consider scanning the pages and bringing them into an NLE. You can animate them easily in Avid or Final Cut. You can even crop and layer them so just the parts you want are large with the entire document in the background.

If you know After Effects you can do a lot of really cool stuff in 3D space with the virtual lights and cameras.