How to make good looking PCB photo?

[Avien]

Hello.
I would like to ask how are you making good looking photo of your PCB with every component soldered?
I am trying to do some myself, but light always get in my way reflection, too bright or too dark, etc...
Do you use some kind of stand, with white or black background?

I need those photos to paste them in my engineering work 

Any tips will be appreciated

Avien

[Thor-Arne]

Try getting or making a light tent.

[pickle9000]

Take the pics outside on a cloudy day, use a zoom lens and a tripod.

[AlfBaz]

What sort of camera do you have?
If you can set the shutter speed and focal length then just use ambient light.

Set it to a high f number so that the whole board is in focus and then adjust the shutter speed to give you good exposure. just a little ambient light should give you no reflections

The 2 pics below where taken at f6.3 during the day, the first with the curtains open with an 8 second exposure the second one with the curtains closed, lights off and pretty dark in the room with a 30 second exposure.

Place the camera on a stand or something stable and do a timed exposure. this allows you to press the shutter release and give the camera a moment or two to stop rocking before it takes the picture

[TonyGreene]

If you have a camera, where you can change the ISO setting, set it as high as you can go before you lose resolution.

I have a DSLR and several wireless controlled electronic flashes.  I set up a light tent/softbox and then use a flash on each side and the top.  I am able to max out to F22 where focus is not as critical.  (It is critical, but your depth of field is wider).

You  can use a polarizing filter to block reflections.

A light tent/sof-tbox is easy to make, find a cardboard box and cut the sides out.  You can use a white bed-sheet, old white tee shirts, a white tablecloth........

[linux-works]

some of my tricks as an amateur photog-

yes, you need a tripod.  use the self timer as a way to avoid jarring the camera as you press the button.  self-timer presses itself and you get less shake that way.

totally avoid flash unless you are experienced with it.  stay with static available light.  use as much f-stop as you can afford (highest number, then back a few clicks but still toward the high numbers).  you want depth of field to help you in focus.

do a manual white-balance.  get a white piece of paper and read your cam's guide on how to do a manual white balance.

for lighting that is hard; I sometimes set the shutter speed manually to a long time and use a high number f-stop.  that underexposes by a lot.  that's what I want, sort of: the idea is to keep the shutter open a bit longer and 'light paint' with a flashlight (or smartphone with a full white screen) on the subject, trying to illuminate all the nooks and crannies.  try for a few seconds of shutter speed and move your 'flashlight' around to cover the angles, while trying NOT to bump anything!  it can give some success if you practice.

shoot at a slight angle or a heavy angle.  straight on shots are hard and will show reflections too much.

use a wide angle lens but not too wide.  again, you want depth of field to help you get more of the board in focus (assuming the board is at a bit of an angle).

finally, in post processing, try the 'shadow/highlight' tool (goes by many names).  bring out detail in the shadows but mostly bring DOWN the brightness of the solder blobs.  ie, 'compress' the dyn range a bit so that the tech details can be seen.

also in terms of PP, bring your photo in and immediately upres it to 24bits from the usual 8bit jpg.  do all your work at 24bit and only down-res at the VERY last stage before you save-as your final jpg.  do your processing at full bit resolution (max x,y) and don't resize until the very end.  once you are done with clone tool or shadow/highlight or contrast or levels (etc etc), then downres to print size (1024x768 or whatever you want).  after a resize, you MUST resharpen!  use a smart sharpen tool or unsharp mask.  use to-taste.  don't over-do it.  its like a treble control for audio; people sometimes use too much and its not realistic anymore.  and once you are done sharpening, you then convert down to 8bit format and save-as a jpg.


HTH

[linux-works]

A light tent/sof-tbox is easy to make, find a cardboard box and cut the sides out.  You can use a white bed-sheet, old white tee shirts, a white tablecloth........

my DIY lightbox from a few years ago, using frosted white plexiglas and some nearby cool bulbs:

[pickle9000]

This would make a good eevblog, Dave could try and compare a few methods.

[ivaylo]

If you don't have things sticking out too much from the board nothing beats a flatbed scanner...

[george graves]

Check out this tutorial.

http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2010/08/25/how-to-take-great-photos-of-your-projects-the-adafruit-photo-tutorial-by-johngineer/

[richard.cs]

If you don't have things sticking out too much from the board nothing beats a flatbed scanner...

Agreed, we use this method all the time at work. It's not unusual to open the colour photocopier and find someone's PCB. We do sometimes remove very tall components (usually electrolytics) to get better results but most of the time it's fine

[BravoV]

A lot of good advices, but some need preparations that imo are too overkill if you just want to have quick & easy close up shots with "good enough" quality, imo.

1st, what is your current camera ?

Hint :

1. If its cell-phone cam, then the quality will be very limited (aka sucks).  (not recommended and you must have a very steady hand or some sort of tool to hold it firmly)
2. If its point & shoot type, then make sure you know how to set timer.
3. If its DSLR, then this probably is the best, especially your stock lens can focus near to the object like < 20 cm distance.

Also tripod is a must and just buy cheapo one, no need to spend more > $20, and also a table lamp that can easily movable, thats it.

I'm awaiting for your answer on your camera type, and will proceed further, trust me, it will be very easy.

Few examples of my shots using just cheap P&S camera, but without the need of complicated setup or preparation, like this -> here , here , here or here (bigger one).

[peter.mitchell]

A good tip is have the board clean. Very clean. Wash it with alcohol and flux remover, even a tiny amount of dust will show and make the board look bad.
Slightly over expose. Most things look better slightly over exposed rather than slightly under exposed, don't risk it, slightly over expose.
Even and soft lighting. Shadows and reflections are bad. If you don't have good lighting, do it outside on a cloudy day or about an hour before sunset.
Try and do it from as far away as possible, but don't use "digital zoom". The further it is away from the camera, the more uniform the plane of focus (percentage wise), also, if you can get your camera further away then your light source, no shadows.

[AlfBaz]

...and then there's post processing. I use adobe's lightroom and in conjunction with RAW images as opposed to jpegs where the processing is already performed on camera, you can take a quick snap and fix nearly anything bar out of focus

[Avien]

Thank you very much for all those answers 

my camera is sony DSC-H7, 8.1 mega pixels with 15x optical zoom
I know it sucks nowadays (but it still making very good photos )
also my camera in my sgs + (i9001) but I don't think it is worth mentioning

I don't have any tripod but I will try making a stand with some books etc

First I will start with cleaning my board a little.
It is an universal tht board with too many big components to use flatbed scanner (2 or 3 PCB on top of it)

[linux-works]

even a cheap tripod will give better results than hand-holding.  if you must hand-hold, use the 'poor mans tripod' aka, the self timer.  then when you press the shutter, steady yourself until it self-fires.

you can build a 'step tripod' for free.  google it.  its just a bit of string going to a screw that attaches to your tripod mount on the camera.  you step on the string, pull UP and that creates at least one axis of 'steady' to give you better vertical anti-shake.  (its a trick we would use in a museum where there are 'no tripods allowed' and yet you can get at least some steadying this way and it does not take any setup time nor does it block anyone from walking by).

[eliocor]

It depends on what photo I need to do: sometimes if I need hi-def details, I use my Epson Perfection V500 Photo scanner.
You can see some results at the following links (beware: pictures are rather big!):
http://www.rhodiatoce.com/pics/time-nuts/FE-5680A/FE-5680A_Bottom001.jpg
http://www.rhodiatoce.com/pics/time-nuts/FE-5680A/FE-5680A_Bottom001_noIC.jpg
http://www.rhodiatoce.com/pics/time-nuts/FE-5680A/FE-5680A_Top001.jpg
http://www.rhodiatoce.com/pics/time-nuts/FE-5680A/FE-5680A_Top001_noIC.jpg
from FEI 5650A Option 58 Rubidium Oscillator page.

Please take care that not all scanners have the required depth of field to get all PCB on focus. Canon ones (IIRC) are not so good at.

Otherwise I use my DSLR with 3 studio flash banks, but this is another story...

[Avien]

I've got brother dcp-j315w and it's making crapy scans

still trying to take some good photos without tripod

[marshallh]

I use a canon SX20-IS and zoom in all the way. This gives a DOF range about 6 feet from the camera.
It is tripod mounted with a 10 secong shutter timer (otherwise it shakes far too much).
Set ISO to slowest possible (80) and expect a second or longer shutter time. Multiple soft lights are best.

You can also take pictures outside if there is good sunlight (but take the picture with the reflected light, not direct, such as under an awning or overhang)



Just outside under the porch in summer, on a couple sheets of printer paper

[Avien]

After many trials I manage to take good looking photos 

Problem was as many of you said with optimal exposure and shaking hands

so first I tried to hang camera... that was stupid....

then I came up with this (attached picture)
next time I will buy even the cheapest tripod!

anyway thank you one more time for all of your tips and advices

Avien

[linux-works]

go to an art supply store and find some flexible white foam.  bend that into the classic 'slope' and that will be your background.  be sure to get a large enough piece, as you try different angles, you want the slope to still be in the shot for most of the frame.

use the clone tool once you have cropped in as close as you can and if there are edges on the photo that were not covered by the white slope.

[EPAIII]

This was done quick and dirty. Olympus VR-320. Flash off. On a white card on top of a chair in my den. Two 2 tube fluorescent fixtures above with daylight bulbs, one on each side. Macro mode and hand held. I took several shots in case some were blurred from motion.



I then used Photoshop (Paint.net, which is free, would work just as well) to jack up the gamma curves for a brighter effect in the darker areas and I cropped it to final size, probably in Microsoft Paint because cropping is easier there than in Photoshop. Don't go wild with changing the gamma curves or you will get some strange effects. But the gamma correction is really the thing. Here is what it looked like without that:

[qno]

The most important thing is practice.
Below just a picture made in the morning with my old Nokia 808.

[vandersonpc]

The most important fo any kind of photo is light! If you have a proper light it's more than 80% of your picture! I normally took my pictures using my iPhone camera and try to use some indirect light from windows, lamps, etc...



For more professional look, you can build your own photo light box as described on the links below!

http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-make-a-inexpensive-light-tent
http://www.wikihow.com/Create-an-Inexpensive-Photography-Lightbox
http://www.diyphotography.net/how-build-pvc-diy-photo-light-box
http://www.flaxandtwine.com/2013/02/diy-photo-light-box-finish-fifty-project.html
http://makezine.com/2006/07/27/diy-light-box/

Cheers, Vanderson

[EPAIII]

My photo experience goes back over 50 years and I have even built my own darkrooms in the days of film and chemical development. You are quite right that increasing the exposure by a stop or two would greatly improve the photo that I posted. However, even with that, I find that the gamma match between digital cameras and computer screens is not good. Even with perfect exposure, the details in the darker parts of the screen are somewhat hidden by this problem. Both Photoshop and Paint.net have a very easy to use and effective gamma curve tool to combat this. It is the one feature of both programs that I use over and over.

Here is a depiction of the use of those tools:



You can brighten the white background and other white areas of the photo with more exposure, but it will not have the same, dramatic effect on the dark areas. You can see that the darker areas are greatly enhanced by comparing the lower left portions of the curves. In the days of film I hungered for an easy way to do things like this. Now it is so simple and available to everyone. Isn't technology great?

It only took about 5 minutes to both gamma correct the photo and to make the compilation (in MS Paint) of the two with the text inbetween. The gamma tool really is easy and fast to use.

But the gamma correction is really the thing. Here is what it looked like without that:

Notice how the white background is gray. The exposure system of the camera has been fooled by the white background and the large white components into thinking the subject is very bright. It is set to expect an "average" brightness subject that is a mid level gray such as what you actually ended up getting. It did this by reducing the exposure given. You can manually compensate for this by increasing the exposure by 1 to 2 exposure steps (or stops) if your camera has a manual control. Simpler cameras call this a backlight function or sometimes a "beach" or "snow mode". Notice how often snow pictures appear a dull gray instead of a dazzling white.

Try repeating this photo with the exposure adjusted +1.5 stops and see what you think of the result.

PS the reverse happens when photographing very dark subjects. such as a black steam locomotive. It will also appear much lighter than the rich deep black it originally appeared as. In this case try -1.5 stops. For a true deep black it really is -2.3 stops but that takes things to the edge and leaves a needlessly small margin for error, and also does not take into account that the black is probably not 100% of the image. It also comes from the film era. I am not so familiar with digital sensor performance. However the basic principles still apply.

[EPAIII]

Here's a quick two point gamma correction of Vandersonpc's photo:



And a correction at both dark and light areas to marshallh's photo:



In this last one I increased the contrast in both the light and dark areas while decreasing it in the middle tones. So both the darker and lighter areas show more detail and the overall picture is much more attractive and informative.

A problem here is that I saved both of those screen shots using MS Paint but I did not gamma correct them so the photos in them are a bit washed out. They both looked better while on the screen in Paint.net.

[schwarz-brot]

Quick and dirty tip: Besides using as much light as possible it is often very helpful to use your flash. It is there for a reason! To avoid those nasty reflections simply take a piece of semitransparent paper (sandwich paper for example) and hold or stick it over the flash. You get a perfect difusor that gives you lots of soft light in a close range situation. I even did this with "normal" paper for my last teardown as I was too lazy to change the setup.

This may help especially if you don't want to dive in too deep into photography and only occasionally have to take very good shots. I am no fan of editing to get a picture right. It is much faster to try and take a good picture than spending your time trying to turn a bad one into a useful one. This of course is not the case if you are very fast and used to work with picture editing software.

[ivaylo]

I'd like to see what one of the HDR (High Dynamic Range) cameras can do in this situation.

Oh, please no... I was hoping there would be an area of photgraphy untouched by HDR. Very popular among real estate agents in the states nowadays. Ah the drama... Would still be curious to see if it would shift the colors enough to mess up color coded components though

[AlfBaz]

I've done some HDR photo's manually, not in camera, with seemingly complex dedicated hdr software, where you do a braketed exposure

It's not easy to get it to look natural, namely because it isnt. The dynamic range of the human eye is orders of magnitude greater than the best sensors so a picture were light and dark have been brought into the "clarity" domain will always look weird because our eyes are not having to exert their dynamic range.

Having said that it's certainly good fun to create these images and some times, judiciously applied, you can glean a little more detail out of things that are usually washed out from over exposure (like clouds) or under exposed like bushes.

I cant see the point in using this process on PCB's though, it's mainly for situations where you cant cotrol the lighting and there are very dark and very light areas where exposing for one will cause the other to over or under expose

[Yago]

HDR colour "shift" or weirdness is often because the bracketing is too wide a range.
Agree that it's use in PCB photography is limited.

Focus stacking could be interesting, macro and rails, a high mag HD movie of a fly over.
Not my thing though TBH, never done macro stuff.

[vandersonpc]

Here's a quick two point gamma correction of Vandersonpc's photo:



And a correction at both dark and light areas to marshallh's photo:



In this last one I increased the contrast in both the light and dark areas while decreasing it in the middle tones. So both the darker and lighter areas show more detail and the overall picture is much more attractive and informative.

A problem here is that I saved both of those screen shots using MS Paint but I did not gamma correct them so the photos in them are a bit washed out. They both looked better while on the screen in Paint.net.

Great tip! I'll use that on my next picture definitely!

Cheers, Vanderson

[linux-works]

I used to play with HDR, back when my small sensor superzoom was noisy and could not capture a full range.

now, most cams are good enough.  the key is not to over-expose.  almost always you want to set the EV down to 1/3 or even lower.  for shiny silver things like solder, -1 is not unheard of.

then, bring out the shadows with the shadow/highlight tool (sometimes called other things).

you will get a noisier picture so be careful.  to denoise, try noiseninja or neatimage (2 that come to mind; I use neatimage and its a great color-noise (red/blue blotch) fixer).

curves are a fancy way of doing contrast and it often helps a photo 'pop' when you give at least some of an 'S-like' curve.

but shadow/highlight is my fave tool.  it lets me lower the brightness of the soldering and bring out chip detail markings on black TTL chips, etc.