Product lighting with one to three lights

Light the reflections, not the object

Your AI plans studio product lighting the way a packshot photographer would: material classification, modifier choice, placements with angles and distances, settings for strobe or LED, a top-down diagram and a one-light-at-a-time build sequence.

By Vander Labs. A Vander Labs Original, written by the Vander Labs team with AI assistance. Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and Claude Code.

What your AI learns

Classifies matte, glossy, metal, glass and liquid and lights each differently
Draws a lighting diagram with angles, distances and relative power
Builds the light one source at a time with a test sequence

How it works

Classify the material: What reflects, what must be visible and what must not, in one line per product.
Key light and modifier: A 60 to 90 cm softbox close in by default, strips for bottles and metal, LED color matched.
Place the key: 45 degrees side and above, feathered; reflections positioned by the geometry of camera, product and light.
Fill and shape: White cards or a second light two stops down, black flags for edges, a brighter background for pure white.
Special cases: Bright-field and dark-field glass, strip-lit liquids, tented metal, macro jewelry settings.
Camera settings: Manual, sync speed and ISO 100 for strobe, f/8 to f/11, fixed white balance, RAW, gray card first.
Build one light at a time: Key alone, then fill, then background, then flags, changing one thing per frame.
Record for repeatability: Fixed camera and light positions across a range, a gray card per setup, a settings sheet.

Limits and safety

Flags that strobes and continuous lights of different color temperatures should not be mixed in one frame.
Does not cover phone and window shooting or the editing stage; separate skills do.

Topics: studio-lighting, strobe, softbox, product-photography, packshot