[Critique]Lighting Improvement.

GGGL

Okay, I'm currently working on my portfolio, I received some advice on here to Improve the lighting and make it less flat, which was because I was using environmental lighting, any input on the new lighting setup will be appreciated, Thanks.
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Old--

Vertrucio

Don't be afraid to add some color to the lights, when you show off the textures they can see the albedo anyway. You can also drop less important areas into shadow (but never completely black). Your radio has few parts that have worn off the coating to reveal metal, so you should try to place some extra lights, even point lights, to try and catch those exposed metal parts and get some specular visible to your camera. Speaking of which, try to get some of the specular highlights to pop. Maybe lower the gamma and increase the exposure, or just do a levels pass on the image.

Remember that this has to appeal from either a thumbnail or a smaller image to get a recruiter to click on it to see the full sized image.

GGGL

Thanks for advice, appreciate it.

wirrexx

@Vertrucio has a good point.

Imagine having a orange color coming from one side, complimented by a darker bluish on the other side. and play around with light strengths, and see what you could get.

rexo12

I'm honestly quite happy with the lighting in your rework. It's a marked improvement over the old one. The extra shadowing you've added around the dialing really helps with the sense of depth, and the highlights along the handpiece and cables are great. It could maybe benefit (as mentioned) from a tonemapping rebalance to bring up the dynamic range, but this is frankly a nitpick and we could go on forever with changes like that.

I think coloured lights would be tonally inappropriate. The existing lighting feels subtle, serious and professional, which fits the subject matter and really supports the modelling and texturing work you've put into this asset, allowing it to shine. I'm concerned that colouring the lights - particularly something dramatic like orange & blue - may detract from that, drawing too much attention to itself.

GGGL

Thanks, for the feedback.