In Lightroom, go to the develop module, chose the sampler under the white balance, click on the background on your photo.
Set your exposure, add a little vibrancy/saturation and maybe 5 points of clarity.
(That's all)



__
You also can try to set the WB to auto in your camera

Good for you on thinking outside the box (no pun intended) to get the shot you want! A bathtub and a tee shirt...use what you've got to get it done. I love it!

Your second sample the white balance looks a bit worse than your first unfortunately. It's very green on my monitor. The sampler tool you are looking for looks like an eyedropper. Select that tool then click on a spot in the image that is white. In this case, click your backdrop. It's not perfect but it will get you more in the ballpark for correct white balance. Adjust it accordingly.

Good luck!

Mat

Yes, that's much better.  Now you need to learn about "commercial value".

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on September 13, 2016, 13:06

Yes, that's much better.  Now you need to learn about "commercial value".

I'm open to any resources or advice you have to offer, Sean.   

Quote from: EricBullerPhotography on September 13, 2016, 15:39

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on September 13, 2016, 13:06

Yes, that's much better.  Now you need to learn about "commercial value".

I'm open to any resources or advice you have to offer, Sean.   

Go look at any magazine or website and see what images they use. Images found there often have (high?) commercial value. So if you were going to take photos of small objects, it should be things that are often used by people in real life. For example, smart phones, beer bottles, cup of coffee, coffee beans, small plant, post it pads, pen, food, vegetables, fruit, notebook, clipboard, laptop, monitor, stack of towels, different color pens together, etc.

By the way, glass objects are one of the hardest things to light correctly. If you are going to shoot still life with glass in it you need to study how the lighting should be done and get lots of practice until you can get it right almost automatically. For one thing, your background here was under-exposed, you need to light a white background separately from the main subject, so move the background further back and use a slave flash that's shielded from the subject to get the background white. You can't just increase the power of the lightbox  (or open the aperture) to make the background white because the inverse square law means that correctly exposing the background from a single light means that the foreground will be over-exposed (because there is a significant difference in the distance of the two from the light source).
If you use daylight you don't have the same problem, because both the subject and the background will be 92 million miles from the light source and even if one is six feet further away from the sun it makes sqat-diddly difference as a percentage. But then you have issues such as diffusing the light and getting it coming from the correct angle.
Oh, and don't light the subject from straight in front, light from an angle to emphasise textures, and use reflectors to balance the fall-off in light across the frame.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on September 14, 2016, 03:32

By the way, glass objects are one of the hardest things to light correctly. If you are going to shoot still life with glass in it you need to study how the lighting should be done and get lots of practice until you can get it right almost automatically. For one thing, your background here was under-exposed, you need to light a white background separately from the main subject, so move the background further back and use a slave flash that's shielded from the subject to get the background white. You can't just increase the power of the lightbox  (or open the aperture) to make the background white because the inverse square law means that correctly exposing the background from a single light means that the foreground will be over-exposed (because there is a significant difference in the distance of the two from the light source).
If you use daylight you don't have the same problem, because both the subject and the background will be 92 million miles from the light source and even if one is six feet further away from the sun it makes sqat-diddly difference as a percentage. But then you have issues such as diffusing the light and getting it coming from the correct angle.
Oh, and don't light the subject from straight in front, light from an angle to emphasise textures, and use reflectors to balance the fall-off in light across the frame.

Great Advice, thanks!  How much do I owe you?