Cooter, I love how you continue to not suck.
Joe, keep on keepin' on, Man.
Thanks Chris!
Craig, yes that shot is a composite, however the light was consistent in every image used. The only way to get foil in a label to really pop is to reflect light onto it with another piece of foil, preferably the same color. With the 1792 Bourbon, the bottle was pretty flat, so I was able to have gold foil just outside of the frame to light the whole front.
The problem here was the bottle is perfectly round and my lens was at the same elevation as the label. I was not able to reflect light onto the middle of the label without covering part of the sides. (Actually that middle medallion was the biggest pain in the ass since the lens was almost directly in front of it.)
So I had to settle with compositing in that label from several shots. I also kept in mind when doing this that one would expect the center to be slightly less bright then the side, since that is were the light is coming from.
Not to mention, there was no way I was going to get that smoke in one capture either; the smoke too is a composite of two shots, but almost all of it is from one. About half way from the cork to the edge of frame, the smoke in the main capture just got messy. I initially erased it out, but it just did not look right not having it continue to the edge. So I added more to the top from a cleaner but much less awesome capture. Actually, when that main smoke capture came onto the screen and I saw how it fell in front of the bottle and cork, I know that was the one. It just took me about 25 more shots to get something that would composite well onto the top.