Product rendering - lighting scene.

[Kravirr]

Hello!

I am trying to understand why my renderings are always either faded or too dark. I'm trying to make a jar of a slightly different shape than the one in the ref, but I would like the rendering to look similar. As long as I can set the lights as I want and get similar reflections, but I have a problem with the general lighting of the scene and the ground. My render is faded with a terrible white glow all around glass. Only a strong change of exposure and curves gives something. The jar stands on the plane with the visibility in reflections/refractions turned off and shadow catcher applied but this makes it look as if it levitated. I am using hdr map that I made and the materials are as placeholders, I'm mainly worried about glass, lights and shadows.

How do you do main light and set up product scenes/packshots? How do you avoid reflections in glass that are messy especially ground when is visible for reflections/refractions. What should I do to make my lighting look more correct?

[maru]

What is your environment color in your scene? In the renders, it looks as if it was white or some other bright color. In the reference photo, it looks like the background is completely black (or almost black, compared to the light sources) - see the dark "halo" around the light reflection in the lower part of the jar in the photo reference.
It is also possible that the mustard in the reference photo has a much lower albedo than in your rendering. That would explain why it is much more "contrasty" in general.
Other than that, how do you know that the reference pic does not have some sort of post processing applied? :)

[Kravirr]

Thank you for reply. I give bright colors on hdr to light up the scene. I don't know how else to do it. If it gives the dark, it is just everything dark. How to make vivid colors without using white light when using hdr?