How to photograph gemstones and minerals beautifully with a smartphone: choosing a black background, plus lighting and exposure tips, with photos of an amethyst.

Tips for taking premium-looking photos of knives, cutlery and other metal products on a black background, with a comparison of two black fabrics.

A Tokyo wet-plate photography studio lines the gift boxes for its ambrotypes with VL Flock Sheet. Why they chose it over velvet and cheap black cloth.

We lined half of an inexpensive mount adapter with FINESHUT KIWAMI and compared reflections and test shots in direct sunlight.

FINESHUT and IR Flock Sheet absorb from visible to near-infrared, come with adhesive backing, and can be laser-cut to your drawing.

Black clothing and black anodizing can look perfectly black and still reflect near-infrared light. NIR camera photos and measured reflectance show which materials absorb NIR.

A high school robot sumo team covered its 500 g robots with IR Flock Sheet. An infrared distance sensor that normally detected them at about 40 cm only reacted at about 5 cm.

Shiny metal parts often fail to scan. In a field test at a sheet-metal shop, ultra-black fabric on the scanner stage and a change in part orientation removed the reflection gaps, without scanning spray.

A material that looks black to the eye can be bright to a near-infrared sensor. Based on our paper in the Journal of the Japan Society of Infrared Science and Technology, here are three ways to build absorbers that work from the visible range into the NIR, with measured data.

Black anodized aluminum looks matte black, but in the near-infrared it reflects more than 80% of light. Here is what our measurements showed, and how a thin FINESHUT SP lining stops the resulting stray light.

Reflectance is the percentage of incoming light that a surface reflects. We explain the formula, specular, diffuse and total reflectance, how it is measured with an integrating sphere, what to check when comparing reflectance data, and measured values for black materials.

Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties is using ultra-black materials like KIWAMI Fabric and IR Flock Sheet to reduce measurement noise during hyperspectral imaging and cultural preservation research. By suppressing unwanted light reflections in visible and near-infrared wavelengths, these advanced optical materials improve spectral accuracy when analyzing delicate artifacts, textiles, paper, pigments, and historical materials. Discover how ultra-black fabrics are helping researchers achieve cleaner, more precise non-destructive analysis for museums, conservation labs, and imaging applications.