Non-Metallic Metal

Metallic paints carry real metal flakes, so they catch light wherever it falls and photograph as a flat grey smear. Non-metallic metal throws the flakes away and paints the reflections by hand: a hard bright edge where the light hits, a dark band beneath it, and a lighter bounce along the bottom edge. It is slow, it looks wrong in the hand at arm's length, and it is why a gold sword in a display cabinet photograph looks like gold rather than like grey paint.