Help with wrapping a label around a bottle

[red_angel]

Hey gang,

A client of mine has asked me to design a label for a bottle of wine and she wants to see the final bottle with the label already stuck on. I want to simulate it but have no idea how to "curve wrap" the label to an existing photo of a bottle. The distort/skew feature in PS doesn't work because it's angular. Would the correct method be done in Photoshop or Illustrator. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

[balou]

Why not go old school? Print one out and put it on a bottle and take a photo. Sometimes I think it's quicker in the long run and it also gives you a "real life" view/perspective of the design.

[red_angel]

I wish I could but the label needs to be on a certain bottle, one I already have a photo of.

[balou]

The only thing I've heard of is called Wrapture. But If I recall correctly, it's pretty pricey.

[Franky06]

I agree to making the label wrap to a real bottle. Why not use another one, with nearly the same dimensions, take a pic of it, then put it into photoshop, extract the label and with the distortion tools, put it into right place...

[panzer]

im positive i have seen this done in photoshop

will check out the old tutorials

[captain spanky]

filters>distort>spherize.. and then just choose horizontal or vertical only.
easy peasy.

[DesignerScott]

How's about you do it in Illy...
Make your art a "symbol"
Make the path for half a bottle.
Select Effects->3d->Revolve
Select Map Art
Place your symbol art work on the bottle, and play with the positioning.

Here: This sample took like 30 seconds. (So no critiques )

[Silence04]

Filter>Render>3d Transform
use the Cylinder...

That is exactly what this filter was made for.

the spherize trick would only work if the bottle photo is straight on....

[Logo-Mechanix]

If you could find a bottle or anything with the same basic shape of the bottle you have a photo of and then take a picture of it with actual label on it like Balou said, after that all you have to do is Photoshop it on to the picture.

[captain spanky]

the spherize trick would only work if the bottle photo is straight on....

true.. true. :)

[twogun]

i think adobe have dropped th efilter from PS CS but in the previous version there was a 3d transform tool i used quite often to wrap oblects around curves, any help?

[Silence04]

well shit, if the dropped it in CS that really sucks...
if so, try using the Spherized filter as mentioned above, then rotate your artwork 90degs and use the Shear filter

[DesignerScott]

What? does nobody like the Illy method?
If you need it to be a little more photo realistic, you can just make the 3d bottle invisible, and then import the illy file into photoshop and plant it on the bottle that way. Geez!
Sorry, I'm just sad it's not Friday yet.

[Ovaltine]

I tried to post this last night, but my connection bombed just as I wen to post it.

This can be done, it's really easy, though very difficult to explain this way.

You have a photo of a wine bottle on one layer, import your label design into the bottle photo as another layer. I create an elipse (the same as the bottle bottom) in another layer as a guide. Align the horizontal centers of the label (I'm assuming it's a rectangle shaped label) and the elipse and let the top of the label just touch the bottom of the elipse.

This next instruction is meant to be repeated:
Then use the marquee tool (square) to select the right hand section of the label Transform the selection slightly squewing (sp?) it and horizontally scaling it to match the edge of the elipse. Apply transformation and deselect. Marquee again a little to the right of the last selection and repeat untill you have "wrapped" your label.

Repeat the above instructions on the left side of the label.

Add shading which matches the shading on your wine bottle...viola! you have a brand new label applied to a wine bottle.

If you've never done this before, it will be difficult to understand by simply reading it. Just try it one step at a time in Photoshop, and you'll understand what I'm trying to explain here. I had it explained/shown to me in person, which is much easier.

Good luck. Like everything else, it gets easier with practice.

[Malaclypse]

I agree with balou. Get a real wine bottle (get the employer to supply one, or buy a bottle of wine with a similar bottle shape and color), strip the existing label, print out your design, spray adhesive to bottle, photograph, voila. It's cheaper then buying new software, and is going to look much more real then any but the most extensive 3D techniques.

[Ovaltine]

I have to take issue with that. I've faked many bottle labels, and honestly, sometimes I diliberatly put labels on in Photoshop, because the clarity is better than photographing it, then color correcting, especially with the tiny type that ends up on the labels I do this to.

I'm not saying it's faster or better to do in Photoshop, I'm just saying it can be done convincingly.

[Silence04]

^agreed^
i have to do Mag Ads all the time before the actual labels come in. Doing it in photoshop will give you crisper text and your colors will hold up better.

[balou]

I'll have to try the Photoshop thing. I usually email pdf's to my customers and they print it out and apply. (Have I trained them well or what?) But I like to look at it too in real life - off the screen - just to get a feel for what it looks like on a shelf to a consumer. I will have to try this though as I'm sure I'll need to do it some day.

We did have a tube/label project recently that the customer wanted to do some advertising with before the product was ready. I hired out the 3D work to a firm in the UK. Buy supplying them with CAD drawings of the tubes and caps and Illustrator file for the labels, they were able to provide beautiful high-res 3D tubes that look truly realistic.

I swear there's always 10 different ways to do anything in this business.:D

[Silence04]

I usually email pdf's to my customers and they print it out and apply. (Have I trained them well or what?)

wow, now thats good! what else can you make them do? lol :)

[markf]

Ok, I'm just a beginner in Photoshop, but I've just finished lesson 9 of "Adobe Photoshop CS2 - Classroom in a book" (roll eyes now...). Anyway, this lesson specifically describes how to do exactly what you want - wrap a label onto a bottle.

The tool they use is Edit > Transform > Warp. Position your label so it is flat against the bottle, then select the tool. A grid will come up. Click the top of the grid in the middle and drag it down slightly. Do the same for the bottom of the grid. Now repeat for the two lines in the middle of the grid. Keep adjusting until the perspective is right. Seems to work and is pretty simple. You can also edit the layer after the warp is applied which I think is a pretty nice feature.

Apologies to all you PS pros out there :rolleyes:

[Ned]

The warp features in CS2 are great, as are the new perspective options for cloning, etc.! Unfortunately, CS2 ran WAY too slow on my old archaic computer (I take donations, BTW), so I uninstalled it.

The method Ovaltine described is how I warp a lot of things like this.
In this case though, I would use the Shear Filter. Rect. Marquee the area to be warped, turn it sideways (shear only works left-right for some reason), choose Filter => Distort => Shear, drag it as much as you want it sheared, commit, then rotate back to vertical. Place over bottle, clip off ends, and add shading/highlights with the burn/dodge tools. If vertical perspective is off (looking from atop or below), then use Free Transform (CMND-T with move tool), and SHIFT-CMND-OPT-Click (perspective warp) on the corner, dragging until perspective matches.

Designer Scott: I really like your Illy method of wrapping around a 3D bottle then making the bottle invisible overtop the Photographed bottle. I could see this making it much easier if working with different perspectives. And all the shading is already done. ;) I think you would have to touch up in PS though to make it look realistic afterwards.

[Pixel8]

Great ideas. I was actually about to suggest what Markf just said. If you're in CS2 it's a great tool! Let me give you a slightly different spin on this that has worked very well for me:

Make a new layer and drop on a shape with the rectangle tool. Make it a grid shape, something that is obvious when it is distorted. Then right click and choose the GROUP AS A SMART LAYER.

You can then do the EDIT > DISTORT > WARP feature, and the rectangle shape will help you see what you're doing.

Now you can double-click that puppy and it will pull out a new mini document of just that area. Drop an ILLY file (or raster image) on top of it and hide the rectangle guide. Save. Done.

Good thing about this is that it does NOT rasterize the ILLY file or screw up the pixels. It's sharp right through. And if you mess up, you can just pull open the Smart Layer again and fiddle with it some more, no harm done.

I guess Adobe was thinking about pain in the butt challenges like this one.