Range Rover Pics

[jamodu]

Hi peoples, it's been a while since I've posted, hope you're all ok.
I've just been working on some mag ads for a client and had to do a bit of airbrushing to clean up some pictures. Take a look, and let me know what you think. Feel free to pick it apart as I'm keen to know how I can do things better.

cheers
Dunc

[Satchel]

Wow... totally different - looks great! Nice work Jam I like the looks of your edited photo a lot!!!

[MikeTheVike]

That is sweet, I have always wondered how much of car ads were just great photography or if they were heavily manipulated in photoshop...I'm not going to ask you how you do this, but do you have a set of things you would do to achieve this look? Like darken shadows, increase highlight intensity, increase contrast, for example...

[jamodu]

Cheers for the nice comments guys.

Yeah, basically the more of these pics I do, the more refined my process is becoming! The final comp consists of lots of duplicated layers with different blending modes to boost highlights, shadows and contrast (loads of overlay, multiply and screen). I then mask out bits on the layers to build up the final car and clone out any unwanted reflections.

I draw a clipping path round the car so that I can create a new scene. The background is done in much the same way as before with loads of layering and I usually drop the saturation/take out the colour a bit, to give the landscape and sky a moody feel to it. I usually keep the road from the original photo as it means i don't have to recreate shadows (cos I can never get them to look right!)

Finally I boost colour of things like indicator lights and brakes to create a focal point and them emphasise highlights by repainting them in (like the white reflection on the headlights)

Here's another one...

As I said before, if anyone has any tips to speed up the process coz they're taking me a couple of hours a time at the moment.

[fredrich]

Nice work, dramatic and contrastful, just the way I like it.
Did a minor scene change to a car picture once;

Original from a car show:
http://foto.no/bilder/images/v_29305.jpg

Changed the sky and colors:
http://foto.no/bilder/images/153234.jpg

As I said before, if anyone has any tips to speed up the process coz they're taking me a couple of hours a time at the moment.

Only thing I can think of is getting the photographer to improve the original picture in form of a better location, lighting of the car etc. Unless you'd have to replace the background anyway, this would save you some time editing the pictures.

[YNOT]

I'm a total car nut, so your title enticed me to check this out...

Very dramatic! Looks like you've got a good system in place for doing these. Often times you can easily tell when images are 'photoshopped', but these look pretty darn authentic.

Nice work man!

[Zendada]

Really nice work. Amazing how much detail you are getting out of the asphalt.

[Aerix]

Looks great.

[jamodu]

Nice work, dramatic and contrastful, just the way I like it.
Did a minor scene change to a car picture once;

Original from a car show:
http://foto.no/bilder/images/v_29305.jpg

Changed the sky and colors:
http://foto.no/bilder/images/153234.jpg



Only thing I can think of is getting the photographer to improve the original picture in form of a better location, lighting of the car etc. Unless you'd have to replace the background anyway, this would save you some time editing the pictures.


Well, I'm the photographer too and unfortunately I don't think they'll let me drive these things out into the hills (I may try suggesting it though!!) We do have some lighting but not very much of it and they aren't very big/bright. Thanks for the advice though!

Your pics are great too. I love the orange tint you've got going on - looks like an awesome sunset!

Here's another couple of pics for the Car Nuts ;) ...

http://www.impact.me.uk/shit/Audi-S8.jpg

http://www.impact.me.uk/shit/RangeSuperSport.jpg

[urstwile]

Beautiful work, jamodu.

[captain spanky]

great work! impressive!
I see Leeds... I'm also in leeds/bradford - live at odsal top, work for a car auction place in leeds...

[jamodu]

Ah right, I know where you mean. Yep, we're based in Leeds (just near Ikea at 'Birstall Vegas') The work is all for AutoBrokers and Overfinch Leeds.

Thanks loads for all the nice comments! I'm glad everyone likes the images.

[CamarotaDesign]

oh man, thats some hot work! good job.

[D-Frag]

i just wanna know how you killed the reflection in these pics, i have to do alot of touching up like this, and could never get the reflections to come out right. any tips or tricks?

[steve-o]

Couple of hours?! Damn. That's actually pretty quick. I interviewed a photo retoucher for graphics.com:

http://www.graphics.com/modules.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=384

He said that his retouching takes anywhere from 4-6 hours to a few weeks.

Your work is great, btw!

-Steve


Cheers for the nice comments guys.

Yeah, basically the more of these pics I do, the more refined my process is becoming! The final comp consists of lots of duplicated layers with different blending modes to boost highlights, shadows and contrast (loads of overlay, multiply and screen). I then mask out bits on the layers to build up the final car and clone out any unwanted reflections.

I draw a clipping path round the car so that I can create a new scene. The background is done in much the same way as before with loads of layering and I usually drop the saturation/take out the colour a bit, to give the landscape and sky a moody feel to it. I usually keep the road from the original photo as it means i don't have to recreate shadows (cos I can never get them to look right!)

Finally I boost colour of things like indicator lights and brakes to create a focal point and them emphasise highlights by repainting them in (like the white reflection on the headlights)

Here's another one...

As I said before, if anyone has any tips to speed up the process coz they're taking me a couple of hours a time at the moment.

[CamarotaDesign]

eh, those wouldn't have taken me very long. That was just converting to black and white, putting in a different background, a few curve adjustments, bam.

now its the creativity behind it that takes forever. I am once again reminded of the picasso story....

"$10,000 said the lady? but it only took you 10 minutes to draw.... no ma'm it took a lifetime"

[Red Kittie Kat]

great work Jamodu :)