Professional Practice

Automotive Photography

For my Professional Practice I intend to investigate and explore Automotive Photography.

Possibly one of the most disciplines and difficult genres of photography as you have a number of problematic areas to overcome. Reflections, lighting, shape, mood etc..

Ultimately photographing vehicles involves lots of patience, a good understanding of composition and lighting, an overall idea of the final shot and editing knowledge to manufacture a good final product.

Basic research about general practice.

Make sure your white balance is matched to the ambient lighting. Or just shoot raw and fix it later on a computer; whatever works for you.

Keep your ISO at its lowest. If nothing is moving, and you have the option of shooting from a tripod, you don't need it.

Pick a focal length. Cars have photographic personalities just like people do. Just as some people will look better photographed from a distance with a telephoto and others will by getting up-close and personal, different cars will look better at different zoom settings. Imagine the car was a person: would you want to exaggerate their facial physical features, or de-emphasise them?

Wide angles exaggerate a car's features. Does the car look tough and brutish like a prize-fighter? Then zoom out and get closer to the vehicle. Doing this exaggerates perspective.

Don't go too wide unless you know what you're doing; a 28mm-equivalent focal length (18mm on your digital SLR's kit lens) is more than wide enough for most of the time. Getting much wider than that, and you'll end up with a photo of a headlight attached to a very small car .

A normal-to-longer focal length will do the opposite: It'll give a flatter, more elegant look to the vehicle. This is often better for plainer cars, just as longer focal lengths are more flattering to people. Experimenting is free on digital, so don't hesitate to try both.

Beware of reflections! It can sometimes be difficult to get a consistent exposure across the whole of a car. The paintwork (hopefully shiny!) will reflect the sky in parts and so will the windscreen, which are extremely bright relative to other parts of the vehicle. Other than bringing in lighting, there's a few ways around this:

Use a polarizing filter if you have one. This will cut down the reflections. If you don't have one, consider getting one; they're cheap (and the cheap ones work great) and are one of the two filters most critical for digital photography.

Bracket your exposures. You'll need a tripod for this to ensure your photographs line up. Take one photograph at a normal exposure, then take another under-exposed. You can do this using the exposure compensation settings in your camera, or automatic exposure bracketing if your camera has it. You can then use layer masks in your favourite image editing software to paint in areas from the underexposed photo onto parts of the normally-exposed photo (Optionally, you can take a third over-exposed photograph which you can use to fill in shadows in the same way.)

emove any distractions from the vehicle, just like you'd remove distractions from a photograph of a person. If you're at a car show, wait for people to move out of your shot before taking it. Clear away any litter. Try not to shoot in front of a telephone pole, which will make it look like the pole is poking out of the top of the car. Also, try to avoid pulling too much sky into your photograph; it'll more than likely blow out to a distracting bright cyan or white color if you're not using a gradual neutral-density filter (if you can choose an outdoor location, shooting in front of buildings or other structures that will block out the sky is often a good idea).

Get away from normal eye-level. Try kneeling or standing on something to make yourself a couple feet taller, or anything that helps you not to get the same eye-level photos that everyone else will be taking. 

Instead, try these:

Kneel down in front of the car. This will give it an aggressive, "coming at you" appearance.

Set the camera on the ground. Shooting the car from a very low angle (and tilting it up slightly) will give a unique view that isn't normally seen.

Get close and specific. Find the more interesting or unique features or curves on the car, then get close-up shots of them from different angles.

Take it from the top. Try to get a shot from high up, or even just holding the camera high above your head. This will both serve as a unique and interesting angle, and allow the photo to capture multiple angles of the car (side, front, top).

Try shooting at night under artificial lighting. You'll want a tripod for this one, too, and to either use a remote shutter release or a short self-timer.

Stop down to f/8 or f/11. This will turn bright points of light into multi-pointed stars.

Make sure your camera's automatic ISO feature is off, and shoot at the lowest ISO setting your camera has.

Look at the lighting on the vehicle. Artificial lighting will cast harsh shadows on parts of the car which will need to be filled with your own lighting. You'll get used to these once you can remember that you can see much deeper into the shadows than your camera can.

Get your flash off the camera. If it has a built-in flash, then use a compact camera, a camera phone, or any old 1980s flash gun, and quickly run around the vehicle firing the flash to fill in any shadows. (A longer exposure gives you plenty of time to do this, which is another reason to stop down to f/8 or f/11.)

You might want to drop your photograph down to black-and-white when you're done. Artificial outdoor lighting (especially sodium-vapour) is monochromatic enough that you will probably find that your image is almost black-and-white already once you remove the colour cast from your photograph (a bonus is that this also means you won't have to worry about putting coloured filters over your flash to match the ambient artificial lighting).

Try cropping really tightly and singling out a single instantly-recognisable feature from the car. This could be a taillight, or a curve on the bodywork, or a crop of quarter of the front grille with a headlight.

Edit your photographs with your favourite photo editor. If you don't have one, get one; GIMP is free. Some tricks you might want to try are:

Use layer masks on an underexposed version of the photo in order to paint in parts of it onto over-exposed parts of your photo (See the information exposure bracketing above).

Fix the contrast. More than likely you'll want to increase it. One way which often works brilliantly for cars is to duplicate your image as a layer, set the layer mode to "Soft Light", de-saturate it, then adjust the opacity of that layer to taste. This also has the side-effect of fixing colour casts.

Practitioners

Richard Pardon

GF Williams 

Starting photography at the age of 14, George very quickly realised he could unite photography with his other major passion - cars. His automotive photography career began as an obsession for cars and all things related and morphed into a very successful career photographing them. Originally by taking photos of his friends pride and joys as a favour and later being sought out by manufacturers, magazines and businesses the world over.

George's current client base includes some of the most prestigious brands in the world. Today he can offer help with advertising, brochures, press, editorial, post processing, studio, stock images and much much more.

Don Romnev

I havent danced under the stars with the  Wai-Wai tribe nor have I watched Narwhal play off the coast of greenland , but I do work with some iconic brands and have traveled on every continent illustrating the automobile and the incredible love afair we as a society have with them.

Texture and light excites me and I prefer to bend light in camera than bend pixels in post.

I believe deeply in teamwork, community, and collaboration, but above all I love what I do, the places I get to go, the people I get to meet and the fun we get to have along the way.

Cost?

DO I NEED A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS ?

Canon EOS350D - Canon EF50mm f/1.8 - 50 mm 1.6 sec f22.0 ISO100

Intermediate level tutorial - posted on February 1, 2010 by Mark

The honest truth : yes ! Money will make your life as a car photographer a lot easier, but we can't all go to the shop and buy a top of the line camera and lenses � money doesn't grow on trees, at least not in my backyard, so unless you find yourself a nice sponsor to get started you will have to take it slow at first.

It all depends on how much money you are ready to spend � to be honest you will need a starting capital of up to US $ 5,000 to get up and running with the bare basics, anything on top of that would be nice, but anything below this figure could make things rather difficult, not impossible, but a bit more demanding on your techniques using the equipment you can buy.

So what do you really need to get started as a car photographer ?

A camera :

If you are the least but serious about photographing cars you'll need a DSLR, forget about all those compact or bridge models and go for a camera that will allow you to fit different lenses on it, this will allow you to grow into the more demanding work and fit the more expensive lenses depending on your needs and the type of car photography you will evolve into.

So let's talk makes : Canon, Nikon, Sony or another make ? Actually there is no perfect answer to this, personally I went for a Canon setup, but those other makes sure have some interesting products on the market too, just don't go for the entry level models but take your first camera from the semi-pro line up. This will ensure you don't hit the boundaries of the camera after a few months, in the Canon line up this means the EOS 7D model ($1,600), in the Nikon camp we're looking at the D300s ($ 1,700), why not a Sony A-700 ($1,300), or perhaps a Pentax K7 ($ 1,100) or the Olympus E-3 ($ 1,300) if you would like to walk away from the usual path � however the Canon EOS 7D has the highest resolution here (not always important mind you) and it also features Full HD movie which could be nice from time to time but shouldn't be a deal breaker in any way, go with the camera that feels best in your hands.

The lens :

We would advice you to steer away from the kit-lenses in the above range of camera's, they aren't bad, but with a higher initial investment your are set for a longer time when it comes to serious car photography, so save up a bit longer and get the best lens money can get � this way you don't have to sell it later on when you do get the best one anyway, we've all been there, and we all lost money over it, so our advice : get the best right from the start !

In the Canon camp you will be looking at the EF-S17-55 f2.8 IS USM ($1,100), by many seen as the very best available for Canon crop camera's (do note this magnificent lens doesn't fit the Full Frame 5D nor the professional 1D series !)

For Nikon this would mean the equally impressive 17-55 f2.8G ED-IF AF-S DX ($1,350), a rather expensive piece of glass, but worth every penny, it is tack sharp and perfect for capturing cars in the wild. For the Sony we have a small dilemma, you could go for the excellent Zeiss 16-80 f3.5-4.5 ($700), but we would prefer a 2.8 lens so here we turn to a Tamron 17-50 f2.8 XR DI-II LD ($500), also note that the latter also exists in other mounts if you want to safe some money when using a Canon or Nikon body.

Bottom line is : you will need a range of about 17mm to about 55mm and an f2.8 setting for those nice out of focus backgrounds you will be getting once experience kicks in. Don't forget to get the lens hood for those lenses that don't include it already (like the Canon for instance), sure it isn't cheap, but it will get you better results and protect the delicate front glass element to a certain extend � we don't believe in mounting UV filters simply for protection, a lens hood will be just about as effective.

The one filter you actually need :

You need a good circular polarizing filter if you want to get those award winning, cover reaching car shots, don't skimp on this one either, get a top of the line Hoya or B+W filter, sure they are $100 or more, but at least they don't degrade the quality of your expensive lens, why spend so much money on the best camera and lens to ruin it with a low grade filter.

A circular polarizing filter will help you to avoid distracting reflections in the car, as we all know the bodywork of a car, especially when it has chrome bumpers will reflect the entire world in them, including yourself, using a good filter will be able to avoid these mirror images to a certain extend.

The flash :

Yep, you really need one, don't let people tell you otherwise, an external flash is worth it's weight in gold for some shots, especially interior and engine shots, only problem � they are rather expensive, especially the original ones from the bigger makes.

Take into account that at a certain stage you will be using this flash off-camera, so get a model that will support this easily, at Canon this would be either the 430EX II ($300) or the flagship 580EX II ($450), with Nikon we are talking about the SB-600 ($250) or their flagship, the SB-900 ($460) while for the Sony we would get either the HVL-F42AM ($300) or the more powerful HVL-F58AM ($450) � so which one should you get (depending on your camera naturally) ? Get the most powerful model available, you never have enough flash power on hand, trust us on this one, sure they are more expensive, but after using for a few months you will forget about the higher price and appreciate the extra power.

A nice extra for the Canon in this case is the fact the flash transmitter is built into the EOS 7D, so you can use full E-TTL remotely, put the flash on a small stand away from the camera and it will still 'talk' with it for the perfect exposure.

The tripod :

Every car photographer that's the least bit serious about his work will have a good tripod within reach when doing a shoot, there is no turning around it, you need one for those impressive shots, and again don't go for the cheapest one on the list or you'll end up buying a new one further down the road anyway.

We hate to admit it, but we've spend way too much money on various tripods before we found what we needed, a nice lightweight carbon fiber Manfrotto 055CXPRO4 ($425) with a 410 Compact Geared Head ($200), sure this is a serious amount of money, however the perfect alignment possible with a geared head just makes up for the steep price. If the tripod itself is a bit much you can also go for the standard 055XPROB ($180) from Manfrotto, do note that there are many makes out there, but we like to keep similar makes together, and since the only decent geared head came from Manfrotto we selected our 'legs' from the same company.

We're almost done now, but we still need a few bits and pieces to complete our car photography kit, things like batteries for the flash, memory cards (preferably two) for the camera and a nice bag to fit it all into would be a great idea to protect your investment, do put aside about $250 for these little items too.

Conclusion :

So there you have it, getting serious into car photography takes a lot of money, and we didn't even cover the telephoto lenses here, they will set you back another few thousands of dollars, the kit we've assembled here will get you started on the right foot, but keep one thing in mind : don't spend this kind of money unless you are really sure you'll be taking it to a professional level, and you have to money to spare.

Don't use your life savings to get this kind of equipment, it should be an investment into your future as an automotive photographer, not put a mortgage on the next years of your life, it is not worth it, if you don't have the money required don't go into debt to get the above material.

Naturally you could get started with an entry level DSLR and a kit-lens, but in the end you will upgrade to the type of camera we've outlined earlier in this article and get that expensive lens anyway, you could keep your first body as a backup unit (or second unit with a telephoto lens) but bottom line is that you'll end up investing much more when you count it all together, so why not go for the best in the first place ?

Action Photography Tutorial

ACTION PHOTOGRAPHY USING A CAR RIG WITH SUCTION CUPS

Canon EOS350D - Canon EF-S10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 - 10mm 1/15 sec f6.3 ISO100

Advanced level tutorial - posted on April 9, 2013 by Mark

DISCLAIMER this tutorial shows you how to perform a rolling rig shot using a boom and suction cups, in now way can I be held responsible for any damage to you, other people, the car, other cars or the equipment as a result of following the tips mentioned in this tutorial. If you are attempting any kind of rig shot you take full responsibility for any damages you might inflict on the car, surrounding cars, yourself or your equipment.

Many people have been asking for a tutorial on RIG photography, and to be honest I have always tried to keep away from this kind of photography for one major reason: it is dangerous, plain and simple. Both for you, for the car you are photographing and for your equipment ... so please think about this before you venture into rig photography, make sure you check everything before you start rolling or driving the car ... double check, and even triple check everything ... the suction cups, the grips, the camera ... verify it all is fixed tightly before attempting any rolling photo.

Rig shots convey a sense of speed and motion

When you see an action shot of a car there are a few possible methods on how it has been created, one of them is using a 'rig' ... which is nothing more than a long pole (or boom) that is fixed in one way or another onto a car with a camera hanging from it on the other side. A method that has been in use for ages already, but it is not for the faint at heart ... rig shots are dangerous, there is no other way to put it.

In this tutorial I will explain how I used to do rig shots like this ... but only if the customer really needed this kind of photography, and always after they sign a waiver, taking all responsibility for any damages, and trust me, it will go wrong at one point ... remember Murphy's Law: 'Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong'. I can tell you right now you will have a suction cup coming off or a clamp loosing grip ... or even worse have your camera falling to the ground during the shot ... so not only double check everything, but triple check it all!

Rig shot essentials

Rig shot photography isn't just dangerous, if you want to do it right it is also expensive, before even attempting your first rolling rig shot you have to spend some money to get the essential parts you'll be using, and I just want to inform you on which I use ... and which you should NOT use.

The big 'no no' cups

If you are considering to do rig shots on a regular basis I would avoid stuff from the local DIY shop. Sure those orange 'double' clamps look good, and they do stay in place rather well, I even saw some with three of these cups ... but trust me, they will loose grip and have your boom hitting the car and your camera being dragged over the pavement ... just don't make this very costly mistake, it isn't worth it, trust me.

I know the above statement will cause some reaction from people using these DIY clamps, and sure they can withstand a lot of pulling power, but I have three serious issues with them: for one you have absolutely no idea how much vacuum you've pulled by lowering the levers, more importantly if you are loosing vacuum. Secondly they have no protection on the suction cups, so you'll have to make sure they are meticulously cleaned before applying them onto a $15k paint job to avoid scratches ... and last but not least ... you aren't conveying a sense of professionalism with these, which can be important if you attach them onto a $500,000 Lamborghini that just left the showroom floor.

The eBay clamp

Photography equipment is expensive, and I also bought a lot of material from overseas, some expensive and some low cost just to see how they hold up against their original 'make' counterparts ... and most of the time I've been pleasantly surprised, despite the fact they only cost one fourth or even less they tend to work just fine ... if you use them for what they've been intended for.

And this clamp is a perfect example of my statement, I got it from the UK and it costs next to nothing, comes with rubber protection on the clamp, a very stiff spring to hold the clamp shut and a nice, albeit little ball head that allows the tripod size screw to be mounted in just about any angle you can imagine ... but I would NOT put a DSLR onto this clamp, it will not hold it. I use it to mount a remote flash on it for an indoor shoot ... and that is what small clamps like this are meant for, not to hold a heavy camera on a rolling car.

The Avenger Pump Cup

Meet the Avenger F1000 Pump Cup with swivel pin ... it will set you back up to $100 a piece, but this is the suction cup to get if you are serious about this kind of rig photography. The black cup itself has a nice large diameter of 15cm (5.8 inch) and comes with a protection during transport, you'll still have to clean it on site, but at least it has not been in contact with dirt or sand. The Avenger comes with a ball joint so you can have the pin at the top point in 'almost' any direction, but the most important feature for me is the pump action.

Take a look at the blue section, the pump handle shows a red line ... when you mount this cup onto a car (I will go into detail later on) you start 'pumping' the air out of the cup by pressing this blue pin ... after a while you'll have created a decent vacuum underneath the cup and the red line will no longer show ... as long as the red line is invisible the cup stays in place, once vacuum has gone beyond a certain 'danger point' the red line become visible again and you can pump it up a little more.

The Super Clamp from Manfrotto

To make sure you are gripping the boom of your rig in the right way I would advice you to get the Manfrotto 035RL Super Clamp, sure they are big and heavy, but they are made to hold heavy equipment onto round or square tubes (they come with an adapter you can fit for square tubes), once again these aren't the cheapest out there, and I'm sure you'll be able to find some 'replica' units online, but I try not to take any risks with my equipment so I ordered these for my automotive rig.

Keep in mind you will need at least three of these Super Clamps, two will be mounted on two Avenger F1000 Cups and the third one will receive a ball head to mount the camera on at the other side of the pole.

The Ball head mount

You could mount the camera directly onto the screw delivered with the Super Clamps, but that would seriously limit the amount of adjustability for your rig setup, so either you buy the expensive 'Manfrotto Magic Arm' ... or as I did, at least a nice ball head mount as I found my use to warrant getting the Magic Arm too limited.

When you buy the Super Clamps I mentioned earlier you also get a nice 'bolt' that fits right into the bottom of the Ball head mount as can be seen on the photo, this allows you to 'clamp' the mount straight onto the pole and adjust the angle perfectly to have the car in the viewfinder, the fully adjustable Magic Arm from Manfrotto allows a lot more play ... but at a price naturally, so I leave the decision to buy one totally up to you.

The entire 'mount' set

So what's in the carrying case for my rig setup? In fact you'll need at least two suction cups, three might leave you some more room to play and have a more rigid fixture, but adding a third one onto a car can be rather difficult, so I only use two of them.

Each of the suction cups receives a Super Clamp and you'll need a third one for the camera mount on the other end of the pole, so in total three Super Clamps ... you have the option of getting the Magic Arm or just go for a Ball head mount like I did ... in the end we are already talking about $400 in total, and we still have to get the boom itself.

The boom, or pole

I have a boom in sections as I feel it is more stable than an adjustable length boom, in fact I have four sections of about 1 meter in length, the one seen on this photo is made from three of these sections so in total about 3 meters long.

Also note I put the suction cups on the rear window ... I tend to avoid putting these cups on bodypanels, for one these are painted so that could mean scratches on the paint, and secondly the layered glass used on cars these days is much stronger than the metal body.

I put the two suction cups at such an angle to each other the pole is actually pointing down, I also have the ball head mount 'upside down' on the pole, this means the camera will be hanging very low to the ground, make sure it will not touch the ground when the boom 'flexes' ... having the camera hanging like this will mean the pole will be much easier to remove in post processing too as it will not be in the way of the camera when it takes a shot of the car.

The first rig shoot

So we'll put it all together for our first rig shoot. I always bring along a bottle of water and two microfiber cloths, the suction cups have a protection during transportation, but I always clean them thoroughly with water before I apply them onto the car, and while I'm at it I also clean the spot where I'm putting these cups ... this will avoid any scratching from dust or sand particles to a certain degree.

Once the cups have been 'pumped' to a vacuum where the red line is invisible I add the Super Clamps onto them and position them roughly in the same direction, I then mount the boom to the length required, in this case I went for 3 meters, after which I carefully insert the boom into the two clamps having one clamp at the end with the second somewhere along the boom ... this leaves a lot of length just hanging beyond the side of the car.

Always tighten the clamp near the middle of the boom first, and I have the opening of the clamps pointing upward so the boom actually rests into them, this avoids the boom from dropping from the clamps while you mount them, if you have a partner or a friend to assist you things are a lot easier but I tend to work alone.

Next up is adding the clamp at the other end of the boom to hang the camera from, as mentioned I tend to hang the camera upside down so it 'rides' very low to the ground, resulting in a very nice angle of your photograph, just keep in mind every boom will flex a little ... so keep the camera high enough so it won't touch the ground while the car is moving.

If you are doing this for the first time you might be struggling a bit with the shutter speed, you have to get a long enough shutter to have the wheels spinning nicely, take a look at the first shot at 1/30 sec ... the wheels do spin, but I felt it needed some more spin so I lowered the shutter speed to 1/15 sec ... naturally this meant I also had to change the aperture to 6.3 from 4.5 to keep the amount of light hitting the sensor more or less the same.

The second shot

Let me give you another piece of advice, especially if you have a boom that tends to flex a lot during the shot you might want to use this little trick.

Take an exposure while standing still. This will give you a photo with the car being perfectly sharp in the exposure, after that you can take a long shutter shot and actually paste in the 'still' into the rolling shot ... you'll have a nicely blurred background and a perfectly sharp car in the end.

This does take some serious post processing and masking, but so does every rig shot in fact. You will always have to clone out the boom from your photo, and that can sometimes be rather difficult, it all depends on where you see the reflection of the boom on the car, that is why I 'hang' the camera on the boom, that way the entire boom is above the car in the shot so you only have to deal with the reflection.

Just like on our first attempt I start with a nice shutter speed of 1/30, but again the wheel spin isn't up to specs for my taste so I lower it to 1/15 and perform a second run ... with the desired wheel spin I was looking for, this is the shot I will be post processing further when I get back in the office.

These photos have been taking using a wired remote shutter controller with a 10m extension cord wrapped around the pole, as the camera is hanging on the extremity of the boom I can not reach the shutter button to press it for an exposure, and even if I could reach the camera it would cause way too much camera shake and ruin the entire rig shot anyway.

As I am doing these rig shots on my own I am actually driving the car slowly while I take an exposure, that is why you are seeing shutter speeds of 1/15 second ... but there is another way.

If you can have some assistance you could do even more extreme rolling shots with very long shutter times, up to several seconds in fact, which results in totally amazing wheel spin. This involves activating an exposure and subsequently manually push the car forward ... or backward, you'll never notice this in the photo anyway.

Because you are exposing for several seconds you can carefully push the car very slowly, hence avoiding any flex in your boom if you've selected a nice flat stretch of road ... this kind of rig photography is often done in parking lots or on private property ... in fact you are not allowed to do any king of rig photography on the open road ... way too dangerous!

Multi second exposures

There is however one serious problem if you want to do multi second exposures in rig photography while you push the car ... there will be too much light and the photo will be over exposed, so you will need an ND filter, a Neutral Density filter that effectively blocks light from reaching the sensor in your camera.

And here things get a bit difficult, you could buy different ND filters depending on the amount of light you want to 'cut', they range from less than one stop to one stop, two stops ... even as much as ten stops ... or you take my advice and buy the 'Variable Neutral Density' filter from LCW, Light Craft Workshop which can change the amount of light that gets blocked depending on your needs at that specific setting, it might be a little more expensive at first, but it will avoid 'stacking' filters to reach the effect required ... and I can only say: less filters in front of your lens will result in better photos.

Effect filters

I bought these slide-in or slot-in filters as they are sometimes called just to check them out, this system has been around for ages, ever since the 'film' days when it would be more difficult to achieve their effect during processing, so I wanted to try them.

These involve putting a plastic holder in front of your lens and selecting the filter you want to use ... and simply slide it in front of the lens. I bought a one stop ND filter and three gradient filters ... one with a one stop ND fading out to zero, one with a blue gradient to intensify the sky and one with an orange gradient to get that special CSI Miami look.

I imagined I could use these filters for my rig shots to get some special effects right from the start ... so do they work? They actually do work, but I have to be honest here ... I can get much better effects in post processing, so I no longer use them these days.

Adding even more drama

A rolling rig shot looks very dynamic when executed correctly, but there is a way to add even more drama to the shot ... just do an exposure while taking a corner. This will create such an amazing look and feel in the shot, the entire blur gets a circular direction and with the front wheel being at an angle the shot just oozes speed from every pixel.

In fact there are a few angles that look really good for rig photography, the low angle three quarter rear shot like the first one I mentioned, a similar low angle front three quarter shot like the second exposure ... but the low front angle while taking a turn does take the cake if you ask me, it really adds so much more dynamics to the shot ... but there is another angle that really works well on a rig shot ... the full side shot.

The only problem with a full side shot is the fact you will need a very long boom to get the entire car in the photo, keeping in mind you'll need some space at the rear of the car and a bit more space in front of the car to keep the Rule of Thirds in your photo ... so not too many people have the equipment to create full side rolling shots with a rig ... you might want to use another method: the follow car, a second car driving next to the one you are photographing ... but that has nothing to do with rig photography so I will not go any further into that right now.

Post processing - Step by step

The original photograph as it came out of my trusted old Canon EOS350D, if you think making the rig shot was difficult ... think again, the best is yet to come, I will show you some serious post processing to get the best out of these rig shots, the hard part is just beginning.

One of the first things I will have to take on is removing the boom from the photo, rig shots usually do not show the setup, instead most of the time you only get to see the result after some serious work in front of the computer ... in this tutorial I show you the entire BTS, behind the scenes on how to create an impressive rig shot.

Step 1 : clone stamp tool

Using the Clone Stamp Tool in PhotoShop you can use surrounding pixels to cover the boom in our rig shot, make sure you select a relatively large, soft brush size to start with so you'll have the edges of the clone stamp nicely blend in with the background ... to finalize the details you'll have to turn to a smaller brush ... in the end the photo has to look like there never was a boom in the first place.

On the car itself there is a small reflection on the fender, this has to be cloned out too, remember that, and search for reflection in the headlights too, these often show a thin line as a reflection of the boom and they are often forgotten during post processing.

Depending on the car and the position of the boom on that car it might be more difficult to completely remove the boom from the rig shot, sometimes it is easier to make a selection with the Polygonal Lasso Tool to avoid cloning over parts that have no need to be modified, in severe cases you'll even have to paint over the car itself as there is no part to 'clone' from, this is where things can get rather difficult, but the more time you put into this first step the better the result will be, so don't cut corners here.

Step 2 : a new background

I meticulously removed the boom from the photo only to decide I didn't really like the trees in the background, they just drew too much attention and didn't give the impression I was looking for in this case ... so I started to prepare putting in a new background.

When I'm putting in a new background I start out with creating a new Layer and filling it with a nice contrasting shade, like red in this case and create a Mask by carefully tracing around the car with the Polygonal Lasso Tool, you could use the magnetic version of this tool, but I find it not accurate enough so I do it completely manually.

Once you have a nice and tight layer mask to use as a template you can start experimenting with putting in a new background behind the car, I tried an industrial facility but didn't find it right for this specific car so in the end I settled on a nice cloud filled background ... it even showed a few trees at the bottom too, but much less than the original shot.

Now there is one major flaw with this new background ... if it would only contain the clouds in the sky it would not be visible, but since a few trees are shown you notice on big problem ... there is no blur from the movement of the car against the background visible anymore, so I will have to add it to the new trees that are now visible.

Because I made things even more difficult for myself by deciding to use a different background I had to make that new backdrop 'move' behind the Audi, fortunately PhotoShop has a blur-motion filter that does just what I need.

Remember I made a 'mask template' to cut the rolling Q7 from the original background it became very easy to fit the new background in place, but before I performed the motion blur on the still visible trees on the new background I remembered one thing ... in front of the car the motion is much more pronounced than at the rear of the car, where in fact there is almost not motion at all.

So I made a duplicate of the new background, applied the same mask to it (by Alt-dragging the layer mask from one layer onto the next) and performed the motion blur on the upper copy of the new backdrop, after that I filled the mask from the upper copy with a 50% opacity gradient from black to transparent to show the 'static' part of the underlying background a little behind the car while in front of the car I keep the full motion effect.

The rig shot of this massive Audi Q7 is starting to convey the look I wanted, but there are still a few details I want to modify to get it looking just the way I want it to look.

If you have been following my tutorials you know I tend to use a vignet on my photos a lot, and this very simple trick actually draws attention to the car by making sure the background is not the first thing that people look at, this can be done in a few ways, one of them is turning the background into black and white, the other is making sure the car itself is 'in the light' while the background is darkened.

I went for a combination of both, so I added a B&W adjustment layer with a mask that leaves the street and the car alone and only covers the grass, the trees and the clouds ... but I didn't want to remove all the color from the surroundings so I toned down the effect by lowering the opacity of this B&W layer to 50%.

A new layer with the blending mode set to 'softlight' and a gradient fill from pure black to transparent will pull even more attention to the car, I make sure I start the gradient at the top of the frame and end it just when it touches the car, the same thing from the bottom up just touching the wheels ... and you get a darkened, more contrasty background while your car stays bright and shiny, just the way I intended.

I wanted to have a 'warmer' look and feel to this shot, the car itself is grey metallic and the new clouds in the background show a cool image, so I added yet another layer on top, again with a SoftLight blending mode just like my vignet layer ... but this time I put in a gradient using bright orange, in fact a real orange RGB shade of 255-128-0.

Naturally the effect was totally over the top so I had to lower to opacity of this 'warm sunlight' layer, I settled for a 50% coverage, but when you are performing this kind of post processing feel free to experiment with different settings until you reach one you like.

I still felt the image lacked some 'punch' so I added another layer on top, this time a Curves Adjustment Layer, pulling down the entire curves line into an arch made the clouds and road really get the look I wanted, only problem the car itself looked terrible ...

No problem, putting in a Layer Mask and again carefully tracing around the car itself removed the Curves Layer influence on the grey metallic bodywork and wheels so only the clouds and the road were 'intensified' by my arched Curves adjustment ... almost there, I just added another SoftLight layer on top of it all with a black to transparent gradient at only 20% opacity to add just a little more contrast to the clouds ... and I'm done.

BEFORE and AFTER post processing

(Move your mouse over the photo above to compare the 'Before vs After' shots)

So you see not only does it take some serious preparation and work to take a rig shot, it also takes some serious post processing to remove the boom from the resulting photo and to tweak the surroundings to get that look and feel you want ... but in the end these action shots sure are impressive.

Off Camera Flash

OFF CAMERA FLASH CAR PHOTOGRAPHY, PART 1 OF 2 : THE SHOPPING LIST

Canon EOS40D - Canon EF70-200mm f/2.8 L IS - 70 mm 1/250 sec f2.8 ISO100

Advanced level tutorial - posted on June 1, 2012 by Mark

I know lots of people have been asking about this tutorial for a long time now, but trust me, it isn't as easy as it looks ... well that's about the case in most car photography anyway, but adding one or more light sources into the equation makes things a lot more difficult, not only do you have to keep an eye on everything you've learned up to now, but once you add a flash to the shoot you have to know exactly how that extra light behaves too.

And light is a strange thing, it can make or brake a photo, trust me, try to get to grips using natural light before you even consider adding artificial light sources into a shot ... and I specifically didn't say 'flash' here because on many occasions you can get even better shots by just using a reflector ... a flash can give some harsh light, a reflector is smoother most of the time.

First let me ask you this:

'Why would you consider adding light sources into your car photography' ... if you don't have a clear answer to this, or the answer is 'because it looks cool' or 'others are doing it' ... please stop for a minute now. When you photograph a car it is your shoot, you are taking the decisions on angle, distance from the car, polarizing filter or not, tripod or hand held ... you are in charge. So don't think you 'need' to add lights just because you've red about them or you've seen someone else using them ... the first thing I always tell people who want to take their car photography skills one step further is: 'develop YOUR style, don't copy someone else, it doesn't work that way'.

Now I'm also the first to say you need to look at photos from your fellow car photographers (I specifically don't call them competitors, we're all in the same business here right) and learn from them ... but read that last part again ... 'learn from them', it doesn't say 'try to copy them'. So now that we have that sorted out I know you are here to learn about flash photography, so let's get down to it.

Initial shopping list for flash photography

Lights please

Well an external flash would be nice right? But which one to get could be a totally different question ... I for one always try to get the best I can afford ... or justify as a reasonable investment, so I went for a couple of Canon EX580 II units.

I know these are expensive, but I'm also using them on camera for other types of photography, so the e-TTL is an added bonus on these together with the power, and I love the fact they have a PC Sync connection built in ... I just hate those triggers were you have to put the flash into a hot shoe and put the entire thing onto a stand.

I can tell you this right from the start: 'it will wiggle around and scare the living daylights out of you when it decides to check out the floor ... smashing the flash into pieces.' Trust me, been there, done that ... it will happen, it can take days, weeks or even years, but at one moment in time your stand will fall to the floor and crash that expensive flash on top of it.

You have already red it above, getting a flash is the first step, so try to go for the best one you can afford ... and remember for one shot flash photography you will need three of them ... that's right: 3 flashes, so it gets expensive quickly now, and we still have lots of other stuff to get.

I know people are doing multiple exposures with only one flash they move around and take extra shots, some even use a technique called 'light painting', walking around the car during a long exposure when it is dark outside and fire the flash manually several times, but we are talking about making things easier here, so at least two, but even better three light sources are a minimum to get the shot in one exposure.

Think about this: you will be using the flash on manual mode for most of your shots, so it isn't necessary to get an expensive, e-TTL automatic flash if you only intend to use it for off camera photography, feel free to check out units from YongNuo for instance, they cost a lot less and work almost as good anyway, just make sure there is a PC Sync connection on the unit itself, that will safe you some serious grief later on.

Triggers ?

Second thing on the list are triggers, those nasty little things that allow your camera to control the flash from a distance, because the entire trick about flash photography in cars is to get the flash away from the camera ... now you can try to yell at the flash to make it light up, but somehow I never got that working on my Canon units, so I bought a wireless trigger setup, and that's exactly what you should be doing too.

And here again it all comes down to money, you could decide to get what is considered the best of the best, wireless triggers from PocketWizard ... just about every professional photographer will have a set of these, and they are considered to be the best on the market with a massive range and a very, very low fail rate ... but check out those prices. Do make sure you are sitting down, these units cost a small fortune, most likely even more than your flash itself ... so I couldn't bring myself to spend that kind of money and decided to go the cheap skate route for once ... bummer.

Just like most people starting out in this niche I got online and checked out eBay for those famous 'Cactus' triggers people are raving about all over the internet, they are ridiculously cheap so you can't be suckered too bad I guessed, I ended up ordering a multiple unit PT-04 set just to be safe ... they arrived quickly all the way from Hong Kong and behold, they actually work ... well most of them.

Right from the start I had one receiver that didn't work beyond a few meter, same thing with a transceiver, worked perfectly up to about 5 meter, after that it only triggered the flash sporadically ... so in my eyes useless, but I planned ahead and ordered two transceivers and a total of five receivers (two different models), hence no problem, I had two flashes at that time so I was ready to go.

NOT ... sure they triggered the off-camera flash, that part worked perfectly, but after a while using them I noticed something really strange ... at the top of the photo I got some distortion that was mostly visible on a dark background ... turned out the frequency used by these low cost triggers actually influenced the sensor inside my Canon EOS40D at that time, and also my newer Canon EOS5d MarkII ... so I sold the entire set to a guy using a Nikon who apparently didn't have this problem.

So once again looking for a wireless trigger setup I bought the Elinchrom Skyport system, they offer a Universal kit that has one trigger and two receivers, the basics I needed at that time ... mind you these aren't cheap, but they work perfectly and I love them, bought a second kit to have two triggers and four receivers for my entire setup, and never looked back or had any regrets spending a fair bit more compared to the Cactus set up.

Cabling

Here things can get a bit tricky too, it all depends on what kind of wireless triggers you are using. If you are happy with the Cactus like system you will not need a cable I guess, the flash just sits on a hot shoe connection and gets triggered using the central contact point. You have PT-04, PT-16, RF602 ... all of those work nicely and allow you to put the flash directly onto them ... but as I mentioned my set caused some interference with the sensor in my camera, so I bought the SkyPort system from Elinchrom ... and those don't have a hot shoe connection.

And here the cabling come into view, and remember I've been insisting on having a PC Sync connection on your flash ... here is why: you connect the trigger with a PC Sync cable directly into your flash, and if you are lucky you even have a 'Screw lock' connection like I do on my EX580 II units, this allows you to fix the PC Sync cable in place by screwing it onto the flash ... hence no false contacts or a cable falling from the connector. On the other side of the cable you have a standard head phone jack that goes into the receiver ... a perfect, flawless connection every time, today, tomorrow and in a few years time.

I ordered the Screw Lock PC Sync cables for my units from www.FlashZebra.com by the way, not too expensive and they offer custom cables for just about any combination of flash and trigger you can imagine ... and customer service is great if you need it, so I wouldn't hesitate to advice you from getting your cables from them too.

Light stand

You probably already have a camera tripod right? If like me you were too broke down to get a decent one the first time around you probably have an old, useless one lying around too ... now you can use it again, it might not be able to hold a camera rock steady, but a flash shouldn't be a problem.

However, as I advised you to get at least two, of not three flash units, you'll also need the same amount of stands for them, so at least two more to buy. Now you could get some low cost, or even second hand tripods again ... most flash come with a nice thread that allows you to screw them onto a tripod anyway, but you can also get some cheap stands for them.

I actually got me three stands for less than 100 Euro, sure these aren't the best around, but they don't have to carry any kind of weight anyway, and who cares if they aren't solid as a rock ... they have a light on top, so what if it moves a few cm, you won't be seeing that in the shot anyway. Just make sure you have a few sandbags with you to keep them from falling over, to be on the safe side.

The most important thing about the light stand you are considering to buy is the length it takes when packed, the height it can reach fully extended and how low it can go when set up ... that's all that matter, you might want to consider getting a light stand that can go above 2m and as low as 40 or 50cm to get most angles of flash photography on cars covered.

If you need to set a flash lower than 40cm you can just put it onto its own stand that is usually shipped with it, or put a book or a brick under it, and any higher than 2m50 would be stretching safety anyway, so don't bother with that, it isn't needed anyway as you will be able to read in our setup later on.

I found a nice shop in Germany that sells low cost stands that offer very nice quality for their price: www.Foto-Walzer.biz ... they have just about everything in stock and ship very fast, so feel free to take a look at them ... or visit your local shop, I'm sure they will have some entry level light stands too.

Light modifiers

I've tried them all: umbrella in shoot through and reflection form, soft box both small and large, massive diffuser sheets with multiple strobes behind them� all very nice, and they do work perfectly don't get me wrong ... but for studio based glamour photography.

Out there in the field, close to a rare exotic car they just don't make me happy, most of these modifiers will create large reflections in the paint anyway, which makes me spend hours cloning them out in post processing ... I don't like that, it doesn't make me money spending hours on one shot only, the customer isn't always willing to pay for such extensive post processing.

The only one that does work is that massive diffuser sheet with multiple light sources ... but it has to be so big it covers the entire car in one go, and subsequently you will need some serious power in the strobes to get any light onto the car in the end ... the result is stunning, but the setup and cost of getting this is ridiculous for most of your shoots anyway.

We are talking about up to 24 light strobes and a diffuser the size of a little truck, it has to extend beyond the width and length of the car you are shooting, and such a sheet will have to be fixed very tightly to avoid it from falling if there is even a small gust of wind ... so very nice in a studio setup but next to useless out in the open if you ask me ... and more importantly totally not reasonably priced no matter how you look at it.

So bottom line: I shoot bare flash, no modifiers on them so I have no loss of power too, just use the wide angle deflector fitted to most flash units to have a big spread of light and go for it ... as an added bonus of going bare flash you don't have an umbrella that catches every small force of wind that comes along or a soft box that makes your entire stand really top-heavy and prone to falling over.

And the most important thing to remember: using a flash in its bare form like this will also have a very small reflection in the paint, so less work in post processing too ... and if you follow my lead in setting up a car shoot using external flash units you will most likely not be cloning out any reflections in the end.

The final shopping list

If you've managed to get to this point you probably have spent some serious money already, let's take a look at the shopping list we've racked up until now:

Flash: two, but preferably three units, their power output has to be manually adjustable and in as much steps as possible and have a PC Sync connection built in, preferably a 'Screw lock' version. Wireless trigger/receiver setup: at least one trigger and two or three receivers, the latter should have a PC Sync output. Light stands:two or three depending on the number of flash units, adjustable from about a low 40cm up to a 250cm height.Cables: two or three 'Screw Lock PC Sync' cables, I would even advice using cables when you wireless receiver has a hot shoe.

And now for the little extras that will make you life so much easier in the long run:

Weights: needed to avoid the light stands from falling over, so get the same amount of weights as the number of stands you've got. By the way, you can also use sandbags for this, whichever is easier to locate in your region.

Flash holder: these are also called swivels, and allow you to point the flash up or down in several angles, they are not really necessary I guess, but they are very useful anyway, and don't cost too much either.

Bag: get a nice bag that can hold your entire set in it, that way you don't forget stuff at home. Do make sure the light stands either fit into the bag or can be easily attached on the outside of the bag.

Reflector: sometimes an additional flash is just a bit too expensive, so you can try using a reflector instead ... or make one yourself using a plywood sheet covered in aluminum foil.

Batteries: it might sound trivial, but keep in mind not only do your flash units need batteries, the wireless trigger/receiver set also needs power, and some of them use AA or AAA batteries too, so get enough rechargeable batteries for your entire set ... if you go for quality these can cost some serious money too, I always use GP ReCyko units now, they keep their charge when not in use nicely.

Battery Packs: nothing worse than having to replace the batteries in your flash unit just when you've managed to setup the shot perfectly ... so I spend some extra money on the CP-E4 Battery Pack for my EX580 II flash. These units hold an extra 8 AA batteries and allow me to take up to 1000 shots without having to replace any batteries ... do note you'll be able to find these on eBay too for a lot less than the original.

I think that about covers the initial requirements to start using additional light sources in your car photography. The first thing to do now is to get acquainted with the new equipment.

Hands on

Put batteries in the flash, mount it onto a light stand, position the flash head somewhat downward onto a concrete floor using the swivel and connect the wireless receiver using the Screw Lock PC Sync. Now power on the receiver and the flash and try the trigger ... does it activate the flash? If not check channel settings, most likely the trigger and the receiver aren't listening on the same channel.

Once you get the trigger to activate the flash put it on your camera and take a shot of the concrete you've pointed the head on ... verify the photo on the camera display. Now start modifying the power output of the flash ... you did remember to put it in manual mode right? Just kidding, start playing around with the flash and see how it influences the shot right on the camera LCD.

You understand what is happening when you lower the flash output but keep the same settings for shutter speed and diaphragm? The amount of ambient light that creeps into the shot when using the flash is very important, so try different settings here, lower the shutter speed, change the f-value of the shot ... it does not have the same effect on your shot once you add a flash into the equation.

Do you know how to influence your shot with one flash? Now add a second one and try it again, things changed dramatically right? Try adding the third flash into the shot ... again different no? It takes some time to understand how much power you'll have to set on the flash, which shutter speed to use (most triggers only work from 1/160 to 1/250 anyway) and very important: how to select the right f-value to dial in ... you will be working in full manual mode from now on ... you might even need an ND filter to get the effect you are looking for.

Conclusion

You now have the material, in a while you will also have the experience using the additional light sources and how they influence the shot you are trying to make. When using off camera flash units for car photography you will be going into full manual mode, both on the flash and on the camera, so get to grips using that mode and how shutter speed and f-value determine the final outcome of your shot. Once you get to grips with all this material and settings it is time to attack your first real car with the new flash units ... and you will learn how to position and set up everything on this shot in part 2 of our tutorial on flash car photography ... that went live on June 15. 2012.

Just one little piece of information for you ... take a look at this shot :

Do not feel forced to get into off camera flash photography, sure it can get you some amazing shots, but if you know a little about light and have the time to wait for that Golden moment in the evening you can get some truly stunning shots using ambient light only ... and to be honest, I actually prefer no flash in real life, I always feel that using a flash should be to help lighten some of the dark areas in a shot, not to create dramatic looks ... I can do that in post processing to a certain extend ... still off camera flash photography is so much fun to do ... a lot of trial and error at first, but once you nail that perfectly balanced shot you know it paid for the long and steep learning curve.

OFF CAMERA FLASH CAR PHOTOGRAPHY, PART 2 OF 2 : THE SHOOT

Canon EOS40D - Canon EF70-200mm f/2.8 L IS - 73mm 1/200 sec f2.8 ISO100

Advanced level tutorial - posted on June 15, 2012 by Mark

So after reading part 1 of this tutorial you went out and spent your remaining life savings to get the necessary flash units, triggers, stands and cabling required to start using off camera flash photography on our favorite subject: cars.

And you've had two weeks to get it all configured, setup and tried it all out for hours on end ... right now you know exactly how it all works, how you can dial in different power levels on your specific flash unit and perhaps even how shutter speed and aperture work together when combining flash and ambient light ... so you are ready to put it all into practice and finally get that elusive car in front of the camera and bring out those flash units on location.

1. Single flash workflow

I could say: 'too bad, this won't work' ... but I would be talking bull, sure you can get some amazing shots with only one additional light source, it will only take a bit more work, that's it.

In this case you will be taking more than one photo on location, in fact at least two, but probably more like three or four shots will be required to get the look you are aiming for, working with only one flash unit does complicate things a bit. For one you are not able to see how the shot looks right on the display of your camera, you will have to wait until you get home to notice if anything went wrong ... in that case you will either have to decide to deal with it and make the best of it, or schedule a re-shoot with the car.

1.1 the full frontal shot

This is an easy one to be honest, just put the flash at the left of the camera, take a shot, move the light stand to the right of the camera, approximately at the same distance and angle as it was on the left ... and take another exposure ... done.

Well almost that is, you need to have a tripod for this kind of photography, you did remember to bring it with you right ? Also a nice option if you only have one off-camera flash setup would be a wire trigger for the camera, this way you do not have to touch the camera on the tripod to take the shot. Also remember we are working in full manual mode here, this implies the settings remain exactly the same for both shots.

With these two photos we take it into post processing, I know you probably want to start removing the license plate (if you didn't take it from the car at the location as we talked about earlier) and cloning stuff out of the shot ... but first things first : putting both shots as individual layers into a new image file, this way we don't ruin the original file during our attempts to 'balance' the light.

1.2 Post processing

Bring the two shots into Adobe PhotoShop, I would copy/paste both of them into a single, new document, this will avoid you hitting 'Save' and destroying one of the original image files ... safety first right ?

I will not describe all the little details, but the workflow should be something like this : open both photos at the same time, perform a 'Select All' on one of them and either 'Cut' or 'Copy' the content. Now close this file, do NOT save changes here, go into File and create a 'New...' document, the dimensions and dpi should already be present so just hit 'Enter' and you'll get a black canvas, now 'Paste' the first exposure onto it. Switch to the second image, do another 'Select All', hit the 'Cut' or 'Copy' and close this one too without saving. You will be seeing the new document again now, all that's needed is to 'Paste' the second shot above the first one ... oops, we don't see the photo below anymore !

Don't worry, totally normal, now 'Add layer Mask' to the top layer and start 'painting' with a rather large, soft black brush ... behold the lower layer starts to become visible. If you made too much from the underlying layer visible all you need to do is switch to a white color and start painting again to cover the layer up.

After some practice ... and even more patience you should end up with a rather nicely, balanced light in your photo and create the illusion of having made the shot with two flash units instead of one :

Naturally the above shot had some more tweaking done to it, making the car stand out even more, removing the light poles in the background and de-saturating the surroundings to avoid having them draw attention from the car.

So using only one light source to get into off camera car photography isn't as hard as it sounded at first right ? It only takes some more post processing work that's all, but the result can be easily as nice ... and remember: you don't have to stop at only two exposures ... some colleagues go to as much as 40 shots for just one photo.

1.3 the front three-quarter shot

Using only one light source on a three quarter shot will require some more work compared to the frontal shot, but you will see the end result is even more impressive. The first step is to decide on the angle you are going to use, some three quarter angles can be handled with two shots, others need three or even more, we will take a look here at an angle that shows more of the side of the car than the front, which is the easiest in fact.

Once you've setup the car and the camera you'll have to mount the flash for the first exposure, keep in mind that nor the car nor the camera will be moved during these subsequent exposures, just like on the full frontal shot we discussed earlier. I always take the first photo with the light on the front of the car and work my way to the back of the car ... you will have to be working in a steady pace as you are going to loose the light quickly towards sunset.

1.3.1 First flash position : front corner that is closest to you.

In the photo above you can clearly see only one light source is hitting the car, in this case a Canon EX580II on a light stand about 1m50 above ground pointing down and directly at the corner of the bumper to avoid a large hot spot ... and it worked, this is an OOC shot, straight from the camera with no cloning whatsoever, and that's what we should be aiming for ... less cloning means quicker post processing, time is money right ?

In this shot you also notice the natural light at about 8 pm was still strong enough to create a nice glow over the engine cover, windshield and roof, I always try to get this look, combining artificial light with ambient light ... in a near perfect balance.

Also notice I had the headlights turned on to get that nice glow in them, especially at the rear the red taillights add just a touch of color in the photo, as this is a silver metallic car it doesn't pop in the frame, so adding that little extra hue at the rear just makes the photo even better ... it all comes down to details like this you know, it separates a photograph from a snapshot.

1.3.2 Second flash position : rear corner

That's right, you might be thinking you would put a flash on the side of the car, but that would give a massive hot spot on the car, so to avoid that we point the light at the rear corner with just enough 'light spill' to get some brightness on the side too, now this might need some trial and error depending on the actual car in front of you.

The trick is to give the car enough light but not to blow out the design of the car, more importantly the creases and roundness of the bodywork, in case of this Mercedes you just have to show the wheel arches and the nice curvature of the doors. If we would put a big light straight onto the side of this car not only would we be getting a massive hot spot that would be nearly impossible to clone out, but we would also be 'flattening' those arches and door curves, making the photograph a lot less interesting.

1.3.3 Post processing workflow

So once back behind the computer load the first exposure into PhotoShop, subsequently load the second exposure and do a 'Select All' on this one, 'Copy' the entire image into the clipboard and close this file again, the first exposure should be visible, and active again ... just 'Paste' the second one over it.

No need to panic if you don't see anything from the first exposure right now, that's the trick we are going to do now, making the lower 'layer' visible again through the upper layer ... and there are two ways of accomplishing this effect: an amateur way and a professional way.

May sound harsh, but trust me, you'll thank me later on. If we would explain it how we did it the first time using PhotoShop layers we would tell you to get the eraser and start erasing the 'dark' parts of the upper layer, if you make a mistake just 'Undo' it right ? WRONG ! Once you've saved your work you will not be able to Undo anything anymore, so do not use the eraser method here but get to grips with the way the professionals do it: using a Layer Mask.

So right after you've Copied the second exposure onto the first one perform an 'Add layer Mask' to the top layer and select a rather large, albeit soft brush, hit 'D' to select black as your foreground color and start painting over the dark, front section of the Mercedes in the shot ... the lower layer becomes visible again and the front of the car, that was dark in the second exposure is now getting lots of light again.

The difficult part of using Layer Masks in your post processing is the fact of knowing when to stop, you can quickly erase too much, or not enough ... fortunately even after saving the file (in PSD format including layers naturally), sleeping over it and taking a fresh look in the morning ... you can still change your mind: painting black clears a view from the underlying layer, but painting in white covers it back up, and you can even use the 'Opacity' setting when painting ... try painting the surround of the mask with a 50% Opacity setting, it will make the difference between the upper and the lower layer less harsh ... sometimes this is just what you need to get to the result you are looking for.

In case of this silver metallic Mercedes I not only showed the front bumper, hood and wheel from the first exposure, but also a section of the gravel that received extra light from the left mounted flash, this way you don't make it look artificial in the end, the point of using multiple exposures in flash photography is to have a balanced shot, and that doesn't mean you should get the car balanced ... but also the background and the foreground.

So even a more difficult angle can be easily executed with only one flash on hand, it just takes a bit more work on site and additional post processing. In case you would like to have some more light at the very rear end of this car just pop another shot with the flash angled more towards the taillight and do a three layer job in post processing, same principle, only some extra work.

Would you like to see some on the interior ? No problem, put your flash inside the car at a low power setting and take another exposure that you 'Mask' in during post processing ... you can even light underneath the car, put some highlight on the wheels if they are custom ... the options are endless, and the number of exposures almost unlimited ... I have seen photographs that were combinations of up to 40 different exposures ... only your imagination is the limiting factor now.

2. Twin flash workflow

Did you notice I called it 'Twin flash' and not 'Dual flash' ? There is a reason for that you know. I will be the first to admit this kind of car photography doesn't come cheap, even if you are looking into buying it on a budget and getting the decent entry level material it will get expensive in a hurry ... getting your investment back will take some time.

But I do have one piece of advice here: get the same flash twice. It is so much more practical if you only have one type of flash to work with, you know the settings, you know how to get into the menu ... if you have to remember how to dial in the power setting on two or more different types of flash units you will be making errors somewhere along the way, trust me.

So I made the though decision of getting two Canon EX580II units, with CP-E4 battery pack and Elinchrom SkyPort Universal trigger ... ran up an invoice of nearly �1,500 to be honest, but in the end it was worth every cent.

So why does having two flash units make our life so much easier ? Plain and simple: most of the time you can just take one exposure and you're done, no more moving around flashes and putting different image files together in post processing ... just shoot and you have a balanced shot ... most of the time.

As you can clearly see in the above shot using two identical flash units allows to get a nice light with only one shot, also note that in this case you have to be even more careful of the positioning of the flash units ... avoiding hot spots at all costs is still the most important thing to keep in mind here, and by adding more flash into the equation you aren't making things any easier.

It might take some practice, but rest assured in the end you will be putting down those light stands with ease, even dialing in the correct power setting on the flash will become second nature after some experience.

So let's get into 'twin flash' car photography with some samples and background information on positioning and settings ...

2.1 the classic front three-quarter shot

This is one of those classic car shots, just about every factory brochure has at least one of these in it, and if you take it to the next level it will remain a 'poster quality' shot for many years to come.

Take a look at the final shot from the setup with the white SUV seen earlier :

As you can see we have a nicely balanced shot, the front is lit by the flash on the camera right while the side received light from the flash on the camera left, some minor cloning and our traditional soft light layer ... and bingo ! Done in 60 seconds, how does that sound to you?

I have to admit the above shot was the result of a two exposure workflow ... care to take a guess as to why I used two different exposures in this shot ... I did have my twin flash setup correctly so it wasn't for a lack of light on any side.

Don't tell me you've forgotten about using a polarizing filter already did you ? Yep, you are getting where I'm going here, I used two exposures to make sure I got rid of the reflection on both the side windows the windshield, something that would be a lot more difficult when using only one flash unit.

Now I can hear you guys thinking: 'a silver or a white car is easy, they reflect nicely, but what about a dark shade ?' And you are right, a dark car is rather difficult, not only do you need more light power to get it balanced, but it also reflects much more, so you have some additional issues to address when taking on the job of photographing a dark car using off camera flash units.

But it can be done ...

2.2 flash photography with a black car

It takes a bit more experience to setup off camera flash units on a black car, but it is not as difficult as it sounds, you only have to be extra careful when it comes to reflections and hot spots.

Naturally we use a twin flash setup again, and here we will put a black BMW E30 M3 in front of our camera.

With the usual setup, one flash at camera right and one flash at camera left we get a balance of artificial light in our shot, we moved the flash on the left further away from the BMW because the light reflected too much in the headlights, so we had to improvise here.

When you are facing the challenge of a black car you immediately understand the phrase 'you can never have enough light' ... it is plain and simple in fact, we can not put the power on our flash units too high because that would create ugly hot spots, but because this is a black car it really absorbs the light we do manage to shine on it.

Take a look at the setup shot above, we have our two units positioned to the left and the right of our camera, as they should be, and by putting the right unit at this angle it barely lights up the front bumper but it does put the custom rim in focus and gives some light spill on the side of the car, nicely showing those angular wheel arch extensions of the classic BMW M3.

Our flash on the left is put a bit further away so it still lights up the front bumper and that trademark BMW sign ... without hitting the headlights with too much power ... however take a close look at the rear of the car, if you ask me a little extra light from a third flash would be just the touch of light that is missing now.

So another �500 expense ... or not. Why not do a second exposure with the two flash units we already have ... in another position? Just like we did when we only had one flash available ... that would solve the problem right on the spot ... but I had another solution in mind that didn't require additional work on site.

2.2.1 post processing the 'Black BMW shot'

I think I might have mentioned it before, but photographing a black car isn't finished once you wrap up the shoot, it will most likely require some level of post processing anyway, adding some flash light into the shot will only make your post processing time a bit longer. Take a look at the OOC (Out Of Camera) shot of our black BMW M3 model, it sure doesn't look as bad as I imagined actually.

Judging from the small LCD screen on my Canon 5D Mark II I got the impression I needed additional light at the back of the car, but I was wrong ... in fact I really like the low light look at the back, the lines of the car are still visible and the rim isn't too bright either, so for me that section was just about right.

However I noticed another problem: during the shoot I already pulled the flash to light the front further away, but with the second flash pointed at the front wheel I still had some light spill over the front bumper and headlights ... onto our post processing to fix this.

In fact this is one of the easiest things to solve in post processing, some might call this a 'dodge and burn' operation as was used in the good old days, but in the digital era I just call it our Softlight layer trick ... I am a big fan of using non-destructive post processing, so I work with adjustment layers a lot, and one of the layers I use the most is a layer in 'SoftLight' mode.

So I add a 'New Layer' and change the Mode to 'Softlight', select a nice soft brush , set my foreground color to black and start painting over the sections I think are too bright. If the effect is too intense I either lower the opacity of the entire layer or use 'Fade' found in the 'Edit' menu and lower the opacity of the last brush stroke made.

For the small section of black plastic on the bumper in the left of the frame I use a much smaller brush so I can get into the details, I also put some thin black on the headlights on both sides and on the front wheel, which I deemed to be just a little bit too bright.

A nice de-saturation of the background, some 'Levels' adjustment on the background only by using a Layer Mask (remember) and I end up with a special looking photograph featuring a black BMW E30 M3.

There you go, it isn't the easiest task to accept: photographing a black car with off camera flash units, but in the end it isn't nearly as difficult as you might expect, only thing is that if you really want to make your life easier on dark shades you will need even more flash units, I would say three is a minimum, but four or five would be even better ... only downside would be the high cost of getting an entire light setup including flash, batteries, trigger and stand ... five times.

With that in mind I think I can handle most situations with two lights, but I still got me a third unit anyway ...

2.3 the other 'angle of attack'

Until now we've seen how to setup an off camera shoot for the classic front three quarter look, but there are other angles on a car too you know, however the principle remains exactly the same: you put the flash units in such a position where they give you the smallest hot spot possible, do keep in mind that you will not be able to avoid hot spots altogether, we are working with bright light here, so you are bound to be seeing it on the car anyway, the trick is to keep it as small as possible.

2.3.1 the low light, side show

This shot was taken using two flash units, but both were at camera right this time, one of the units a bit in front of the car pointing towards the corner of the bumper and the second unit a bit further away pointed at the side of the car.

Because of the sunset we still had some nice, subtle light at the left of our frame and due to the position of the flash units we had some more powerful light on the right side of the frame ... this is an ideal setup to get a low key shot, which is not uncommon in portrait photography, but why not use it in car photography too?

So just like a nice low key bodyscape I went out with a loaner and tried it on a car too, putting two flash units on one side of the car with the opposite side towards the sun that was already setting at that time (it was past 8 pm already), turned on the headlights and started looking at the setup.

Due to the sunset I had a really nice 'rim light' on the left with a subtle tint of red that perfectly lit the silver metallic bodywork creating a nice contrast with the dark background.

On the right side of the frame I had the hard light from the twin flash units, so I dialed in a rather low power setting and positioned the front flash unit just ahead of the front bumper so some light was touching the entire front, but most of the light hit the front wheel and parts of the side. The second flash was placed further from the car so it would create some 'fill light' and not really hit the car too much, it is a silver metallic bodywork, so it doesn't need too much light.

The biggest problem here is to balance the flash with the amazing looking ambient light, so I went for a rather slow shutter speed of 1/60 and an f-value of 2.8, this way the flash is clearly visible, but there is still a hint of ambient light too, putting the shot through some post processing to get all the details right and tone down the background even more and we get an amazing looking, low key car shot:

If you take a close look at the front bumper in this shot you'll notice a nice little spark on the corner ... that was actually done in post processing, normally I would clone stuff like that out of the image, but in this case I think it adds to the overall look and feel of this picture.

2.3.2 full side profile

On some cars the view from the side is easily as impressive as a low angle front three quarter shot, take a look at this silver metallic BMW M3 model :

The main issue when doing a full side profile is putting the flash units to hit the wheels first, if you put the 'hot spot' just between the tire and the wheel arch it will not be visible in the shot, just the way we want it.

This way we also get enough light spill on the entire side of the car, you might have a small, less bright spot on the door, but that can quickly be edited in post processing, so when you take everything into account the full side shot is a piece of cake ... or not?

Take a look at these OOC shots :

In the shots above we've played around with shutter speed and aperture settings, but also with flash power ... there is only one thing you must keep in mind :

Shutter speed vs aperture using a flash

The flash is actually a very bright burst of light, but very short in time, probably about 1/1000 of a second or even shorter, so if you use a shutter speed of 1/60, 1/125, 1/160 or 1/200 the only thing you are influencing is the amount of ambient light that gets captured in the photo, the light from the flash has gone away long before the shutter closes again.

So with a constant flash power you have to change the aperture setting on your camera to get more or less light from the flash units ... however things do get a bit more complicated due to technical restrictions. Most camera bodies and wireless triggers have a limit on the shutter speed, it can be no faster than 1/250 usually, but I would advice to keep it 1/200 or slower just to be on the safe side.

So once you are setting up in the field you start with a shutter speed/aperture/iso and flash power level as a standard and work your way to the perfect exposure from that point on.

3. More samples

Let's take a look at some more angles and settings when using off camera flash in car photography.

3.1 another three quarter front view:

Setup : one flash at camera left pointing at the side to create some fill flash positioned just outside the frame. A second flash angled in front of the car to light the bumper.

After a passage through our post processing workflow applying a de-saturation of the surroundings and some general tweaking the above shot was turned into this really nice looking photograph:

3.2 the three quarter rear view:

Setup : one flash at camera left pointing at the rear to light that section and one flash at camera right pointed at the front wheel, due to the distance it the side receives some nice light spill on the entire side of the car ... from both flash units.

Take a look at the BTS (Behind The Scenes) shot above and you see what I always aim for when I'm out photographing cars ... this shot doesn't need a lot of post processing, I'm sure that after less than 15 minutes this shot is ready for the brochure it was going to be published in ... and that is something you have to keep in mind: a customer can see how long you work when you are at the shoot, but all the time 'lost' in post processing is invisible to a customer ... so he has an issue paying you five or six hours of work when you only spent about an hour on the shoot.

3.3 Quick samples

3.3.1 Dax shoot

Setup : one flash at camera left pointing at the rear wheel and a second flash straight at the front to be able to see the radiator, also note this shot had the sun in front of me, I actually used the flash units at full power to be able to 'overpower' the sun, hence creating a special look by brightening up the shadow side of the car.

3.3.2 Dacia shoot

Setup : one flash at camera left pointing at the rear wheel and a second flash straight at the front to be able to see the radiator, also note this shot had the sun in front of me, I actually used the flash units at full power to be able to 'overpower' the sun, hence creating a special look by brightening up the shadow side of the car.

3.3.4 The apocalypse is near ...

The above shot is a bit over the top I agree, but when I was taking this shot on that location I knew I had a winner on my CF card, two flash units were used, at the left and at the right, so far this is a standard shot, but then I pulled it into a pseudo HDR action that created some amazing contrast in the shot. (I used Dynamic Photo HDR as a first step)

After the HDR style I continued in PhotoShop to create a look that would make it really be in style with an apocalypse in the making, I completely de-saturated the surroundings (the BMW sat on sand actually) and used levels to create the dark look, using a mask to make sure the BMW M3 itself remained bright.

Note that the impressive clouds in the background haven't been pasted into the shot, they were already there in the original photo, to be honest nothing has been pasted or cloned in this shot, only an HDR style and some tweaking to get this dark look.

4 Conclusion

Still from time to time we will get it wrong, call it routine, or rushing into the shot, a deadline that is lurking over your shoulder ... all kinds of external factors could have you making errors.

Fortunately you have the option of seeing the photo on your camera LCD right away, if you feel you can't really judge the image on that small LCD take along a portable to the shoot and transfer your images on the spot so you can review them on a larger screen, perhaps even showing your customer a sneak preview of the shots to keep him happy ... and craving for more.

So in the end it all comes down to a combination of shutter speed, aperture and iso setting together with a power level setting on the flash that has been positioned in such a way you avoid hot spots on the bodywork of the car.

Still keep in mind that great photographs are created in post processing, there are very few people in the world that publish OOC photos, so don't feel bad if you have to tweak the image on your computer to get it just right.

Polarising Filters

FAST TIP : A POLAR FILTER IN CAR PHOTOGRAPHY

Canon EOS40D - Canon EF-S17-55mm f/2.8 IS - 20mm 1/15 sec f5.6 ISO100

Fast tips - posted on June 20, 2011 by Mark

We all know a decent circular polar filter will be able to safe the day once you get serious about automotive photography, I used to buy UV filters to protect my lenses (don't do that anymore to be honest, the original shade offers enough protection most of the time) ... but have you ever had the problem you were unable to get rid of all the reflections ?

It's either one side that looks good, or the other side ... but never the entire car at once, that's why I tend to take several shots of the car while adjusting the angle of the polar filter in between exposures, effectively eliminating just about all the reflections in the end ... but I end up with at least two shots, now what ? Easy, I will put them together in post processing by using layers and masks to show just those parts of the car from one shot in the second shot.

These are my two out of camera (OOC) shots of a white BMW that has been personalized a bit :

Neither shot is perfect, but in one the front windshield is clean while in the other shot the side windows are clean of reflections ... now it's time to put it together.

First open one of the shots in PhotoShop and select the entire image by pressing Ctrl-A, then cut or copy the image into the clipboard (Ctrl-X or Ctrl-C, either will do the trick), now close this image ... without saving ! Very important, we don't want to change the original image file, you never know you might need it again in the future.

Now create a new document (Ctrl-N) and just click 'OK', no need to change any of the settings, they are set to the content of the clipboard anyway so I can leave them 'as is'. Once the blank document is there hit the Ctrl-V to paste the first image into place. Time to open the second exposure, again Ctrl-A to select the entire shot, cut or copy the image (Ctrl-X or Ctrl-C) and close this file again (Ctrl-W)... do NOT safe the changes to keep the original image intact !

With this second image closed again I am automatically returned to my new document that already contains my first exposure, just hit Ctrl-C to paste the second exposure on top of this one and I'm halfway done already. The order of these shots isn't really that important, you will be exposing parts of one shot into the second one, which one lies below doesn't matter anyway.

Now I have two options : I either use the Eraser Tool (hit the E key to select it) to remove parts of the upper layer and show the lower layer through the holes, but that would be 'destructive editing', once I've erased parts and saved the PSD file I can never get things back in case I messed up something, so I will not be using this method, instead I go for a second option : the Layer Mask way.

So I go to Layer > Layer Mask > Hide all, this way the entire top layer will be rendered invisible for now, if you take a look at the image above you'll notice the windshield is nicely polarized, but when you look at the image below you will see the side windows are now polarized and I have a completely black Layer Mask hiding my upper image completely.

Making sure I have the Layer Mask selected (by clicking on the black rectange) I select the Brush Tool (B key) and I make sure I'm using a feathered Brush and not a hard brush, now I reset the for and background color to standard by pressing the D key on my keyboard (you'll notice white is foreground, black in now background) and I just brush over the parts that I want to be shown from my upper layer. In my case the windshield and the engine cover.

If you make a mistake here, no problem, just hit the X key on the keyboard to swap the colors and brush over the section you missed with black, and it will again become invisible, that's the advantage of the Layer Mask method, you can make errors and correct them perfectly, even after a few days or weeks if you've saved the PSD file with layers in it ... this is what is called 'non destructive post processing' and I always try to remember that.

Take a look at the above image, by painting white over the correctly polarized parts I get a nicely balanced shot that would never have been possible with only one exposure as it would have been totally impossible to set the polarizing filter in a correct angle to remove reflection on the windshield on and the side windows at the same time.

Now most of you might call it a day, but apart from putting one exposure on top of the other this is still an OOC shot with no post processing at all, and I don't have the habit of delivering out of camera shots to my customers and I strongly advice you don't either, so this is merely the starting point for my post processing that I've unveiled in several other tutorials already, but just for you I will quickly repeat the process on this one.

Now this is a nice and clean shot to begin with and with a bit of retouching here and there I will now turn it into a photograph ... let's see if you've caught the issues with this image ... for one I think the engine cover is a bit over exposed so I'm putting a new layer on top : Layer > New Layer ... and I change the Mode to 'Softlight' (a typical thing in my post processing as you might have gathered by now)

With the new layer in place I again select a feathered Brush (hit the B key) and reset the swatches by pressing the D key, time to paint over the engine cover now, you will notice it turns a bit dim and removes the slight overexposure that was apparent to me. If the effect is too much I just lower the opacity of the layer until I'm totally satisfied with the result ... in this particular shot I left the opacity at 100% however as I was quite pleased with the subtle result.

I also feel the side of the car is just a but too dark, so using the same technique as described above I'm adding a new layer in Soft Light mode, but this time I paint with white instead of black, this will lighten up the side of the BMW, but at 100% the effect it too harsh, so I lower the opacity of this new layer to only 65%. Do note that this is a totally personal feeling, and it is different for each photograph you are post processing, for me these opacity settings looked good, perhaps you don't like it, either too bright or too dark, so feel free to experiment with the layer opacity on your own shots until you like the result.

The last step in my post processing workflow is usually a touch of vignetting on the image, I like to have dark corners that make the car in the shot stand out even more, this works especially good on bright cars, adding such a vignetting is easy, I just add yet another Soft Light layer and paint a gradient from black to transparent from the top of th image to the top of the car and repeat the same thing at the bottom of the shot ... here's the result :

The problem is I'm still not happy with this shot, the background is drawing my attention away from the main subject, the white BMW 5-Series, so I will now take the post processing one step further to draw focus to the car instead of the cluttered background (I could replace the background entirely, but I want to show you another way on this shot)

First I will make the background darker, that will automatically keep people from putting their focus on it, the human eye is always drawn to the brightest item in the photograph, and I want to make sure this is the white car in the lower left corner, and this can be done perfectly with a new adjustment layer.

I now have yet another layer, and because this is an adjustment layer it automatically comes with a layer mask revealing all, so all I now need to do is adjust the sliders until I'm happy with the result, only problem : this will darken the entire photograph, but for now I'm concentrating on the background, and the moment I like the way that is looking I will paint with a black feathered brush on the adjustment layer mask to cover the effect on the car and the parts I don't want to make as dark as the background.

So the background is now toned down a bit, but I still get drawn to the top left corner, the sky is white and I don't like that, so I'm going to tackle this right now, adding another Adjustment Layer, but this time using the Black and White option, however instead of leaving the setting on black and white I actually use the 'Tint' option and dial in R225 G211 B179 making the image turn a rather special shade of sepia.

Now don't worry, I will not leave the entire photograph in this 'old style', only the top of this photograph could benefit from this overlay, and as this is again an adjustment layer it already has a mask, just put a black to transparent gradient from bottom to top and I'm done, just the effect I was looking for in this shot.

There you have it, taking a few exposures on site with different polarizing filter settings and putting them together in post processing can give you the reflection free effect we crave for, just one more tip : don't get over excited, a car is still glossy (well most of them are, the mat shades are gaining popularity) so you should leave a hint of reflection in the photograph.

NOTE : do keep in mind that you will be taking multiple exposures, now I don't know about you, but I'm not able to keep my camera still while rotating the polarizing filter in front of my lens, so I put it on a good tripod. And do note I mention a good tripod, you are handling your camera between shots, so the more stable the tripod is, the less motion will happen between the shots. I now use a carbon tripod with a geared head, very stable, but also rather expensive unfortunately.

Behind the Scenes

BEHIND THE SCENES OF A PROFESSIONAL CAR SHOOT

Canon EOS40D - Canon EF-S17-55mm IS f/2.8 - 33mm 1/250 sec f2.8 ISO100

Intermediate level tutorial - posted on October 23, 2009 by Mark

In this article I will take a look behind the scenes of a professional car photo shoot, one that I recently had the possibility to attend during a model shoot actually, now the model might not be interesting (however ...) but the cars that were gathered were really nice, for one the white BMW 5-Series Fat Boy and a black BMW 5-Series with full Hamann Motorsport bodykit.

The first one being a white car while the Hamann car was a black one, not the easiest shades to photograph (there is no fun in shooting a red car now is there ?) so I will show you just how to take a decent shot in the first place and make it an outstanding masterpiece ready for publishing in post processing.

STEP 1 : setting up the shoot

Your first order of business is naturally to plan the shoot, you have to get in touch with the owner of the car (or owners in this case) and decide on a date, time and place you will encounter each other, note that this doesn't necessarily need to be the spot for your shoot, most of the time a parking lot that is easily found would be best.

Once you've made an appointment it is time to decide on the equipment you are taking to the shoot, for starters make sure you charge all your batteries the day before the shoot, also check the memory cards you intend to use, format them inside the camera to make sure you can take as many shots as possible (after you've copied the photos that are still on them onto your computer naturally).

I usually take two camera bodies with me, one with a wide angle on it and the other one with the Canon EF70-200 f/2.8 IS USM for those shots where you have the space available ... why such a telephoto zoom lens you might ask ? I will get into that later on.

As a wide lens I usually put the Canon EF-S17-55 f/2.8 IS USM on my Canon EOS40D, but I also pack the EF-S10-22 f/3.5-4.5 USM and the EF24-105 f/4.5 IS USM lens in the bag, just in case. Don't forget your circular polarizing filter, a cloth (just in case) and a remote shutter control for those longer exposures.

Also think about your tripod, you might not need it, but remember that every professional car photographer will use a good tripod for the static shots, it is indispensable in fact, so take it along anyway. I also pack all my external flash units compete with radio triggers, stands and umbrellas, just in case I need some extra light to bring out the details in a shot, again you might not need these, but if you do and you've left them at home you're in trouble.

STEP 2 : the shoot itself

It is really important to take your time for an automotive photo shoot, if you rush things it will show in the photographs, Rome wasn't built in a day, and your award winning shot will most likely not be taking without decent preparation either, so make sure both you and the owner of the car have time to spend.

First decide on a location for your shoot, indoors or outdoors, it all depends on the end result you are trying to achieve, personally I would tend to take as many shots as possible outside, if weather permits, but sometimes you are forced to work indoors, and in this case those flash units will come in handy.

Flash photography on cars is a totally different technique that I will unveil in a future tutorial, so for now I will focus on the outdoor shots, make sure you've taken a look at my 10 tips for your first outdoor car shoot tutorial for the basics on a car shoot in daylight.

When you are looking around for a location make sure it suits the car, this black Hamann tuned BMW 5-Series was just perfect on a gravel pit with some industrial siding behind it, the black nicely contrasts with the light shaded background, take this into account to make the car 'visible' on the background, a dark background with a black car would be a difficult shot.

STEP 3 : photographing the car

Once you've decided on a place and a time (preferably in the late afternoon on a sunny, but cloudy day) it is time to start photographing that stunning looking car in front of you, so you start thinking about which angles you would like to have in your shots, this is where your relationship with the owner comes in handy.

He will have to move his car around several times during the shoot, so the better your relationship with him (or her) the better you will get away with asking him to move the car just a few inches more to get the shot you want, as it is better to move the vehicle than to take another angle in some cases.

Because you will be keeping an eye on the position of the sun (preferably on your back, remember ?) the car will have to be positioned just right so there are no harsh shadows visible when you take that award winning photograph.

STEP 4 : the angles

A lot has been said about which angles you just have to take when photographing a car, and I will repeat myself again in this section. These are the most important angles you just have to take during a professional car photo shoot : Front three-quarter shot from headlight level, Rear three quarter shot from taillight level, Full frontal and full rear view, Full side view from a low level and if possible a front and rear three quarter view from a higher level.

This latter shot might require you to bring a ladder, fortunately the location I selected for this photo shoot had some other options, I could go up a slope on one side while large containers were parked on the other side, with a ladder on the side to get on top of them. Always keep in mind that you might not be allowed to climb on top of a container, so a nice stepladder might be a great idea to add to your equipment list.

Normally I also include some interior shots in my shoot, these require some very different settings, and most of the time extra light equipment, so I won't go into details in this article, a full tutorial on 'car interior photography' will be available next.

QUICK TIP : take multiple exposures

If you take your car photography serious you should have lots of shots when you finally come home after this type of photo shoot so how about an additional tip from me : take two or three exposures from every angle you work on, especially if you are hand holding the camera .

This is a small trick I always use, especially when photographing the interior or engine of a car. You might ask yourself why bother with more than one exposure ? The answer is very simple, and totally logical at the same time : if you only take one shot and it isn't perfect you are in trouble, if you take two or three chances are that at least one will be perfect ... just delete the others when you get home, that's the joy of using digital cameras, it doesn't cost a dime more to take a few extra shots.

For instance : if you only take one shot at say a 1/10 exposure you will have to need a very stable hand to avoid camera shake, however when you take two or three successive shots (with the camera in burst mode) you will end up with at least one tack sharp shot, a great way to get that dark interior shot done just right.

Another option is to 'Bracket' the shots, this will put the camera in a mode that will take three shots in a row, one exposed normally, one under exposed and one over exposed a pre-set value (up to -2/+2 on a Canon for instance), this allows you to get your exposure wrong and still be able to get the shot right afterwards. You will probably only use on of these three exposures (or combine multiple exposures in a HDR shot) but at least now you can select the one that turned out best.

STEP 5 : wrapping it up

A nice car photo shoot with one or two cars shouldn't take all day, you don't want to test the owner's patience too much, especially when you notice them taking a look at their watch ... which should be your queue to wrap it up.

During this particular shoot I had the luck that both cars were owned by really nice people that let me take all the time it would take ... which ended up being about three hours actually, and I stayed on the same location all the time.

If you plan on taking the car (or cars) to various locations you should count on at least 4 to 5 hours, or sometimes even an entire day, remember that the cars could get dirty if you drive them over public roads, keep this in mind when you plan your locations, if it rains try to think about a nice big garage lot.

Make sure to leave your business card with the owners, normally they should already know you from when you arranged the meeting, but better be safe than sorry, also get their address so you can share your work with them afterwards, every owner I ever worked with was really pleased to receive at least some of the shots taking during the day.

STEP 6 : coming home

You probably come home with hundreds of shots from this kind of car photo shoot, so first order of business it to copy all your memory cards onto your computer, which takes time and space, once you get serious about photographing cars you will notice that you never have enough space on your computer, so external hard disks are a necessity these days.

Copy all your photographs onto your internal hard drive, if you've worked your way through all your cards copy every single shot onto a back up disk, preferably an external hard disk, so you will be safe when things go terribly wrong with your computer, once the original photographs are copied onto your backup disk power it down (remove it correctly from your system) so they stay safe.

Now it is time to go over your pictures and select the good ones, I use Adobe Bridge to organize my photo shoots, actually before I copy my cards I create a directory on my PC with the full date and a small description of the car or event I've covered, this way the shots are ordered by date and I can quickly find the images I need. Once inside Bridge I can work with the rating system to quickly select the good shots.

I use from three to five stars to select the shots I want to keep, three stars for the good shots, four stars for the really nice ones and five stars for the near perfect shots ... after going over all the shots (I know, this can take some time) I ask Bridge to order the shots by rating and actually delete everything I didn't attribute a rating to, no use in keeping all the images if you will never use them, and remember you still have a backup of each and every shot anyway.

I always shoot in RAW, so now it is time to start developing the photographs that remain (you should have 'trashed' the snapshots in the previous step), normally I always use Adobe Camera Raw for this step, however I've been using DxO Optics Pro for some time now, and the results are more than adequate for most purposes anyway.

After DxO worked it's magic on the photographs I run them through an action in Adobe PhotoShop to resize them to 1800x1200 and put a watermark in place, after that I burn all these shots on a DVD, put it inside a nice box complete with inlay and give it to the owner of the car so he can select the images he really likes.

STEP 7 : post processing

To explain the post-processing I usually perform after a photo shoot I've selected one shot that I will go over the entire process with you so you can gather ideas from this workflow.

This shot shows the car from the classic front three-quarter view, however I have composed the photograph in such a way that the BMW is positioned at the upper right corner of the crop, with a nice reflection in the water in front of the car.

The original image isn't too bad as you can see, however the background did annoy me a bit, especially that small bit of wall in the background and a wooden frame that I didn't notice while shooting ... however fear not, a little cloning in PhotoShop will get rid of it quickly.

The trick with cloning is that you will need a good starting point, now I knew the moment I was taking this shot that any cloning would be rather easy as the backdrop is a nice metal structure, so I just have to select a point on the siding above the wall and gently 'clone' it on top of the exposed bricks ... a bit of patience around the rear view mirror and minutes later I end up with a complete wall behind the BMW, no more distractions.

Remember to leave just a hint of grass on the section where the siding is touching the ground, otherwise it will look too artificial and you would want to avoid that at all costs.

Now it is time to adjust the colors a bit, make the image 'pop' more. For this I will use a 'Levels' adjustment layer, just go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels ... and select a black and a white point on your image, you will see the color change at once, now start sliding the center point to make the image darker or lighter, whichever you prefer.

This should make the white on this car really bright while the black parts should turn to solid black instead of a dark grey, also note that the reflection in the water comes out better now because you've increased the contrast between the colors in this step.

The next step is to take care of the darker section I noticed on the front bumper, in fact the car should have been moved a bit more so the entire front was towards the sun, however this would mean a totally ruined background if I wanted this angle, so I decided to adjust it in post-processing, which is easy as you will see.

I'm adding a new layer (again), select Layer > New > Layer ... and put the 'Mode' to 'Soft Light' instead of Normal, this way I can Dodge & Burn by simply painting with black or white on this layer, just the tool I need to 'enlighten' the front bumper.

Take a soft brush and 'paint' white over the sections that appear too dark on the front bumper, naturally the effect it too strong, but after I dial the Opacity of this layer down to 50% it is just right and looks just the way I wanted from the start.

I personally always make my object stand out of the photograph better by adding some vignetting to the exposure, and with a white car this is even easier than with darker shades, the trick is yet another new layer, so go to Layer > New > Layer ... and again turn the Mode into 'Soft Light'.

Now select the gradient fill tool and press the 'D' key to set the foreground color to black and the background color to white, also make sure you've selected a 'Foreground to transparent' gradient. Now draw from the top of the image down to about halfway ... this will give a darker shade at the top of the image that turns totally invisible towards the middle.

Most of the time this will again be too much, however in this case I don't change the opacity of the entire layer (I'll tell you why in a moment) but I will change the opacity of the gradient fill itself, go to Edit > Fade ... and lower the value there until it looks good to you. Now draw another gradient from the bottom of the image towards the middle, making the puddle and gravel look better.

If I would have changed the opacity of the entire layer now it would also make the bottom gradient lighter, and I actually like it this dark, that is why I played with the actual fill opacity for the top section.

Now I did notice that I also made the top of the car itself darker with this gradient, so I select the 'Eraser' tool and just erase the parts where the dark gradient touches the windshield and bodywork of the car.

Most of the time this would be the end of my post-processing, however on this shot I wanted to continue a but further, did you notice the tires on the car, because I was shooting on gravel they got dirty. In this case you have two options, either bring along a towel to clean them on the spot, or handle it in post processing like I will do now.

This is a trick I've learned from experience : add yet another layer (Layer > New > Layer ...) and select the Brush tool, make sure it is a small, soft brush and that black is still your foreground color (you've selected it when you drew the gradients remember), now just paint over the parts of the tire that are dirty, they will turn completely black, don't worry about it for now.

Once you've covered all the parts it is time for the magic, go to the Opacity setting for this latest layer and start lowering it (select the value and press Shift-Down Arrow for 10% steps), you will slowly see the thread of the tire appear again. If you lower the Opacity too far you will see the dirt again, so the trick is to put the value at a level where you can still see the thread but you don't notice the dirt anymore, in this case I've put it at 60%.

On a white car a dark window tint always looks good, now the owner of this BMW didn't put a black window tinting film on the glass, but I will install it anyway in post-processing. As usual on a new layer (Layer > New > Layer ..). As the side windows aren't really visible from this angle I will only apply if on the windscreen, so I select my brush again and start painting with black all over the parts that I want to apply a dark tint to.

Naturally now the windows are completely black, which they rarely are, so I will again lower to opacity of the layer to get the impression I'm looking for, at 50% I really liked the dark look that still leaves something visible from the interior. I still wanted one more thing actually, if you take a look around at a tuning show you will most likely see that the side windows are dark but the back window is just about completely black, this was the look I wanted on this car too, so I added yet another layer and 'painted' the rear window black, lowered the opacity to 50% and that's it !

This high angle view of the same car has been through a similar workflow as described above, some cloning, a levels adjustment to bring out the white shade of the BMW, some Dodge and Burn to brighten up the dark parts and make the dark parts even darker, cleaning the tires and putting window tint in place.

A photo shoot takes some time to get done right, however post processing correctly will take even more time, that is why it is very important to select only the good photographs before you start your PP skills, there is absolutely no reason to start working on a sub-standard image. A good photograph can be turned into a great one, a bad photograph will never become a good photograph, no matter how good you are in PhotoShop.

THE SECRETS BEHIND A GREAT CAR PHOTO

Canon EOS 40D - Canon EF-S17-55 f/2.8 IS USM - 28mm 1/100 f4.0 ISO 320

Basic level tutorial - posted on February 14, 2009 by Mark

Secret 1 : the Rule of Thirds

We've selected a random shot of a Porsche we've made a while ago to show you the first thing you should remember when photographing a car ... or anything else for that matter. Take a close look at the image of this black German sports car, you will find it a pleasing image, but why is this you might ask ?

It doesn't have much to do with the fact that it is a beautiful car, but more with the way the shot has been composed, ever since the early days of photography one thing was made obvious, if you place the main object in your photograph along one of the axes in the Rule of Thirds grid the viewer is automatically drawn to it.

The shot of this black Porsche clearly puts the car on the lower axis and a bit to the right of the frame, remember our Common mistakes when shooting a car ? We mentioned you should never put the car right in the middle of the frame, and this is why !

The Rule of Thirds (or Golden Section as it sometimes called) actually put imaginary lines across the frame at 1/3rd intervals, this concept has been used by photographers for ages, and it works equally well for automotive as it does for portrait or fashion photography, naturally this is just like any other rule, it can be broken on occasion, but try to think about it when you have a car in front of your camera the next time.

Nice to know : something you should remember about your camera : most of the time we will tell you to select the middle AF point only to avoid having the focus on the background instead of on the car, but after you focus, you will have to re-compose your shot to get the car on the Golden Section. This is done by half-pressing the shutter with the middle AF point on the part you would like to have in focus, then keeping your finger on the button you move your camera to a position that shows the frame just the way you want it to look, remember that the light measurement could change along the way when you do this, that's why we work in Manual mode most of the time.

Don't think you can crop the image afterward in editing, you should compose your shots so that you have the least amount of work afterward. Think about this, you've covered an event and returned with hundreds of shots, some you will probably delete right away, but imagine the work it would take to manually crop all these images on your computer just because you didn't bother to compose correctly when shooting them !

Secret 2 : the Angle of attack

Get out those car magazines you've been collecting for ages, notice something in general about most of their cover shots ? Probably about 90 percent of all covers show a car from a front three/quarter view, this is without a doubt THE most popular angle to shoot a car, so why shouldn't you do the same ?

You could decide to go about shooting cars differently, but if you would like to get your material published we suggest that you at least include a few of these classic shots in your portfolio, they work wonders for those people that end up paying the bill. The actual angle is different depending on the style of car your are shooting, a convertible for instance would be showing more of the side to emphasize the fact it doesn't have a roof, while a sedan would look better with more of the imposing front in sight.

One of the reasons this angle is so popular is the fact that it clearly shows the design of the car, if you look at the yellow Lamborghini Miura in this shot you can recognize the swooping lines of both the front and the rear while still getting an impression of the very low stance of this car, just what people like to see in a shot of such a rare car.

Secret 3 : get down to earth

When you see a car parked somewhere you are looking at it from eye level, this is how people will mostly see any given car all the time, so when you are photographing a car you should consider other options. Don't just stand upright and take a shot, lower yourself to the headlight height for instance, you'll immediately notice your shot is much more intimidating.

Do try to avoid taking a shot where you actually can see the background underneath the car, this doesn't work and actually ruins the shot, you should show the ground hugging stance of the car, not demonstrate how much ground clearance exactly remains.

Very low angle, and high angle shots work well too by the way, expect to get your clothes dirty when you want to do a low angle shot (an angle finder sure helps out here by the way) and forget the tripod for this kind of shot, a nice cheap bean bag will work wonders to support your camera however.

The downside of such extreme low angle shots is that your sky will most likely be blown out, turn totally white instead of a nice blue sky we all like so much, this can be remedied with a gradient filter or by taking two shots with different exposure, we will show you exactly how this is achieved in our 10 tips for your first outdoor car shoot tutorial, where we also show you how to bring those high angle shots to a good end without braking your back in the process.

Secret 4 : Concept

This is something that most beginners tend to forget, we see it all the time, they see a nice car parked somewhere and they attack it with everything they've got, taking shots from every possible angle without even moving the car ... this doesn't work, believe us.

We know that from time to time they get lucky and have one or two shots that are worth printing, but that's called luck not expertise. You should think about your shot before taking it, that's the concept behind your image, think about how you would like to show that particular car that's in front of you

Take a look at the shot of the black Lamborghini on the right, this particular image was taken in the early afternoon on a bright sunny day in late June ... it can't get much worse than this ! We had little time for this photo shoot, it was taken at an Italian car event and it wouldn't take too long before other people would find out about this car and start running into the frame. So it took some serious thinking and positioning of the car to get this one to a good end ... the owner just loved this shot. Take a look at the Case Study for this shot to get an idea how we made it work.

Think about what makes that particular car special, what it is that sets is apart from other cars ? On the black Lamborghini this was easy, the upwards opening doors are a trademark on these cars, so we shot it with the doors open.

You have to decide beforehand what you would like the world to see about this car, what you want to show that is so special or unique on the car you are shooting. This will determine your angle of attack, remember not all shots have to show the car in a 3/4 front view, there are other angles to show. If you are about to shoot a race car there is no point putting it on a grass plane, it just doesn't fit there, in a deserted pit lane it would shine. Same thing for an off-road car, don't shoot it on a parking lot, get it out in the field ...

Secret 5 : Location

Location is everything when shooting cars, we've already talked about it in our concept section, but it is so important that we return to it separately in this section, if you location is bad your car shot will be bad too, there is no getting around this one.

Your location should have an uncluttered background, the car is THE most important item in the shot, don't have something in the background draw attention away from the car, also check for trees or poles sticking out of the car. The shot of the red Countach is not great because you have stuff growing out of the car, this should be avoided if possible. Also note that red cross in the background, it draws attention away from the car, another thing that brings this shot down to near snapshot level unfortunately. It can be remedied afterwards in editing naturally, most of the time we have to revert to this option anyway, take a look at the Case Study to learn how we rescued this shot from the trash.

So what makes a good location ? Simple, it should either contrast or complement the car, a black car against a dark wall can give you a nice low key shot, but put it against a bright wall at it jumps out of the frame, grabbing attention on it's own, which is the point of shooting the car in the first place.

Most of the time you can select your location when doing a car shoot, naturally there are times when you are limited in options, but we would suggest getting a location that complements the car nicely and that doesn't draw a crowd the moment you show up with an exotic super car, nothing worse than having people standing in the reflection on the side of the car.

Secret 6 : Fill her up Sam

Perhaps an obvious one, but we've seen shots that took us a while to find the car in them, no kidding. You should fill the frame with the car, you are shooting the car, not the surroundings.

The shot of the race car here could have been much better if we'd waited a bit longer to have it closer, or use a longer focal length to shoot it, now we have way too much background to have a nice shot.

Probably the only reason to take shots with a lot of surroundings is when you are shooting for a magazine, with this kind of shots the editor can put text next to the car and still use the entire picture, but other than that we would advice you to use the entire frame to picture the car.

Secret 7 : Polarize it

A very important item in your bag should be a decent polarizing filter, it will help you to avoid unwanted reflections when shooting a car. Most cars are extremely shiny and the glare on the windows will hide the interior from you, that's why you should use a polarizing filter.

It will allow you to see the interior through the windows and remove nasty reflections from the paintwork, remember it is not a magical tool, it will not make all reflections disappear, but rather limit them. A polarizing filter is best used on a bright and sunny day or with your camera on a tripod as it will actually limit the amount of light that is able to reach the sensor, so your shutter speed will drop when mounting such a filter on the lens.

Using a polarizing filter takes practice, we've even put a special tutorial on filters on this site so you can learn how to apply them correctly, you don't really need one, but we strongly advice you to get one anyway, and while you are at it, get a good one, they don't come cheap but are well worth it in the end.

Secret 8 : Time

Timing is essential when shooting a car, you can't do an award winning photograph when you're on a tight schedule (well you can actually, but it takes experience) so when you are finally able to convince the owner of a nice car you just have to shoot it, you should warn him that the session could take some time, we take at least one hour for a photo shoot, but preferably we tend to stick to a four hour minimum.

This will allow you to re-position the car during the shoot to have different angles and even different locations during the session, you can take one hundred images with the car in the same position, but this isn't how you should to it, both you and the car should experiment with different locations, angles, light and so on.

A question that often reaches us is when to shoot a car, the standard answer here would be to say either early in the morning or late in the afternoon, and we must admit that this isn't a bad idea, but it isn't always possible depending on the schedule of the owner. We always make an appointment to shoot a car in the afternoon, we start at around 14h00 to 15h00 and tend to work until it's finished, which is mostly up to around 19h00 ... when the owner starts to look at his watch it is a good time to round up the session.

Wrapping it up

We hope that these eight secrets will get you thinking how to perform your next car shoot, as always these are not strict rules you should live by, they are just a basis to get you started, you should put your own ideas into action and create the shots that you like, not those that everybody else likes. However keep in mind that if you intend to make money with your photographs you must first please the crowd out there to get noticed by a magazine or publishing agency. You will be shooting the images they like because they end up paying for your work, if they don't like it chances are it will be a one time contract only.

The trick is to put your own trademark into the shots but not make them so extreme as to have nobody but yourself liking the images afterward, it is good to have your own style, just try not to be too extravagant in it.

Common Mistakes

COMMON MISTAKES WHEN SHOOTING A CAR

Canon EOS 350D - Canon EF-S17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM - 17mm 1/50 f5.6 ISO 400

Basic level tutorial - posted on March 14, 2009 by Mark

In this basic tutorial we will go over some of the usual mistakes you are bound to make when first starting in this magnificent niche of photography, go over our list and learn from mistakes both we and other made in the early days, try to avoid them on your next photo shoot.

The image above actually combines various mistakes, among other things the background is too distracting, the car is put right in the middle of the frame, you have a white plaque drawing attention to it in the left corner ... so it is not really a picture worth publishing other than to demonstrate how not to shoot a car at a car show.

Distracting background

This is probably the most common mistake all of us make, and it has several reasons in fact, one of them being that when we shoot an event or a car show for instance we can�t ask the owner to move his (or her) car, we will have to work with what we have. We do have a detailed tutorial on how to replace a background, but it always involves a nice amount of work afterwards. As stated in our basics tutorial the more preparation you do the less amount of work you�ll have behind your computer. If you can change the position of the car, please do so, and always remember what the frame behind the car looks like, select your position carefully and you�ll have very little tweaking to do after you�ve taken the image.

Garbage

Make sure there is no rubbish on the floor around your car, small pieces of paper, crushed soft drink cans, cigarettes, etc � they have no place in your car photos, either put the car somewhere else or do a quick clean of the grounds in the immediate vicinity of the car, no need to start a spring cleaning either, just get rid of the clutter. Again it can all be done is post processing, but that is not the way you should look at taking car photos, do not think �I will clean that in Photoshop�, think how to clean it beforehand.

Clutter

You shouldn�t only note the rubbish on the floor around the car, but also look inside the car itself. Look for anything on the dashboard that will be visible in the shot, a sheet of paper on top of the dashboard or behind the wipers can be difficult to edit out in post processing, ask the owner to remove it before you take the shot. Stickers on the windscreen are really distraction, unless they add to the look of the car you should consider having them removed, do get rid of the remaining glue.

When shooting the interior the same applies, have the owner (if he�s around) remove any clutter from the seats, between the seats, in the door pockets � they all distract from the main thing, the interior. Inside those classic cars the seat belts will need to be arranged before the shot as they don�t roll automatically, the same applies when a four-point racing harness is installed; make it look nice, have the logo in the front so it shows in the photograph. If you take a shot of the dashboard there are also a few points to note, make sure the steering wheel is straight, remove the keys from the ignition, don�t have anything hanging from the rear view mirror, close the glove compartment and put the car in first gear.

Detailing

Get the car clean ! Unless you are shooting an off road vehicle and want to show off it�s mud capabilities, have the car thoroughly cleaned, either have the owner do it or hire a professional to do it. In the beginning you could do this yourself, but it takes time to get a car clean to a level worth photographing, expect to spend up to four hours to really get a mid size car clean inside and outside on your own. I personally wouldn�t touch a car that isn�t mine, you never know you might scratch the paint or something, unless it�s a demo car naturally, but for a privately owned cars ask the owner to have it cleaned before the shoot.

Wheels

Just about every car you will shoot has some kind of logo on the wheels, either the make of the car or the logo of the custom rims. It is a small detail, but make sure it is level, nothing worse than shooting a Ferrari were the Prancing Horse is sleeping on it�s back on the wheels, again you could put it upright in editing, but avoid it by moving the car a few inches forward or backward. Forget about aligning both the front and rear wheels this way, you will have to jack the car up and move the wheels manually to achieve this in real life. When shooting a three-quarter front view of a car make sure the wheel is turned towards you and not the tire, differentiate from this only in case the tire has a special feature that makes it interesting to shoot (special tread or something like that), but than you would make a close up shot of this.

Sharpness

A photograph is all about getting the correct parts of the car �in focus� or to explain it in simple terms; sharp. If you want a three-quarter front shot of the car to be completely sharp from front to rear you will need an aperture setting of 5.6 to 8.0 depending on the distance to the car when using a standard lens (18-55 or something similar).

Also note that you will need a shutter speed of 1/125 to make sure your own movement of the camera doesn�t blur the image, if possible use a sturdy tripod and a remote shutter (more on these two items in our intermediate tutorials)

Black and white

Both colors have their own problems, when you shoot a black car it tends to be exposed too bright, on the other hand when you shoot a white car it tends to be exposed too dark, think about what happens when you shoot both side by side. The trick is to under- and over expose your shots in this case, we will go into this in our intermediate course, but for now try to stay away from these colors (yellow isn�t too simple either by the way)

The bottom line is that there shouldn�t be any full white or full black in your photograph unless you really want it to be there for a special effect � a dark mood for instance, getting there takes practice and a lot of mistakes, believe me. However most current DSLR can actually cope with this problem rather well if you include some of the background into the shot so the camera can calculate an average for the entire shot.

Noise

Nope, this isn�t some sound you can hear in a bad recording, it is actually a grain that appears in your photographs when you go up into the higher ISO settings of your camera, or if you�ve under exposed a shot. These days just about all the decent DSLR can take virtually noise free images up to ISO 400 or ISO 800, above that you should perform a noise removal in post processing. As a general rule of thumb try not to go over ISO 400 for most of your photographs, only go to ISO 800 if you really need to. Deciding what ISO setting to use is part of our intermediate sessions too, so feel free to explore it further in that section.

Smack in the middle

This is a common mistake when first starting to shoot cars, you put the car right in the middle of the frame. Sure it looks nice, but try putting it somewhat lower or higher in the frame, perhaps even a bit to the left or right of the frame � you�ll notice that the overall photo looks so much better. This is called the Rule of thirds which is often used in portrait photography, but it can also be applied to automotive photos.

Cut !

When you shoot a car make sure it fits inside the frame entirely, nothing more frustrating to notice the rear bumper is cut from the image. Also avoid things in front of the car like garbage cans, trees, plants and all other kinds of things that have nothing to do with the car. A silver cup or other prize can be in view, but still try to put it somewhere so it doesn�t intersect with the lines of the car itself. At an event there will probably be cords or some other kind of fencing around the cars to avoid having people climbing into the cars, you could ask the owner of the stand to remove them temporarily for the photo � won�t work all of the time, but if you don�t ask you�ll never know.

Flash

Do not use flash ! It�s as simple as that, flash photography requires a lot of experience to get right, so for now just don�t use it, it will ruin your shot if you don�t know exactly what you are doing. Flash photography related to cars received a special tutorial from us, please feel free to read it if interested, but most of the time you can get away with natural light for the time being, later on we�ll show you how to make your flash work on the shiny, very reflective panels of a car.

These are just a few of the things you should consider when photographing cars, naturally there are many more details important before you�ll be making your first cover shot, but if you can handle all of the above without having to think twice you�ll be very close to taking award winning automotive shots.

Several of these items will return in our intermediate sections when we take a closer look at the most important setting for a car shoot, but for now you�ll be able to make photographs instead of snapshots if you take into account the above list of helpful tips.

Post Production Techniques

OLD FASHION DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS

Canon EOS 350D - Canon EF70-200 f/2.8L IS USM - 70mm 1/160 f8.0 ISO 200

Intermediate level tutorial - posted on February 27, 2009 by Johan

Back to the good old days ...

These days the DSLR we are using are highly sophisticated pieces of equipment with powerful processors that will try to reproduce the image we take as correctly as possible, but there are times when we do not really want this slick look.

For instance when we shoot a classic car like the Porsche or the Fiat on this page, both of these cars are considered classic cars that have been around for several decades, it would be nice if we could photograph them like they would have been shot all those years ago, when they just came of the assembly line in Germany or Italy.

Some would go for a black and white look, perhaps even a full sepia look, but we think that our process will come closer to how it would have looked in the Sixties or Seventies, when saturated colors were not as much appreciated as they are today.

So we set out to re-create this old-fashion look on our brand new, digital photographs, it will only take you about one minute to get this rather special look on your images, however we would like to warn you that it works best with cars of a certain age, a brand new Corvette or Lamborghini will not work as nice as a Sixties Stingray or a Miura � at least that is our idea, you are free to try this out on whichever image you would prefer.

We start by selecting a great photo depicting a classic car, like the really nice Fiat we�ve photographed last summer during an old-timer event in the Netherlands.

As always we start by applying a small amount of USM (UnSharp Mask found in the 'Filter' menu under 'Sharpen') in PhotoShop on the image (50%, 1.0, 1). After that we make sure our white balance is as good as it can be on a processed image (you should have corrected this when you were developing the RAW file (check out our standard workflow on automotive photos) by using the levels option.

Just in case you've got an incorrect white balance in your shot and you couldn't fix it when developing the RAW file (you've shot in JPG by mistake ?) you can always use the Levels option in Adobe PhotoShop to correct it, take a look at the histogram of this shot, it does not cover the entire range, especially at the right there is room for improvement, particular for the highlights. A complete explanation of the Levels adjustments can be found in our Our 60 second workflow on automotive photos tutorial, so we won't go into the details here, we've adjusted the sliders so that the image now has a correct white and black point.

After getting the colors in the shot corrected we've made a slightly different crop of the image, as this is a panning shot we want to remove some space from the rear of the car and have mode space in front of the car to give a better impression, in panning shots you should always try to have more space in front of the car to allow it some room in the direction it is driving, this results in a more balanced shot, remember the Rule of Thirds ? Check out our Secrets behind a great car photo for more info on this.

Next step is to make a layer to use for the de-saturation, we use an adjustment layer for this which does not touch our base image, so we do not ruin it and can return to it at any step in the process if we don't like the result. Just use Layer � New Adjustment Layer � Hue/Saturation� for this task, give this layer a name you like and click �OK�, on the next option you pull the saturation level all the way to the right, creating some sort of black and white version of your original layer.

Now this isn�t what we are looking for, so we�ll change the opacity of the entire layer, something like 50% or 60% should work out nicely depending on the original image, the impression you are looking for is seeing some color but not too much � practice a little on this step to get it just right.

Now comes the best part, putting a slight sepia look over the entire image by applying a color layer on the image, which is not as difficult as you might think, just add a new fill layer on top of the de-saturated layer (Layer � New Fill Layer � Solid Color �), select a name for this new layer (something you can recognize later on) and make sure to put �Mode� on color, after you click ok you will be asked to select a solid color, here you go for either FFD700 or EED400 depending on which look you prefer. The effect is probably too strong right now, it usually is for our taste in fact, so we continue by changing the opacity of this new color layer like we did with the de-saturation layer. Something between 15% and 25% works best for us, but you are free to select a different opacity level.

Your old fashioned photo should be just about ready now ! We always add some vignetting to these shots, that's what happened back in those days too, and it emphasizes the car even further by putting more saturation on the surroundings.

We add some vignette to the image with a new, empty layer, set the blending mode to �soft light�, then select a black color and the gradient fill from black to transparent, draw from the top of the image to just at the edge of the car, repeat the same thing from the bottom and both sides, them add this from the four corners and you have a very nice looking vignette on your photo. Too strong for your taste, change the opacity of the layer until you are satisfied with the result. One extra tip, put this vignette layer underneath the Color Fill layer, not on top of it, try changing it�s position among the layers to see the difference.

Some extra material

The same workflow can be applied to shots of much more modern cars, like this Lancia, but it works best when there is a nice classic car in the frame, on these more recent cars it just looks a bit out of place in our opinion, but you are free to try it on any image you might have in your collection.

On the other hand, when you've got the chance to shoot a stunning Jaguar like this one it is a perfect subject to be turned into a more classic looking image. The owner of this car was very pleased with this photograph and actually liked it more than the original one we've presented to him.

Just in case you want to play around with this type of modifications we've added the original PSD file with the Fiat in it for you to download, you can take a look at the different layers and modify their transparency settings, change the colors ... just get to know this way of working.
And what's even better, if you replace the 'background' layer with your own image it will be transformed into an old style photograph immediately as all the layers above actually work on the background layer anyway, you can see the result with your own material at once.

VIRTUAL TUNING IN POST PROCESSING

Virtual processing shot

Fast tips - posted on June 30, 2013 by Mark

In this fast tip I take you into a new domain for CarPhotoTutorials ... video. That's right, in this article I am not showing you every single step to go from start to finish over multiple images and lots of text ... instead I show you a movie on how it is done in real life.

Virtual tuning made easy

There are in fact two ways to execute virtual tuning ... first you have designers that actually draw body parts over existing models while you have a second group of people ... like me in fact, that combine parts from other cars onto a base car and make it all fit together.

This method requires you to have a vast collection of photos showing tuning, it doesn't matter which make or model as you will be using only parts of those shots anyway, that is why whenever I go to a car show I will also photograph cars that aren't going to be published on any of my websites ... but I know the wheels or the rear wing on that car will look great on a virtual mockup.

Images are great ... video is better

For this project I wanted to create a non existing widebody concept for a Lamborghini Aventador ... I have it published on my hobby site but made a video showing just how I made it look just right ... check it out:

It took about two hours to go from start to finish and get it all looking aligned and real, which is the effect I am going for, creating a virtual car that looks like it could really exist, so when you try something like this keep in mind you do not want to go over the top with your modifications ... if it looks too abstract it usually is, so tone it down a bit.

BEFORE and AFTER post processing

CREATING A DERELICT AT DUSK LOOK IN POST PROCESSING

Canon EOS5D Mark II - Canon EF24-105mm f/4.0 L IS - mm 1/160 sec f5.6 ISO200

Advanced level tutorial - posted on November 3, 2012 by Mark

I know we've all seen those amazing shots of brand new or highly tuned cars in front of abandoned warehouses or factories ... the contrast between a shiny car and a derelict building is such an amazing look many crave to achieve it, and if you manage to do such a shoot at dusk with the warm light from the sun you know you've hit the jackpot.

BEFORE and AFTER comparison

(Move your mouse over the photo above to compare the 'Before vs After' shots)

But there are a few culprits with this setup, for one most of these derelict locations are private property, so you would be trespassing in fact, which happens to be illegal you know ... now you could get permission from the owner, but even with a written paper in hand you have to keep in mind why this building looks so good ... because it has been abandoned for many years, so it might have structural issues.

No problem you think, you're just going to park the car in front of the building right? Guess what, that might not be the best idea either, for one when it is windy you never know that wobbly chimney decides to modify your amazing looking car into a convertible, and getting the car at the location could be more difficult than you think. More than likely the road up to the building has been left untouched for many years too, with holes and bumps that could ruin a low riding car on the first meters you drive into the compound.

In retrospect it might be a better idea to get the look in post processing and shoot that beautiful, very expensive car on a more appropriate location, so you'll need two things: a decent shot of the car and a good looking derelict house to put into the shot, the latter you can shoot yourself, but in that case you are back at trespassing, or you can use a stock photo.

The original snapshot

I am going to make it even more difficult for me by selecting a photo taken during an outdoor event, so no special setup nor time to get the lighting just perfect, just a quick shot of a nicely tuned BMW 5-Series that I am going to pull through post processing into a photograph ready to be put on the wall as a poster.

You can immediately see this isn't the best shot out there, in this form it isn't even worth the term photograph ... I would call this a quick snapshot, one you could like because you admire the car in the shot, not for the technical photography value ... but that's about to change, so let's get to it.

Adjusting the light

First thing is getting the light better on this shot, and this is done by putting an adjustment layer over the entire shot Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Levels... and select the right spots that you feel should be black and white, in this case the black would be sampled from inside the wheelarch (this is most likely to be the darkest part of the car anyway) while white is most often a highlight on the bodywork, on this BMW I took pure white from the front fender.

But it still looked a bit dark to me, and I knew I would be putting more contrast on the shot later on, so I made the photo lighter overall by changing the center value on the Levels dialog box to 1,20 ... don't worry if the sky looks too bright now, just put a Layer Mask on the Levels layer and apply a gradient from black to transparent to get the sky back to the original, dark look, the same effect is needed on the dirt to make it stand out better.

That pulled the light back into the photo, the grey metallic BMW looks bright enough while the sky and floor gets some more detail back by actually deactivating the Levels effect on them from imposing a Layer Mask, however I still feel the front could use a little sparkle, and instead of using a 'Soft Light' layer and paint with a white brush on it I'm going to show you another trick: the virtual flash look!

PhotoShop has a nice render filter that adds some intricate light effects on your photo, so when you feel an image could have been better if you would have used some additional off camera flash units but just don't have the option to do a re-shoot you'll have to try getting a similar look in post processing, and I'm going to show you how.

Add a virtual flash

To use this trick we will first duplicate the entire photo onto a new layer, remember we always try to go for a non destructive post processing method, so the Background of our file that holds the original photo is never touched, hence we can always backtrack if we make a mistake, or get another idea later on. So make sure you select the Background layer, select all (Ctrl-A or Cmd-A) and Copy/Paste the entire image onto a new layer ... which we'll call 'virtual flash' so we remember why there is an additional layer on our post processing file.

Go into the Filter menu and select the Render option, from the expanding menu select the Lighting effects option and you'll end up with the dialog box seen here, go for the 'Omni' Light Type and drag the circle you'll see on the preview to the position you should have had to put an off camera flash unit, you can drag the diameter of this circle to change the radius of the effect, when you think it looks right just hit the 'OK' button.

The result is just what you would expect when using a single, off camera flash, the front now has a nice bright look, but the rear has some serious light fall off, so we'll have to rectify this ... with a Layer Mask that hides just about the entire 'virtual flash' layer, only the front section of the BMW will remain 'lit'.

So once again click the 'Mask' option on the Layers palette and start painting on the mask until only the front section of our tuned sedan remains 'filled in'. Somehow I still wasn't satisfied with the overall look of this effect, so I lowered the opacity of the entire layer to only 50% ... keep in mind that the opacity of a layer like this is strictly a subjective matter, what might look good to me might not look right to you.

Now we have a photo of a nicely tuned grey metallic BMW 5-Series, but this isn't the look and feel we want, so time to start looking for a background that fits a whole lot better than this fence and dirt ... a nice derelict building that has been abandoned for many years already, just what we need for our little project.

Adding an urban feel

All we need to do is paste a photo of a building that fits our project onto the original image and once again use a Layer Mask to show only the sections we need of the abandoned factory and cover the rather uninspiring background we had on our shot. Do note that masking a background like this might take some practice, and that is exactly why you should use a mask instead or erasing the parts you don't need ... non destructive post processing remember?

The trick is to use a soft brush setting at a rather small size and just 'paint' around the contours of the car, once you have the initial profile set you can use the Polygonal Lasso Tool to draw inside the line you've just painted and hit the 'delete' key to make the entire car visible again.

Keep in mind that the more time you put into painting this kind of Layer mask the better the result will be, so don't expect to be finished in a matter of minutes. This car has a nice, simple profile so it isn't too difficult to mask it, but once you tackle a classic car with tail fins, ornaments and antennas you might spend hours on getting it just right.

Also keep an eye on the details, take a close look at the result we're reached already ... you might think it looks almost done while in fact there are still several steps ahead of us. But one small detail could give it all away ... look closely at the windshield of the BMW.

Taking care of the details

A small detail like this can completely ruin the look you are going for ... you can still see the original background with the fence through the windshield, and that would be a clear indication the image has been composed of multiple shots ... while we would never pass it on as a single shot we sure aren't going to leave it obvious either.

So a new layer just above the original background allows us to clone the fence away while yet another layer will 'virtually' tint the windows on this BMW is just what is needed to remove all evidence of the original, rather dull background ... now the scene has been fully set to create our sunset look.

Creating a sunset feeling

The warm shade of a sunset can be simulated by adding a Gradient Fill layer on top of the entire photo using just the right mix of RGB values, we have experimented a lot with orange, yellow and even gold shades and in the end we've been using #ffa422 to get the right feeling on this kind of photos, so first up is setting this shade as our foreground color.

Now continue by selecting the Create new fill or adjustment layer found at the bottom of the Layer palette, a pop up menu will show lots of options, we'll be using the Gradient ... link near the top of the list.

Most likely the selected default gradient isn't the one we want to use for this effect, so just click on the down arrow next the gradient shown and you'll be able to change the settings. For the sunset effect we are using the 'Foreground to transparent' gradient, just like we've been doing on the masks for the earlier adjustment layers ... over time you'll notice we are using this type of gradient a lot in our post processing.

In this specific shot we didn't go for the standard 90 degree angle on the gradient ... instead we use a 75 degree angle that has the light flooding in from the corner, making it look much more natural in the end ... don't forget the 'Reverse' setting to position the virtual sun in the upper right corner, the sunlight doesn't come from the floor you know.

As you can see we now end up with a rather harsh orange tint on our photo, this isn't exactly the look we were aiming for, but fear not, this was only the first step. Step two involves changing the Layer properties to get it right.

The nice thing about using Layers in PhotoShop is the fact you can change how they influence the photo in many different ways, one of them is to change the Blending Mode, and in this case we go for the Color setting, however the effect is still way too strong for this project ... how do you lower the effect of a layer?

Easy, with the Opacity setting ... for this image a 40% opacity looked just right, on other photos you might need a different setting here, so do play around with some values until you think your shot has the look and feel you want, every single photograph is different ... hence the settings can vary a little.

Making it look derelict

To get the grunch look intended for this image we'll be adding yet another adjustment layer on top of everything else, this time we go for the 'Curves' layer which will allow us to create the rather special atmosphere to fit with the derelict building in the background.

In the past a similar effect could be achieved by using the Brightness and Contrast setting, but these days Curves or Levels allow a better method to get really special effects, on our photo the Curves adjustment is the best option at this time.

If you start to pull the Curve in the middle downward you can immediately see a dramatic change in the look and feel of the photo, what we are looking for in this case is a more urban impression so the intention is to have the building look even more derelict and rough than it already is.

But this means that our BMW in front of the house is going to look very dark, and we've just increased the light on the shot to begin with, which is why another Layer Mask has to be added so we can remove the 'Curves' effect from the car and leave it only on the background.

If you take another look at the photo now you might feel it is just about finished, and you are right, only a few more steps are required to get the result we intend to reach for this specific project. However there is still a little problem with the photo: at dusk you will not have the cold grey tint on that Bimmer, due to the warm hue of the sunlight at that special time of day the grey would be less cool in fact.

Getting a warm feeling onto a photograph is actually rather easy to be honest, you just add another layer on top of everything else and fill it with a nice orange shade.

Pulling it all together

It took a while to get this right, but in the end we've managed to find a shade and a setting that should be looking fine on most of your photos, it sure looks great on this shot. The way to go is adding a new layer on top of everything else, completely fill it with the #ffAE00 hue and change the Blending Mode on the layer to Soft Light ... however the effect is once again too strong, so lowering the Layer Opacity value to 20% was needed in this case.

If you look at the photo now you will notice the car has a nice, warm glow over it, the steel cold grey is gone and instead we now really have the impression the shot was taken at just the right time and in the perfect location ... it is all coming together ever so nicely.

If you have been following these tutorials for a while you probably know our finishing touch already ... an additional Soft Light layer with a gradient from black to transparent which will add a vignette to the photo and make the car stand out even more.

Once again we lowered the opacity of this Vignette layer because the effect was a bit too intense, the trick is to have the surroundings toned down a bit and pull the attention onto the car in the photograph ... but not to make the background completely black in some areas that should still show some detail, like the bricks on the building for instance, so lowering the opacity to 80% was the right thing to do in this specific image.

The final result

This is the image we had in mind from the start, the car has a nice warm feeling about it instead of the cool grey look on the original image. Also the rather uninspiring background on the snapshot has been replaced by that urban looking, derelict building and we've managed to get that much sought after sunset impression.

Once again this post processing clearly shows that a photograph should be made on location to avoid extensive work on the computer, but as much as we like to have a masterpiece straight from the camera it is more than likely you'll need do tweak the exposure to turn it into a photograph ... and this extensive modification has turned an image we would call a snapshot into a real photograph ... in fact we have put a large print of the final image on our office wall as a sample.

CREATING A PHOTO FROM A SHOWROOM SNAPSHOT

Canon EOS5D Mark II - Canon EF24-105mm f/4.0 L IS - 45mm 1/4 sec f5.6 ISO100

Intermediate level tutorial - posted on July 20, 2012 by Mark

When I visit the Geneva Auto Show we just have to stay overnight, I drive up to Switzerland the day before the press days so I can get a good night of sleep before I spend all day searching for the best shots during the show, in the evening I get back to the hotel, have a nice dinner and get some sleep to be ready to head back home the next day ... and most of the time I take the more scenic route into Switzerland and make a stop in Porrentruy ... home of Affolter, one of the largest Lamborghini dealers in Europe, with a massive showroom holding lots of Raging Bull ... problem is they are tightly packed together, so making nice photos is a somewhat difficult experience ... but I will show you how to get some really nice looking shots anyway.

Just to show you how difficult working in that showroom as a photographer gets I will firstly give your the OOC shot I am about to post process :

As you can see it isn't the best shot in the world, personally I would grade this one as a snapshot to be honest, but I really liked this car so I started thinking how I could make it look better, possibly get a photograph out of it in the end.

I have been to this showroom several times over the last few years, so I already knew the lighting inside is really bad, and if it is a sunny day you get massive floods of light on one side and near dark on the other side ... and I just didn't want to set up several off camera flash units here, you never know someone knocks over a stand onto a 300k Euro Lamborghini.

This time I took along my tripod to make sure I had a solid stand to take multiple shots ... you remember me talking about taking a burst of three shots: one correctly exposed, one over exposed and one under exposed ... so we get the highlights and the shadows right and bring them all together in PhotoShop ... and this is exactly what I had in mind for this car.

Here we have two stops over exposed, normal exposure and two stops under exposed ... and because I had the camera on a solid tripod all three shots are exactly in sync, I can now put one on top of the other and work with the parts I need for my final shot, as this was a mat black car it took some over exposure to get the air intakes visible again without having the bodywork too bright.

So I load the first shot I need, the over exposed one that nicely shows the grilles inside the front and side air intake of this Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera:

Now is time to overlay a less exposed version of this photo on top of this one, so I load the 'normal' exposure into PhotoShop to get rid of the serious blow outs in this over exposed shot, a trick I will attempt by using layers and 'painting' on the layer mask to reveal the underlying layer again.

In this photo you can clearly see the air intakes and grilles are no longer visible, by using a layer mask and painting with a soft brushed black shade over the intakes we actually allow the over exposed shot that was first completely hidden by this one to come through again, but only in those sections I need more light, which on this specific shot are just about the entire front section and the side air intakes:

I now have the bodywork looking almost the way I want, but as you probably know I will be removing the entire background in this snapshot too, I like a Bentley and that BMW behind this Lamborghini isn't too bad either, but I don't want any distractions from the mat black, Nero Nemesis Superleggera in this photo, so everything else has to go ... and unlike most people I also take care of the windows as they will show the background of not covered up.

I for one really like dark tinted windows, so that is exactly what I'm going to put on this black Lamborghini, just add a new layer on top of those already in the shot, set it to 'Overlay' and use the 'Polygonal Lasso Tool' with the straight lines to select the window sections on the shot, make sure not to cover too much bodywork, but if you do it isn't a big issue, you can always erase it later on or paint some extra on it ... in the end I want to have this look on the windows:

Most likely the effect of the black paint on the windows will be too harsh, so I lower the opacity of the layer holding the tinted windows to about 70%, which makes it look just right. That is why you should always work on layers, that way you can play around with opacity settings, erase or paint some extra black where you've got the selection wrong ... this is called 'non destructive post processing' ... if you make the upper layers invisible you just end up at the starting point again, no damage to the original photo, and nothing that holds you back taking another attempt at post processing in the future.

Next step for me would be to remove that blue color cast on the side, we are looking at a mat black car here, and I really don't like that blue tint in the side of it, the easiest way to tackle this problem is to turn the shot into a black and white photo ... there are no color cast in a b&w shot.

Again I am following the non-destructive route here, so I add an adjustment layer holding the black & white filter, do note that adjustment layers come with an automatic mask most of the time, which happens to be just right as I really like to keep the gold Raging Bull logo up front and those contrasting, bright orange brake calipers ... so I just paint a little touch of black over those sections to remove the black and white filter on them.

Do you notice the car looks a lot more intimidating in this neutral black shade ... just the way I want it to look, like a monster from below ready to attack when you look the other way. Now the time has come to get rid of that background that is pulling way too much attention to itself, attention the Lamborghini should be getting, so I add a new layer all the way at the top and fill it with a gradient going from full black at the top to transparent towards the bottom ... which covers part of the car naturally:

Just guess how I'm going to solve this problem with the black gradient ... yep, you got it right: I'm going to put a layer mask on it and start painting black over it to make the Lamborghini visible again. Do note that this will take some time, a lot of patience, and most likely some switching between painting in black and painting in white when you've 'uncovered' too much. Most of the time I start with a rather large, soft brush and work my way down to a much smaller, sometimes even hard brush for the smaller details ... after a while I end up with a result like this:

I must admit this previous step is probably the most time consuming of this entire post processing work, but the more time you put into getting this mask just right, the better the photograph will look in the end, you can spread this work over multiple attemps if you get nervous half way along ... or perfect it the next day, trust me, sometimes you just can't get it right the first time, just keep trying, you will get there in the end.

Almost there I guess, but I always try to go that extra step when it comes to post processing photos, so in this case I'm still not too happy about those bright tiles in the foreground, so adding a new layer with a black to transparent gradient at the bottom makes the photo look a lot better already, I did lower the opacity to 65% to make the reflection of the car visible again, I rather liked that to be honest.

To really put the finishing touch into this photograph I added my usual SoftLight layer on top of it all and used another black to transparent gradient at the top and bottom to make the car really stand out from the frame, being a black car this isn't too easy either, but I think the small touches of orange and gold work nicely together with the dark, sinister look I was after in this case.

With this last action I'm rather pleased with the look of this photograph, I effectively turned a mere snapshot into a photo, and the car looks amazing with no distractions in the background anymore. If I would print this one in a large size and mount on my wall in the office this would be the end of the post processing work for me. But I had a second purpose in mind for this lightweight (it is a Superleggera you know) so I wanted to add a small extra touch in the upper left corner ... the very stylish Superleggera script Lamborghini uses on this model, only problem: there is no font available to write this ... but I have found the perfect solution.

I had a side shot of the original Superleggera model when it was unveiled at the 2010 Geneva Auto Show with a close up of the script on the lower front section of the door, as this is a white script on a black background it is very easy to use the Magic Wand Tool in PhotoShop to select only the text, copy it and subsequently paste it into the photo of the black car.

I paste the Superleggera script onto my mat black Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 photo, positioning it in the upper right corner and making it the perfect size to be visible, but not draw too much attention to itself, I for one didn't like the white on this script so I changed it to orange to be color coded with the brake calipers on the black Gallardo, just use a layer style colorize to get this look.

Just to make it perfectly clear we are talking about a Nero Nemesis shade on this rare Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera I added a small line of text to the photo, now this is just right to be used as a computer background:

Keep in mind this workflow can be used on several photos you've taken at an event or inside a showroom, like this Murci�lago model :

This just shows that you don't always need a massive studio setup to be able to get some amazing looking photographs, it does however take some post processing to get the look and feel you want to achieve ... but with the steps I've explained here I think you have a great starting point to create some amazing photos from your snapshots.

Feel free to mail us some of your work based on this tutorial, we are more than happy to advice you further on your own photographs.

USING ACTIONS TO ADD A WATERMARK TO YOUR PHOTOS

Canon EOS5D Mark II - Canon EF24-105mm f/4.0 L IS - 24mm 1/200 sec f5.6 ISO640

Advanced level tutorial - posted on July 9, 2012 by Mark

Why would you care to watermark your photo in the first place?

The reason is simple, the moment you publish a photo online it will get 'borrowed' at some moment in time ... I've seen photos published on my sites popping up all around the world after a few days or weeks, and naturally some cloned or cropped out my watermark.

But I still put a watermark on ALL the photos I put online, why you might ask?

Because if you are a professional photographer you will have a website showcasing your work, and people will admire your photos online ... while other will eventually 'borrow' them to use as their own, so don't make it too easy for them by not even putting a watermark on the shots.

Once you actually start selling photographs, this could be stock photography or shots you've taken during a car event and you offer them online for those that actually participated you want to make sure people are actually paying you for your time and effort ... so don't publish 1800x1200 shots without any source mentioned ... printing these up to A4 is quite easy, so do NOT make that mistake, you'll end up not selling any photos in the end. So only publish rather low-resolution images (I tend to go for 900x600 only) AND put a watermark on them.

You only photograph as a hobby and want to share your shots with friends and family ... but once your snapshot goes online there is no holding back for people with, let's say 'less than serious' intentions, so do put a watermark on EVERY image you publish on the internet.

Resize your photo before adding a watermark

It is best practice to make sure your photos are in the correct resolution to go online before you put your 'stamp' on it, so we'll discuss how to get the best possible result making your very high resolution photographs suitable to be uploaded onto a website.

Never put full resolution images online, if you really have to do so because your customer wants to download them instead of waiting for a DVD to arrive in the mail you should put them behind a password, never put high resolution photos publically online, they will end up in places you might never even think about, so avoid nasty surprises and keep full resolution images locally on your computer and use a low resolution version of the image to be sent out into the world.

Something about the pixel ratio

I know there are various pixel ratio models out there, just like there are widescreen monitors and regular monitors for instance. Now I've been using Canon DSLR from the first day in the business, my EOS350D had 3456x2304 pixels, the next step I got an EOS40D with 3888x2592 pixels, after that I upgraded to the EOS5D mark II full frame camera with a whopping 5616x3744 pixels and for track side use I got myself the EOS1D mark IV with 4896x3264 pixels ... note that even with the increase of resolution over the years the aspect ratio remained 3:2, which means any photo of either camera I owned can be downsized to 900x600 pixels to be published online.

I even did a quick check online about the Nikon D800, a massive 36.3 megapixel camera that delivers mammoth size photos holding 7360x4912 pixels in its FX format ... which as it happens also boils down to 900x600 for web use ... so instead of using the classic 800x600 (4:3) format I will show you how to work with a watermark formatted for a general 900x600 (3:2) image size.

The custom watermark

Now comes the time to decide just what you want to do in terms of adding a watermark to your photos, do you want to have a big, intruding logo all over your images, do you simply want a line of text with your name on each photo, you might like a bar added at the bottom of each shot, why not put a small signature on the image or perhaps the tiling trick appeals to you ... let's take a look at a few different approaches before setting the basics.

The big bad logo approach

Let me start by mentioning I really don't like to watermark photos with this method, but I also have to admit is does actually work, therefore I am going to show you how to set it up anyway. Remember those large C letter all over several stock photography files ? This is actually the 'copyright' symbol, and you can use it to some extent as a watermark, but I would put your name or website link on your photos too so people can determine where the image originated from.

I am not going to go into details how to create the big logo used for this watermark, I'm sure you already know how to impose some layers on top of each other so I'm only explaining how to go from design to usable pattern for watermarking.

We are looking at a large circle that covers most of our photograph, most likely to be put right at the center and holding some kind of copyright statement and our name and website link ... in the end it should look similar to this:

The trick to make this design work as a watermark is to create the circle and the text in white and lowering the opacity of the layers to about 50%. Because we also use the Bevel and Emboss and a 'Drop Shadow' layer effect we end up with grey and black shades, so this watermark will be visible on just about any color in the photo you overlay it onto, and that is what we are looking for right?

The above photo clearly shows that both black and white shades are nicely covered by the watermark, so this is a general-purpose overlay we can use on most of our photos anyway

But as I already stated at the start, I really don't like this kind of watermark on a photo, it just distracts too much from the car we are photographing here, so I tend to go for one of the less intrusive methods.

Tiles at work

If you don't want to have one massive 'stamp' all over your photos you could opt for a slightly different look, still covering most of the image, but this time a much smaller watermark that gets replicated all over the shot ... the tiling look.

The trick to get a tiling look is to create a watermark that is much smaller than 900x600 pixels, if you apply that one to a photo it will get duplicated several times until it covers the entire photo ... this way you can even use the same watermark no matter how large your photo is.

So to get this one started I would go for a 300x200 pixels canvas to create a watermark from, if you offset the logo or text on a nice grid it will be duplicated over the image very nicely:

If we apply this 300x200 watermark over a 900x600 pixels photo it will be duplicated 3 times in each direction, completely covering the image with these lines of text:

This tiling option will also make it very, very difficult to remove in post processing if people are trying to 'borrow' your photo, and I must admit it doesn't look as bad as the big circle in the middle of the shot, but still I don't really like this way of protecting a photograph either, but it is effective I have to admit.

The bottom line approach

I have been using this kind of watermark for a long time, with a few variations perhaps but it all comes down to the same thing, using a line of text, a small logo or a signature at the bottom of an image.

The original CarPhotoTutorials watermark was actually based on this method, we added a frame around the shots and some extra graphic items, but still it remained a kind of signature at the bottom of the photo:

This kind of framed watermark also makes sure you have a white (or black if you prefer that) surround with the photo, so even when shown on a black screen, the borders remain white, and by using a solid color frame you avoid having problems when your text is the same shade as the background in the image, that's why we've been using this frame ever since.

There is one serious downside to using a frame like this however, your photos will have to fit 'inside' the window that is left, and if the car in the photograph is close to the edge you get a bad looking result when applying this kind of watermark in an automated action:

So a frame might not be the perfect solution for every photo, naturally we can also use a smaller signature at one of the corners of the photo, either to the left or to the right, at the top or at the bottom, it all depends on your preferences.

Take a look at this bright orange signature added in the top right corner of every photo published on a model car collection site, it draws immediate attention but still allows the scale model itself to be admired without any interference:

The only possible issue we could have with this kind of watermark is the fact it can be rather easily removed in post processing, but that is just the way things go once you publish your photos online, they will be 'borrowed' at a certain moment, and most likely your signature will be removed from it ... but at least you can show there was malicious intent when they willingly cropped away or cloned out your watermark.

One of the most commonly used watermarks is a signature or logo of some kind in one of the corners, something like this professional photographer is doing using the exact same action we are putting together in this tutorial:

In all honestly, as much as we like our frame watermark, we must admit the small signature stamp is probably the best looking, less intrusive one we can advice to use, so we will talk you through all steps required to create this one, and once we have our watermark we'll show you how to automate it so you can 'tag' thousands of photos without manually opening any of them.

The foundation of any kind of watermark

Whatever style or type of watermark you are going to use, it all starts with the same step: creating a new document that should be the same size as the photos you will be publishing online ... in our case 900x600 pixels when in landscape orientation (more on that later)

So first point of business: create a new image in PhotoShop with these settings:

The name given to this new file isn't that important, but I would advice you to have a somewhat recognizable name, as we will be creating a 'pattern' from this file to be used as our watermark, the name for the pattern will be taken from the filename, so think about a name you will be able to remember.

I've put in a 300 dpi resolution, which is great for images destined for printing, but our watermark will go on photos to be published online, so why not use 72 dpi you might ask? Simple, when someone who isn't that into photography and digital images tries to print it, they will only get a very small printout on paper, anyway for display use this setting is irrelevant so you could put just about anything in there. I would however make sure the Color Mode is set at RGB Color at 8 bit and the Color Profile is sRGB ... this will make sense later on, trust me.

As I am going to use a white text for this watermark I first fill the entire image with a neutral grey shade (#808080) so I can see what I'm typing, now that our blank canvas is ready to use we will put a line of text on it, just press the"D" key on the keyboard to get black and white as foreground and background color, now hit the "X" to make white the foreground color and hit the 'T' key on the keyboard, select the font you like from the drop down list and make sure to get 'Right align text' activated:

Now I put the cursor near the bottom right corner of my blank canvas and start typing my initial line of text 'www.CarPhotoTutorials.com', by playing with different font size and putting '#AAAAAA' on the 'www.' and '.com' section we get a different look, now I just duplicate the text layer and transform it into a vertical mirror of the original text. Position it just below the original text and lower the opacity to 50%, apply a quick mask to it and paint with a soft black brush over the reflection to make it look more realistic.

Now select the original line of text again and lower the opacity to about 50% too and give it a nice drop shadow effect about 3 pixels away:

It might not look like much, but this has our name in it, and at the same time includes our url, without being too obvious, and with the nice reflection it doesn't look like a simple line of text but more like a signature of our website, which was the intention right from the start. And by using white with a lower opacity and a drop shadow this little watermark will be visible on just about every shade we impose it onto, another very important property of a good watermark.

Now we have to turn this into a pattern so we can use it to 'fill' a layer on top of the original photograph in an automated workflow, which is a lot easier than it sounds to be honest.

First make sure you make the background invisible just by clicking on the small 'eye' in the layers list.

Now go to the 'Edit' menu and select the 'Define pattern ...' option:

This will bring up a box where you can enter the name for your patter, I would suggest naming it something meaningful so you can recognize it later on when you have more than one pattern, I went for CPT_Watermark_900x600, that way I also know the resolution of the photos I can use this watermark on:

We now have our first watermark ready for use, but let's take our workflow one step further and create a similar one for portrait orientation, which is simple once the basics are done, all you have to do is modify the canvas size from 900x600 pixels to 600x900 pixels:

Just make sure you have the Anchor point in the position where the watermark sits, in this case the lower right corner, as we are working with a transparent background the Canvas extension color isn't important, but to keep it in sync with the layout I selected Gray here.

You will get a warning message stating the canvas will be changed, but that is exactly what I want in this case, so clicking 'ok' gives me a perfect 600x900 pixels, portrait oriented canvas ready for a second watermark to be distilled from, which I call 'CPT_Watermark_600x900' to make sure I don't get confused later on when I want to use it.

Just to make sure you are able to change this watermark later on I will would safe the file now, just call it anything you can remember like: 'CPT_Watermark' for instance.

Automating the watermark workflow

Time to make our life easier with a fully automated watermark workflow, in a matter of a few click I can downsize my original images, put the right sRGB Color profile into the shot, put a copyright statement into the metadata and stamp a watermark on the photo so it is ready to be published online.

Getting it all automated involves creating an Action in PhotoShop, and to make it easier to locate this action once it is ready to be deployed I make a new 'Action Set' that holds all my watermark actions together.

Creating the first watermark action

Our entire automated workflow to add a watermark to our photos begins with creating the initial action, and for that we will also create an entirely new action set in PhotoShop.

So hover to the 'Window' menu of PhotoShop and make sure the 'Actions' window is visible (shortcut key is alt-F9 by the way). Go to the Actions window and click on the toggle key at the right to unveil the specific menu on Actions, close to the top you'll notice two options 'New Action...' and 'New Set...'

Click on the 'NewSet...' option and call it 'CPT_Actions', this new set will hold the necessary actions to add a watermark to either a landscape or a portrait oriented photo, so now we can create a New Action that will put the watermark in place, but wait a minute before selecting this option.

Think about the fact we are intending to have this action put a watermark on hundreds of photos with as little manual intervention as possible, so before we actually start recording a new action we need to have a 'reference' photo open in PhotoShop, so select a photo you've made that you can downsize from full camera resolution to 900x600 and apply a watermark onto.

I opened one of the Geneva Auto Show photos I've made with my Canon EOS5D mark II, so this shot holds a massive 21,026,304 pixels (5616x3744) and has an AdobeRGB profile integrated during development of the RAW file:

With our 'reference shot' open in PhotoShop it is time to start recording our first watermark action, so head back to the action menu and select 'New Action', I call it 'CPT_Watermark_900x600' so I know exactly what it should be doing in the end.

You can dedicate a Function Key to your new action, but as I intend to use this one in a workflow there is no need to select one at this moment, so I just leave it at 'None' for this tutorial.

Remember once you press the 'Record' button just about everything you do in PhotoShop gets remembered in this action, so most of the time I put together a small 'screenplay' before actually recording my actions, however you can always modify a few things later one, but better to get it right in one take.

So first thing will be to perform a little 'UnSharp Mask' on this shot to bring out the details a bit more, I don't want to overdo the effect, so I use a 50% Amount for a 1 pixels Radius and a Threshold of 0 levels:

Now it is time to reduce the image to a more manageable size for online use, however I'm not going down to 900 pixels width at once, I will do this in three steps actually.

Most of my photos are rather large, so my first step in the downsize process usually takes it down to 3000 pixels wide (my oldest camera is a Canon 350D, which gives out 3456x2304 image files, so I'm safe with going 'down' to 3000 pixels), this will force PhotoShop to really calculate the remaining pixels.

After this downsize I do another 'UnSharp Mask' with the same settings as above and once again an 'Image Size' to 2000 pixels wide this time, followed by a third 'UnSharp Mask' process and a final 'Image Size' to the 900 pixels wide format I actually need ... usually I pull in a last 'UnSharp Mask' just to make the shot really pop, but keep an eye on the result, it might be too much, in that case you can do a 'Fade UnSharp Mark' from the 'Edit' menu to tone it down the 50%.

Note that all the time our action has been recording, so these six steps are now 'hardcoded' into the action for later use:

Note the red dot at the bottom: this means you are still recording, so lets go for the next step in our watermark action: converting our AdobeRGB profile we use for printing into sRGB for online use:

So now we have the correct Color Profile for web use, time to add a small note in the metadata of our photo using the 'File Info ...' option:

Just go to the first tab of the following screen and type in the Copyright section to show your information, this way it gets embedded into the image file:

Now the preparation of our photo is finished, and it is time to put our watermark on it, this requires an extra layer over the entire shot to hold the signature line in the end, so after going to 'Levels>New>Layer... you get this box:

Time to hit the 'G' button to activate the 'Fill Tool', make sure it is in the 'Paint Bucket Tool' mode and select 'Pattern Fill' and the correct 900x600 pattern to put over our photo:

And the result is just what we need, a nice sharp photo in a format that is perfect for online use, with the correct color profile integrated and even a nice little copyright notice ... and the reason you are reading this tutorial: a watermark signature.

Now you have two options to finalize this action, you either save this downsized image over the original one, something I would seriously discourage you to do however, or you save it in a dedicated folder or directory that holds the photos ready for upload ... which happens to be exactly what I use.

I know there are save options possible when you run the action in PhotoShop, but I tend to keep things nice and clean when it comes to preparing photos for upload to my website, hence I have an 'upload' folder that will keep all my photos for a certain project or customer together until I upload them, after that I clean the folder and leave it empty, ready for my next project.

So first I 'flatten' the photo so it only consists of a Background layer, which is perfect for the image to be saved as a JPEG file:

And now I use the 'Save As...' option so I can change the folder where the photo will reside without overwriting the original, full resolution photo in the process as I might need that one later on for printing or more post processing.

By selecting a different folder/directory in this Save As box we can direct the output from our watermark action into a special, prepared folder we will use to upload later on. It is however VERY important you do NOT change the file name, this way the action will use the document name to save in the new location and you do not overwrite the previous photo. If you would type in a new name here it would also be recorded in the action and the latter will use that same name for every photo you apply it to (if you don't change the settings in the Batch action), so not really what we were looking for here.

The final touch to this CPT_Watermark_900x600 action is performing a 'Close' action from within the File menu and pressing the 'Stop' button on the Action menu ... and we're done with our first watermark action for landscape-oriented photos:

So that is step one in our watermark action creation, now we do the entire flow again for a portrait-orientated photo. A quick recap to get this second action finished:

As our reference photo this time will be standing our 'Image Size' figures will be different, but the big lines of the workflow are the same:

Create a New Action : CPT_Watermark_600x900
Perform an UnSharp Mask (50%, 1px, 0 levels)
Image Size: but this time instead of the width going to 3000 pixels you need to set the height to 3000 pixels.
Second UnSharp Mask (50%, 1px, 0 levels)
Second Image Size setting the height to 2000 pixels
Third UnSharp Mask (50%, 1px, 0 levels)
Final Image Size setting a height of 900 pixels
Optional UnSharp Mask (depends on your preference, I usually tone it down 50% in Edit>Fade UnSharp Mask)
New layer
Select Paint Bucket fill with pattern set to CPT_Watermark_600x900
Fill the new layer with the 'portrait' watermark
Flatten the image
Save As into the dedicated 'Upload' folder/directory
Close the image
Press the 'Stop' action button

And we're done ... we now have two different actions that can add a watermark on either a 900x600 image or a 600x900 image (landscape or portrait orientation)

Making a difference between landscape and portrait orientation

When it comes to applying an action in Adobe PhotoShop to automatically add a watermark to your photographs it is very important to know if you picture is landscape oriented or portrait oriented, most cameras will deliver a 'standing' image when you use them rotated 90� counter clockwise (remember I advised you to get that battery grip with the extra shutter button on it? Now you know why you spend that extra money back then)

There are actually three options:

Turn of the 'automatic orientation' setting on the camera, this way all your photos will be 'landscape' oriented, you can rotate them manually in post processing anyway.

Select all the 'landscape oriented' shots in Adobe Bridge and run the corresponding Watermark action on them, subsequently select all the 'portrait oriented' shots and run a second Watermark action ... but that also involves manual work ... and we want to automate it all.

I would go for the third option to be honest: use a small script that selects the correct watermark action automatically depending on the actual orientation of the image.

Writing a script to determine the photo orientation

This can be done with a classic text editor, just type in the next lines of coding:
Var doc = activeDocument;
If(doc.width.value>doc.height.value) {
doAction ("CPT_Watermark_600x900", "CPT_Actions");
}else{
doAction("CPT_Watermark_900x600","CPT_Actions");
}

Now save these lines as 'watermarking.jsx' in the PhotoShop/presets/scripts folder found on your computer, do note that PhotoShop will pick up this script on start up only, so if you had it running while you created this file you'll have to quit PhotoShop and start it up again. (I specifically didn't want to make a screenshot of this script so you can actually just copy/paste them right from this page into your editor, avoids typos you know ... if you are a CPT member you can download this tutorial, the ZIP archive includes this watermarking.jsx file for your convenience)

A few things to keep in mind when using this script

Note that this script assumes a few things are available in your PhotoShop installation: You will have to create a new action set in PhotoShop and call it "CPT_Actions", keep in mind the capitals you are using, just to make sure it will work I would type it identically. The script uses one of two actions that have to be present too, either "CPT_Watermark_600x900" or "CPT_Watermark_900x600" ... so both have to be created with these exact names before we can use the script. I didn't include these actions with the tutorial as your folder/directory structure might not be the same as mine, so the Save As portion of both actions will most likely not work anyway.

Using the script to determine which action to use:

All you need to do is create another Action: 'CPT_Watermark' and select 'Insert Menu Item from the Action drop down menu:

Go over to the 'File' menu, down to 'Scripts' and select the 'watermarking' script:

Click the 'OK' button on the "Insert Menu Item" dialog box and stop recording the action ... and we're done: all the required actions have been recorded and this last one will call the correct watermark adding action depending on the fact if the original file is in a landscape orientation or in a portrait orientation.

Putting all our hard work into action finally is easy, just have a folder/directory with your original photos ready, containing both landscape and portrait orientation versions and within PhotoShop, without having any file open select 'File>Automate>Batch...':

and dial in the following settings:

Select the CPT_Actions set, from that set select the 'CPT_Watermark' action, the one without any pixel resolution next to it, use a Folder as the source and choose which folder is holding your photos ... hit OK and sit back.

After a while all the photos present in the Source Folder will have been loaded into PhotoShop, downsized to 900x600 or 600x900 depending on the orientation and saved in a special 'Upload' folder without overwriting the original photos ... ready to transfer onto your website.

CASE STUDY - DETOMASO PANTERA

Canon EOS5d Mark II - Canon EF24-105mm f/4.0 L IS - 65mm 1/250 sec f4.0 ISO200

Case study - posted on June 6, 2011 by Mark

Sometimes you visit an outdoor event and all of a sudden you notice a car parked away from the rest of the pack, being a super car like this red deTomaso Pantera you know you're going to make a killer shot from this rare opportunity ... only problem is the lighting, the sun isn't really in the best position so you start thinking about creating an edge for yourself before taking the shot.

Above you see the original, out of camera shot, because the car was parked in front of the pit box entrance I had some background distraction to keep as minimal as possible, still I don't like the door in the shot, but I managed to ruin the horizon here too (did it on purpose naturally) you notice this from the vertical lines in the shot, the car is dropping to the right here ...

So first things first, rotating the entire image in PhotoShop making sure the pillar behind the car itself is perfectly straight. Hit 'Ctrl-T' and move the mouse towards one of the corners until you see a curved double arrow, now click and start dragging until you get the concrete pillar perfectly vertical. One thing you have to remember : do NOT rotate and scale at the same time in PhotoShop, the result is terrible, instead do the 'straighten' and confirm that one before cropping or scaling the image, this way the result looks much better.

So now the car sits level in the shot and I cut the door on the right from the frame, didn't like it in the end to be honest. If you crop (or shoot) a car always leave more room in front of the car compared to the end of the car, this way there is room to 'drive into', a classic trick among car photographers.

When I took this shot the weather wasn't too great, sure the sun was out, but it wasn't putting any power on this car here, it was parked in the shade to be honest, so what do you do in that case : fill in flash ! That's right, in plain daylight I walk around with a Canon 580EX II on top of my 5dII (this model doesn't have a built in flash, and if it did it would have been too weak anyway) ... you can recognize the evidence of this on the rims, the little white speck next to the taillight and more importantly on the outer right taillight ... it's reflecting too much so I have to tackle that first.

Using the Elliptical Marquee tool from the toolbar in PhotoShop I select the left taillight of the Pantera and copy - paste it onto the right one to hide the flash reflection. To get to the Elliptical Marquee Tool you have to click and hold your mouse on the option in the toolbar as usually the Rectangular version is selected by default, but these taillights are round, so I want to use the other option from the Marquee Tool.

Once selected I just drag around the left taillight, hit the Ctrl-C combination and hit Ctrl-V at once, this way the new layer with the taillight sits right on top of the original area I selected, now I press V on the keyboard to get the Move Tool and click and drag the new taillight onto the one I'm trying to cover up.

The thing is I'm looking at a perspective here, so when I put the copied taillight on top of the right one, it is too small, no problem, just hit Ctrl-T (Transform) and drag the corners until they nicely cover up the underlying taillight ... it might take a bit of trial and error, but it does work, trust me.

In this particular photograph a second problem with the taillight came up, the shade of red around the left taillight isn't the same as the one on the right, so hit the E key to get the eraser and just remove the surrounding red section on the copied taillight ... and there I go, I managed a perfect match now !

Just take a close look at the shot now, some might think I'm done here, but I'm not even close to be honest, there are still several items I do not like in this shot, the first one being those plugs on the pillar behind the car, they draw attention away from the car and I don't want that, so I will be cloning them out. Hit the S key to select the Cloning Tool, hold Alt and click on a part of the pillar above the car and start 'painting' over the plugs.

Would you like another tip on this cloning trick ? In this shot you have the roof of the car touching the part we want to clone away, now I could use a hard brush on this, but what I usually do is select the part I want to clone away roughly and make sure I don't include parts of the roof in this selection. This way I don't accidentally clone over the roof section of the car, works like a charm.

With the plugs gone I take on the next task, that bright orange line and the make of the garage door at the bottom right corner also draw attention, and I want this red Pantera to be the only thing pulling eyes to it, so I will tone down these orange parts ... with a Black and White adjustment layer !

So I go into the Layer menu and select the New Adjustment Layer option, from this list I go for the Black and White option from the list. Only problem now is that color is now missing from the entire image, and that wasn't what I was looking for. So I do a Select All (Ctrl-A) and make sure black is my background color (it should be by default) ... now I hit 'Del' and suddenly I have all my color back in my picture.

Now I select the Brush tool (hit B) and with white selected as my foreground color I just paint over the line ... which turns gray at once because where I paint in white I 'reveal' the Black and White Adjustment Layer again, same thing when I paint over the lower right logo on the garage door, turning it gray makes it draw a lot less attention doesn't it ?

Next thing on the agenda ? Take a close look at the floor around the car, there are some details not right yet, all of these are quickly cloned out, so that's exactly what I'm doing next.

Almost there now, I have completely cleaned up the crop, those details around the car, on the floor and against the garage door are now gone so nothing is drawing attention away from this bright red Pantera anymore, but I am not finished yet as you might imagine ... look at the image again and tell me what you think about the lighting on the back ?

Yes, the back is darker compared to the rest of the car, this could have been remedied with an off-camera flash, but there wasn't time for that at the event, so I manage this in post processing, and it is rather easy actually. I need a new layer, this time I go into the Layer menu, select New > Layer ... and I make sure the Blending Mode is set to SoftLight. Now I go back to the Brush tool and make sure I'm using a feathered brush (or a soft Brush as Adobe calls them), hit the D key to get the default shades and hit the X to get white as a foreground color.

Now I just paint over the darker parts of the back of this deTomaso Pantera and behold ... light is getting into the shade, making the red 'pop' even better. However I think the effect is too harsh now, but rest assured, this is quickly solved too ... I just lower the opacity of the layer to about 75% and the effect is just right as you can see above.

It's almost as if I had an extra flash pointing at the rear of the car, or perhaps a reflector to fill in the darker shades ... but this is pure digital post processing, and I'm sure the effect is nearly identical, just take a look at how the undercarriage is lit now and how much detail you see in the tires ... nearly done.

As usual I now add a new softlight layer and draw a black to transparent from top to just above the car and from the bottom to just underneath the wheels, this darkens the surroundings a bit and automatically makes people focus on the bright spot in the middle ... the car in this case, just what I was looking for.

However I think the top can use some more drama, so I add a second softlight layer with a black gradient to emphasize the effect even further, and to really put the finishing touch on this Pantera shot I brush in a little sparkle right on top of the white spec next to the right taillight ... just to complete the illusion.

Above you can check out the final photograph made from the already decent shot made during an outdoor event, as you can see it sure looks a lot better than the original OOC shot, which wasn't all that bad to begin with, but this just shows that a good photograph is made on site, a great photograph is created in post processing.

I know there are dark areas underneath the taillights ... but these were already there, actually the heat from the exhaust caused these, I did clone them out but I felt it took away from the brutal looks of this car, so I removed the cloning again.

FAST TIP : USING SOFT LIGHT LAYERS

Canon EOS5D Mark II - Canon EF24-105mm f/4.0 L IS - 70mm 1/500 sec f4.0 ISO100

Fast tips - posted on May 22, 2011 by Mark

You've probably red it in just about all our post processing tutorials : using soft light layers to bring out the details in your shots during post processing. Do note that this kind of post processing will not work all the time, but judging by the number of times we actually use it on our work-flow it should be something you master right from the start of your car photography career if you are the least bit interesting in post processing your shots.

(Move your mouse over the photo above to compare the 'Before vs After' shots)

The post processing steps

As you can see in this shot of a rare TVR in pale blue, the original out of camera (or OOC) shot looked rather nice, the light doesn't loot too wrong and the color comes out nicely ... but by adding some soft light layers in post processing we can have this car stand out from the background even more.

In this 'Fast Tip' I will explain just how you can improve this kind of automotive shots in a few seconds by putting a layer over the original shot, switching it to soft light overlay and painting in black or white on this new layer ... it sounds a lot more difficult than it actually is, so let's get to it.

You could argue this is a lot like the 'dodge and burn' method used in the good old days when people had to develop film to get a photograph, by putting more or less light during the exposure of certain sections you would actively brighten or darken that area ... just like I will be showing you in this tutorial, but using the digital version of this method.

First things first, open the original image of the car and add a new layer to it (Layer > New > layer ... or use Shift+Ctrl+N) on the option box you now get you can change the Layer Mode into 'SoftLight' instead of Normal.

Once this is done we have a second layer over our original photograph but visibly nothing has changed yet, so select the Brush Tool from the tools on the screen.

Click and hold the mouse on the tool and make sure 'Brush Tool' is selected and not 'Pencil Tool'. Now set the default foreground and background color to black and white respectively by pressing 'D' on the keyboard.

Now look for sections on the car that you feel are too bright, in my case with this blue TVR I would say the corner next to the headlights is a bit light, perhaps even a bit over exposed, but as this shot was taken at a car show there wasn't too much time to fiddle with settings, hence I decided to tackle this problem in post processing ... just paint some black over the 'light' sections like shown below :

On the above shot I've put the Layer Mode back to Normal to show you were I applied the black brush, if you take a look at the license plate and the front fog lights next to it you will have to agree it looks rater dark, so press 'X' on the keyboard to swap foreground and background so we are now painting in white and go over these sections, and while you're at it, do the same for the white window strut and the roll over bar, they look too dark too :

Now I will switch back the Layer mode to 'SoftLight' to show you the effect on the image, the bright section on the front fender has been toned down while the dark sections on the interior, the front and I also used a light touch on the lower section of the fender ... this is the result :

A nice trick when you feel the 'brush' is doing too much in terms of lighten or darken is by using the 'Fade' option immediately after finishing painting. This option is located in the Edit > Fade Brush Tool ... (or press Shift+Ctrl+F) menu and it allows you to fade the effect from 100% down to 0% ... so I can put just the right force of dodge and burn on my picture without having to change the layer opacity.

By dragging the Opacity slider to the left or by typing in a different value directly into the box I can change the level of intensity my lighten or darken brush strokes on my image. For instance on the lower part of the front fender a full 100% white paint would bring out too much in this section, lowering the opacity of this white brush stroke only I didn't affect any other part of my SoftLight layer, only this lower section of the fender, at about 30% it looked just right.

I could advice you to have a different SoftLight layer for each section you want to attend to, and this is probably the correct way to do this kind of post processing ... always working on different layers making sure nothing you do is 'destructive' on the original image, and having multiple layers allows you to play with the opacity of each section on it's own ... but I tend to forget this too when working on images like this, the customer is waiting for his shots and you have to work as quickly as possible, so sometimes you just forget the basics and end up quickly playing with the 'Fade' of your latest brush stroke.

Almost done by the way, I always tend to put a bit of vignetting on shots like this, not real lens vignet that comes from the corners, but a quick gradient from the top and the bottom onto the car to draw attention even more onto the car and away from the background.

This is probably the easiest part of this tutorial, just create a new layer, again change the mode to softlight and pick a gradient from black to transparent. So after creating the new layer click and hold the Gradient/Paint Bucket tool and select the Gradient Tool.

Now press the 'D' on the keyboard again to make sure we have black as the foreground color, with the Gradient Tool selected you get a special option box at the top of the screen.

Click the drop down button next to the gradient seen in it and now select the one that shows the black shade fading out into the squares ... this means it will fill with black and fade out into transparent, just what we were looking for ...

Now that I have the gradient tool set the way I want it to be I click and hold from the top of the image down to the top of the car which will effectively darken the sky and the trees in the background, making them draw less attention to them and intensifying the blue shade of the sky. To make the grass in front of the car more vivid I will again draw a gradient over it, this time from the bottom of the shot up to the lower part of the fender.

The effect of this little more work to put into your post processing can be just too dramatic, in this case just lower the intensity of the layer or attack the last gradient fill with the Fade option just like I did with the Brush remember ?

Above you see the final result of our little exercise, adding just two layers, painting, fading and filling took less than a minute in total and still the result is much better than the original shot, go out and get some source material and try this Fast Tip on your own shots, I'm sure you'll quickly see the benefits of this little post processing work ... and best of all, you don't need PhotoShop for this, the same workflow can be executed in PhotoShop Elements ... which is much cheaper naturally

POST PROCESSING AUTOMOTIVE EVENT PHOTOGRAPHS

Canon EOS5D Mark II - Canon EF24-105mm f/4.0 L IS - 65mm 1/60 sec f5.0 ISO200

Advanced level tutorial - posted on April 26, 2010 by Mark

We all know the drill, we've been to a car show or outdoor event and we've encountered some amazing cars during the day, we've been able to get some decent shots but as usual during these venues the background is really bad and distracting � and to make things worse, the cars are always parked too close to each other to get high quality shots.

So what can we do about this ? Well you have two options : one is to ask the owner of the car to take a little drive with you to a better location, but this isn't always possible at an indoor event and you'll have to locate the owner of that specific car. A better approach would be to ask for a one on one photo shoot at a different time, but with the larger shows chances are the owner is a foreigner that came to the show as a one time stop, and he'll be leaving the country soon.

So we are left with option two : take the best shot you can get and worry about the rest in post processing. Do note that we don't like this approach, we always advice you to avoid as much post processing as possible, you have better things to do than to spend hours behind the screen of your computer right ? However sometimes you have to play the cards as you receive them, and the only option is to trust your Photo Shop skills to get the shot you want.

We'll use one of the shots taken during a really nice outdoor meeting showing a low riding Mini Convertible, as you can clearly see the building in the background isn't doing us any favors and the black Mini to the left is really bothering us � to be honest that decal on the windshield is drawing way too much attention too, so we'll be tackling all these issues in post processing now.

The background

First things first, the biggest issue with this shot is the background, so we'll replace it with another one from our collection (it is always nice to put together a selection of buildings, skies and backdrops without any objects in the foreground, this way you can use them later on to replace horrid backdrops on shots like this one, you can also locate several hundreds of backdrops like this online by the way, just make sure they aren't copyright protected !)

We feel a nice industrial building would look perfect behind this clean Mini, so we went for a gray structure, naturally it covers the upper parts of the car, so we'll apply a mask (don't erase parts of the background, but mask them instead, this way if you make a mistake you can always step backwards).

The trick to a perfect background replacement is patience, it takes a lot of patience and a steady hand to draw the mask so it nicely cuts out the car from the background, we use a tablet to be honest which makes things a bit easier, but it can be done with a mouse too, don't worry, it does help when you zoom in to at least 200%.

Other cars in the picture

With the background nicely cut out we have another issue to handle, the black Mini at the left, it has to go so we'll clone it out using a part of the original setting. Now we've always told you to use the Rule of Thirds when composing a shot, but when you know you'll be post processing the shot you can get away without sticking to this rule, in this shot we knew we were heading for trouble so we took into account some extra space at the right of the car to have something to clone over the black car at the left.

And that's exactly what we'll be doing, creating a new layer and selecting an origin point at the right and just paint over the black car (remember to select 'current & below'). Close to the bumper of the Convertible you'll again have to work at 200% zoom at least to get it right, but with a bit of patience we're sure you'll manage.

Using the clone tool in Photo Shop CS4 is rather easy because it actually shows the 'origin' when hovering the Clone Brush over the section we want to paint, make sure you get this right to get the impression needed, if it looks artificial it isn't working, the trick is to make it look like it was there all along. Some might call it a day now, the image looks good, but not yet good enough for us, so we'll continue to fine tune it.

Reflections

Take a closer look at the side of the Mini, you'll notice the reflection of a wheel from the car at the right of this one, we'll clone it out just like we've removed the black Mini on the left. Again create a new layer and start cloning the disturbing reflections away with a soft shaped brush, just a few strokes here will go a long way to make the image look a lot cleaner.

Upon closer inspection we also noticed the black car we removed at the left of the frame cast a reflection on the front bumper of this car, another wheel just had to go ... again using the Clone Stamp Tool to paint over the section and get a nice, clean bumper.

Darker bumper on one side ?

We're almost done in this part now, but what really makes an image stand out are those pesky little details, and we've found one that just had to go : because of the black car that was parked at the right we've got a darker reflection on the left side of the bumper on our main car � adding a soft light layer and painting some white over it will clean this one up instantly.

Naturally the effect was again too harsh, so lowering the opacity of the layer to about 75% made it look nearly right, it still isn't perfect so a bit of cloning and fine tuning to get it just right and we can move onto the next step.

Rims and tires

Note how dark the wheels actually are on this car, because it is a bright shade the exposure measurement on your camera could be fooled into a rather dark exposure to get the bodywork right, no problem, just add a soft light layer and paint a bit of white over the tires, the wheels and the front grille � it might be too light now so let's lower the opacity of the layer to get it just right, in this case a setting of 30% came out just perfect.

Brightwork

We are fine tuning here, so let's tackle the brightwork (or chrome) in this shot too, again a soft light layer, but now we'll paint black over the headlight and the chrome surround around the headlight and the grille to intensify their color. This method is also a nice alternative when you've forgotten your circular polarizing filter, up to a certain extend you can get a similar look without actually using a filter.

Decals

One thing that has been jumping into our eye from the start is that bright decal on the windshield, it draws way too much attention if you ask us, but again there is a very easy remedy for this : put a black&white layer over it and mask everything but this decal, that way it will turn dark gray and won't stand out so much.

We could go for a complete erase by using the clone tool, but that's not what the owner of this car wanted, he was rather proud of this decal, so we decided to tone it down a bit, it's still there but it doesn't scream for attention anymore.

Straight lines

We noticed one more thing straight from the start � take a look at the road, it isn't level in the shot, it looks like the car is bound to be rolling of to the left because our road is a bit tilted, we'll have to correct this, even more so because the backdrop we've selected is perfectly lined up.

This isn't as hard as it sound actually, just make sure you've selected the background layer (with the original photo on it) and use the 'Polygonal Lasso Tool' to select the curb on the road (use the tool with the straight lines to make your life easier), now do a copy/paste so we'll have an extra layer right on top of the image (underneath all our previous editing layers) and hit the Ctrl/Cmd-T option to transform this selection.

We will now bring down the left corner a bit and raise the right corner so it looks like the road is level on our shot, don't worry about small stone chips that are duplicated now. Once it's level we will use a soft eraser to make the transformation from the lower background into this new curbside layer a bit smoother � if there are still a few stones that don't look right hit the Clone tool again and clone them away until you are totally satisfied with the look and feel of your brand new, straight road.

Window tint

Ok, this is a personal thing, but we just love cars with dark tinted windows, and we tend to include this into our post processing workflow when we are happy with the overall look of the image, it just makes a car like this one look even more impressive, and it covers up the fact that the background visible through the windows isn't really the same as the new one we've mounted behind the car.

You've red it before : add yet another soft light layer and just paint over the windows with a black brush, again the effect is too harsh and lowering the opacity of the layer to 60% or so made it look just right. The trick here is to keep the reflections in the windows and leave them just a bit transparent while still giving the impression of a dark tint. Check out the result by making this layer invisible and visible again � of you don't like the look lower the opacity further or remove this layer completely, we actually liked it at 60% to be honest.

Vignetting

Oh no ! We've bought some of the most expensive lenses to avoid this and now we'll put it back in using post processing ? What have we been eating lately you might wonder.

Putting in a carefully chosen vignetting will draw even more attention to your car (or model) and it is a method we often use, especially if the background isn't a lot darker compared to the car in front of it, but don't overdo this effect or it will ruin your shot.

In this case we added a new soft light layer and pulled a gradient fill over it from black to transparent starting at the very top of the image right up to the lower part of the building in the background � problem is that now the top of our car is too dark !

Not a problem, remember we had to carefully mask out the new backdrop around the car � we can now use this very same mask to lighten up the car but still keep the building underneath the soft light gradient � just 'alt-click' the mask of the backdrop and drag it onto our new vignetting layer, accept the mask replacement and we're done, the building has a nice, dark look to it and the car remains light and fresh.

Add a new soft light layer and draw a similar gradient from bottom up to the wheels of the car and we'll darken the lower section of the frame too. We've kept both 'vignetting' layers at 100%, but again, if you don't like the looks lower the opacity until you do appreciate it.

Overall color balance

You might be wondering when we would come up to this section, the color balance of an image is very important and we would normally start out by using 'Levels' to correct any White Balance issues that came through our raw to jpg workflow.

Well there is a very good reason to keep this one until last, because it has to level out everything in the shot, the new backdrop, the section that was drawn over the black Mini, the removal of the reflection on the side � etc. So why bother with it earlier, our shot is just about ready, so finish it with a Levels Adjustment layer, select the 'Black Sample point' and find a part of your shot that should be black (inside the front wheel well for instance), subsequently activate the 'White Sample point' and go for an area that should be neutral white (inside the headlight perhaps ?) � notice how the image totally changes and gives us a much warmer impression � take into account this shot was taken on a very cloudy day, no sun in sight, but with this little extra effort we managed to get a much better feel about this photograph.

Conclusion

There you go, about an hour of work and we've turned a snapshot taken at a local, outdoor car show and transformed it into a photograph � just to show you that you shouldn't discard your event shots too quickly, sometimes with a bit (or a lot) of post processing you can still create small masterpieces from shots that you were about to toss into the trash.

USE A MOUSE OR A TABLET FOR POST PROCESSING

Image � Wacom - www.wacom.eu

Fast tips - posted on February 15, 2010 by Mark

I've been receiving several questions about this subject : "Can I use a mouse for photo retouching or do I spend some serious money on a tablet ?"

Problem is : there is no easy answer to this one, it all depends on so many variables that I can't decide this one for you, some people use a tablet with a pen, others can do everything just fine with a decent mouse ... the 'decent' being the most important word in that sentence.

With your standard mouse you could be in trouble, the resolution of it isn't something to write home about, if you are still using one with a ball you're in for even more trouble ... get a laser mouse ! Even those nice optical mice can loose grip on some table tops, but a good laser mouse keeps it all going much longer and without reverting to mouse pads, which I don't like anyway.

Personally I use a Logitech mouse, at the moment a Performance MX version, wireless, very high resolution and it can cope with daily, heavy use, and best of all, when the battery gets low you just connect a mini USB at the top of the mouse and you can continue working, similar to a wired mouse ... so there is no time loss anymore with putting a mouse in a cradle or loading expensive batteries into it.

This is the mouse I use on both my portable PC and on a MacBook Pro, which is just amazing, one mouse for two Operating Systems. The portable Mac is used for tethered shooting (more on that in another tutorial) and a mouse is nice to have in most cases, I don�t use it all the time, but it's in the bag anyway.

The reason I went for this type of Logitech mouse is simple, it features a lot of buttons I can program myself, naturally the usual back and forward for browsing and the scroll wheel are there, but also a nice zoom button, program switch button and a double click when I click the wheel ... just the way I'm used to a mouse these days, I tried other mice too, from Microsoft for instance, but none worked the way I wanted to like a Logitech did, so I went back for a Performance MX.

My desktop is a PC (why did I go for a PC I explain in yet another article) that is equipped with both a mouse and a tablet ... now why would I do that ? The answer is simple � because of MS Windows 7 ! Don't get it ? ... I'll explain : I'm a big fan of using multiple monitors on my computer, I really like the way I can have PhotoShop open with the image on one screen at full resolution and all the menu items and tools on the second monitor, so they don't obstruct me viewing my image.

So I now have two 22" displays side by side and my latest PC runs Windows 7, but when you have a tablet it only works on the main monitor (you know, the one that shows the '1' when you identify them), so unfortunately I can't get any of the tools with the pen, I have to use mouse to do that.

I'm using a cheap Trust tablet and it works fine (besides the Win7 dual screen issue) so why would I spend over four times that amount to get a Wacom tablet ? For one, you can't use this specific Trust tablet on a Mac, a Wacom works on both PC and Mac, and I'm sure the Wacom can sustain more intense work when compared to the Trust unit. But I didn't want to spend too much money on something I didn't know so I stepped up the tablet ladder with a nice and cheap Trust unit, and I'm happy with it for now, and best of all you can find it at �149 these days.

UPDATE the dual screen issue with MS Windows 7 has been solved, so the pen can now be used over both screens when working in PhotoShop under Win7 !

Working with a pen is so much more natural ... press a little harder and you get a thicker line in PhotoShop, press ever so slightly and you get a hairline ... perfect for retouching and cloning ... ever tried to put your signature on a digital letter with a mouse ? Once you get used to a pen and a tablet you'll have a hard time reverting back to a mouse to process your photographs, so think about getting a nice tablet and try it for yourself.

Note there is also a third option : the trackball. This little device uses a ball and optical sensors to detect you moving it with your fingers, most of the time with your thumb by the way. I've used them in the past and a trackball is great for regular computer work like selecting a menu when you are typing or surfing the internet � but it is rather difficult to work with for post processing, especially for drawing or cloning ... I can however recommend the combination of a tablet and a trackball !

The advantage of a trackball is the fact that it remains static, you move the ball with your thumb or fingers, but the base remains in the same, confined space, ideal for a desk with limited workspace (when you also have a large A4 tablet for instance ...), a mouse you must pick up from time to time because you run out of desktop real estate, a trackball never runs out of space. So you can get away with a wired trackball while I would strongly advice you to get a wireless mouse so you don't get the wires all tangled up while working � I like a nice and clean desk, it's more relaxing than a cluttered one, so the least wires possible is fine by me. (I used to have a wireless keyboard by the way but changed back to a 'wired' one recently).

Bottom line : first of all get a decent laser mouse to start with, I'm sure this will help you in your post processing tasks, if you want to take it to the next step try a tablet, but keep the mouse at hand (especially the first few weeks) as a tablet with a pen takes some getting used to.

Once you get the hang of using a pen on a tablet and you rarely use the mouse anymore during your post processing work you could think about getting a trackball for all that other fun stuff you perform while sitting behind those monitors.

So which mouse should you get ? I will take a Logitech any day, but that's just me, there is no reason why you shouldn't get another make, but what is really important is getting some real life touch � go to a local shop and take some mice in your hand to get a feel for them, I have a large retail store nearby that has a lot of mice on display, so I try them before I buy, because if the mouse is too small or too large for your hand it doesn't give a nice feeling after hours of post processing at home.

My advice if you can spare the money go for a Wacom tablet, it is THE best solution for retouching images and detailed post processing that requires cloning, drawing, erasing and other stuff where resolution and precision is key to getting the best possible results, however when you do decide to go for a tablet things might get complicated ... there are various options to choose from, I'll walk you through some of the Wacom options :

the Bamboo series : a very nice, low cost way to get started in the world of tablets, a bit limited in pressure levels if you go for the 'pen' version, but it gets the work done for you, I would advice going for the Touch or the Fun version, these also offer touch input and function buttons. Not too expensive yet and you can source them from most local electronics shops, sometimes even with a rebate or some kind of discount. From time to time the 'previous' edition even shows up in low cost grocery giants over here in Europe ... probably the best way to get you started without braking the bank.

In the Bamboo series you have the normal version, the Bamboo Pen, Bamboo Touch, Bamboo Fun and some special editions, I would go for the Touch version if possible, it offers a nice number of specs not available on the Pen version while not being way out of reach for most of us ... do look around online for any of these, as prices can differ a lot from one retailer to another.

The Intuos series : this is the pro-series from Wacom, and they are worth every penny you spend on them ... problem is you'll have to spend lots of pennies on them but trust me, once you have worked with one you will have a hard time going back to mouse post processing. The Intuos series exists in various sizes, I would advice the Intuos 4M or the Wireless version, the S is too small while the L and XL take up too much desk space to be honest.

Another detail about the Intuos 4S : it doesn't show the labels next to the buttons in blue, the S model is the smallest one, and there just isn't space to 'label' your buttons, so another reason to go for the 4M model, and to avoid fiddling with wires opt for the Wireless version as it is so much easier to use ... by the way, don't forget to order the nice carrying case with it, for only �25 it protects you expensive tablet when not in use, and at �300 for the Intuos 4M Wireless you can't call it a bargain now can you ?

The Cintiq models : truly the top of the line, these are actually full feature monitors that allow you to paint right onto the screen with a pen ... amazing, very easy to work with, but also rather expensive, so not for everyone sadly.

Now as I already mentioned, I'm currently working with a relatively cheap Trust tablet, the TB7300 to be specific, cost me less than �100 a few years ago, today it is available for about �150 but sometimes you can locate it at a discount. It's a rather big tablet, so perhaps the smaller versions would be better suited to test drive, but remember these only work on PC's, Trust has only one tablet that is specific for Mac operating system, so keep this in mind when you go shopping ... but I'm saving up to go for a Wacom Intuos 4M Wireless anyway, after almost two years my Trust tablet has seen better days, especially the protective cover, so it is time for me to change up to a Wacom finally.

Bottom line if you can spare the change go for a nice Wacom Intuos tablet, preferably the 4M or the Wireless version, if you don't want to part with that kind of cash a nice Bamboo Touch will do the job very nicely too and won't take up too much space ... once you've made yourself used to a pen and a tablet I'm sure you will enjoy post processing your automotive photograph even more.

BLACK AND WHITE CAR PHOTOGRAPHY AND SELECTIVE COLORING

Canon EOS40D - Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0 IS USM - 32mm 1/50 f4.0 ISO320

Intermediate level tutorial - posted on January 4, 2010 by Mark

Sometimes a car shot just comes out better in black and white, especially when the car in question is a classic car or the surroundings are just better when seen in black and white, that is why we take a look at how you can convert your color shot into a decent black and white image using our trusted Adobe Photo Shop (in this case the CS3 edition).

I know most modern dslr cameras can take the shot directly in black and white, but we never use this option, we always take the shot in color (with the AdobeRGB profile) and perform any modification in post processing, just the way it should. Remember when you take the shot in black and white on the camera there is no way to get it back in color, and that would be sad if one day you actually need a full color shot, so take our advice and do all necessary work and modifications in post processing.

We first take a look at an image we'll convert into a black and white shot altogether, afterward we'll do some selective black and white conversion to make the car stand out even further and take a look at a third option to get some perfectly neutral shades on a white car.

Preparing the original photographs

Now before we start working on this shot to make it a good looking black and white conversion we have to make sure the basics are dealt with, this means stuff like the license plate, which was glued on this car, so we couldn't remove it, hence we 'painted' over it in post processing, not the best possible solution, but it worked for this shot so we'll leave it at this for now.

But there are a few other things that just had to be rectified before taking it to the black zone ... take a close look at the rear fender, close to the top tail light you'll notice a reflection from our photographer. On such a shiny car things like this just can't be avoided, however it only takes a few seconds on your computer to remove this detail.

We prefer not to do any 'destructive editing' on our shots, that is why we always use layers to perform any post processing on whenever possible, so add a new layer and call it 'Remove reflection' (Layer > New > Layer ...), now select the Clone Stamp Tool in Photo Shop (Press 'S' on the keyboard) and sample a nice spot close to the reflection by holding down the 'Alt' key and clicking the area with your mouse (it helps if you zoom into the area you want to work on, at least 200% in our case). Make sure you have a small brush size as it is really a detail we are 'cleaning' here, no need to get out the big tools here, the trick to using the Clone Stamp Tool correctly is to have a result that doesn't look like something was removed after all, so no big moves here, just some small, minor strokes of the pen will do perfect here (naturally a tablet is much easier in this case compared to using a mouse).

A second modification we performed in post processing before going on with our conversion was adding a soft light layer and toning down the chrome on this Cobra. As the original color is a rather dark blue the chrome was just a tad over exposed, we could have remedied this by taking multiple exposures or even by using different settings while 'developing' the RAW shot in PhotoShop (you did remember to take all your shots in RAW right ?), but there is also a quick solution to get at least one stop difference ... painting on a soft light layer !

After adding the new layer make sure black is your foreground color (press 'D' on the keyboard) and select the brush tool to paint on this new layer (Press 'B' on the keyboard), select a nice soft edge size for your brush and paint over those parts on the image that appear too bright to you. This is a totally subjective matter, so it is all up to your personal taste just how far you want to take this, we've went for the chrome only, but you could also opt to darken parts of the bodywork, or the concrete. By the way, if you want to lighten parts of the shot you can do this the same way, but by painting white instead of black, if the effect it too harsh you can always tone down the opacity for the brush.

The actual conversion to Black and White

Now we're ready to actually turn the original full color photograph into a nice black and white image as we intended all along, and naturally we are using yet another layer for this, this time not a regular layer but a new 'Adjustment Layer', more specifically the Black and White one.

So select the Black and White option from the New Adjustment Layer option and initially hit the 'Auto' button to get a first impression of how your image could look without using any color (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Black and White ...), this might look right at first glance, but trust me, it isn't perfect. A correct black and white conversion will need some fine tuning, so start moving those sliders in this dialog box, especially the 'Blue' and 'Cyan' ones as this car is a dark blue one originally, changing the other sliders won't have much effect on the result ... but experiment with them anyway to get a feel of the power in this adjustment layer.

We actually settled for a setting of Cyan at 10 and Blue at -10, this gives a slightly darker overall look of the image compared to the 'Auto' selection, and we prefer it this way, however this is not science but just our eye, on our calibrated monitor this looks right to us, but we can imagine you prefer other settings, so try them out and move those sliders until you are satisfied with the image.

Selective coloring

Converting an image into a black and white version is only the first step, now we can do some amazing things with this method, how about adding a touch of color back into the image ? And this is easier than it sounds to be honest, take a close look at that Black and White adjustment layer, you'll notice it actually already has a mask over it, so if you paint with a black brush on this mask you'll have the underlying layer 'shining' through again, in our case the color of the original image.

In this image it would be nice to have the tail lights back in red, so just select a rather small brush, make sure black is your foreground color and paint over them ... magically they turn back to red and amber. While we're at it let's also put the interior back in color, here it is very important to work correctly as otherwise you'll get the blue of the bodywork back in view, so a very small brush will be needed where the interior touches the bodywork.

Naturally selective coloring is much more than what we've used in this image, but a full depth tutorial on this amazing way of modifying car photographs will be published in the near future, for now this is actually all we needed for publishing this Cobra image.

Warm and cold ?

Now what am I rambling about here you might ask ... but as a matter of fact you can have a warm or a cold grey, so when converting a color image into a black and white image the same can be done, you can create a 'warmer' look of the image by making it ever so slightly brown or on the contrary have a 'icy' look by putting some blue into the equation ... it's all about feelings here, so let's take a look at this image in both a warm and a cold shade.

To get a slightly warmer feel in our black and white image is easy, just click the Adjustment Layer again and select the 'Tint' option at the bottom of the dialog box, now type in 40 for the Hue and set the saturation until you are satisfied with the look and feel of the image. Make sure not to put too much saturation into the shot, this will effectively give a sepia look, and that wasn't what we were looking for this time (could be useful for another image however).

Getting a cold feel from our black and white image is just as easy, only now select the Hue to be 175 (which actually is a cyan shade) and again adjust the saturation to make the image look right, we've gone for only 3 percent here because we like the look, but naturally you can put just about any percentage you like into it, only remember that subtle is sometimes better than over the top.

As with every post processing the end result is always a personal look, we might like the normal, neutral look of the image, but we've had many customers that actually like the warm look better, it's all about taste, and we all know that this is the one thing you never discuss about with your clients ... the customer is always right ... right ?

CASE STUDY - DOF, DEPTH OF FIELD

Canon EOS 40D - Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM - 200mm 1/500 f4.0 ISO 100

Case study - posted on January 2, 2009 - updated on November 6, 2009 by Mark

This amazing action shot with a very limited DOF was made while the black Ginetta was leaving the pit lane at a famous circuit in Belgium, it looked really nice when we downloaded it to our computer, but with a bit of tweaking we made it an award winning shot. The owner of the car even put a poster of this shot in his office.

So what did we do exactly to this image to create the look we wanted ? We didn't change the DOF in any way, let that be clear, we only made the colors in the background blend more into the surrounding making the car in front stand out even better, a detailed workflow for this image is listed below.

CASE STUDY : dof

Naturally we started with the original image as it came from our camera, as we mentioned the shot was already very nice to start with, but we felt it could be perfect with just a few little adjustments in post-processing using Adobe PhotoShop CS3.

We found two problems we would like to change, the color in the background, especially the cars on the left was drawing too much attention away from the Ginetta so we decided to de-saturate them a bit, as it was a black car we felt the front could be a bit lighter, so we would Dodge and Burn the shot a bit with a 'Soft Light' layer as seen in our 60 second workflow on automotive photos

Step 1 : Sharpness

We always perform a little UnSharp Mask on all our images, this one was no different, so we duplicated the Backround layer by selecting everything and doing a copy-paste operation (Ctrl-A on PC /Cmd-A and Mac followed by Ctrl-C/Cmd-C and Ctrl-V/Cmd-V) this will have us working on a copy and not on the original image, just in case we mess up somewhere.

Now select 'Filter >> Sharpen >> Unsharp Mask ...' and use these settings : Amount 50%, Radius 1,0 pixels and Threshold 1 levels. This should put some more sharpness into the image without going over the top, if you would like to add even more sharpness perform this step again, but this effect is easily overdone.

Step 2 : Color correction

The colors in this shot were nice, however we decided to use our color correction method once more, select 'Image >> Adjustments >> Levels ...' to get to these options, here you can sample a black and a white color in your image, use the shadows eyedropper (black sample on our image) to select the dark section on the front bumper and the highlights eyedropper (white sample in our image) to select the white of the Renault in the background ... this will slightly shift the white balance of the shot and makes it just right for us to continue working.

Step 3 : Soft Light layer

Our next order of business was adding a 'Soft Light' layer to our image using 'Layer >> New >> Layer ...', before clicking 'OK' you should set the Blending Mode to 'Soft Light'

If you don't know how this is done check out our 60 second workflow on automotive photos tutorial again which explains it in more detail.

You will not see any difference at the moment as the Soft Light layer is completely empty, but we will use this layer in our next step : the quick Dodge and Burn trick ...

Step 4 : Quick Dodge and Burn

Dodge and Burn comes from the good old days of shooting film, but we will perform this nice trick right in PhotoShop these days. Select the gradient tool and make sure the foreground colors are set to default black and white respectively by pressing the 'D' key.

Select the Foreground to Background gradient from the drop down at the top of the screen, then put this gradient on the Soft Light layer from the top of the image to the bottom in a straight line (press Shift while dragging the mouse to keep the line perfectly vertical in this case) and you will see an immediate change, the top of the image will darken while the bottom will become much lighter ... the effect is a bit too much in fact. Therefore we will lower the opacity of this layer to about 70% for this shot, this percentage will depend largely on the shot so it could be different when you try this on your own photos.

Step 5 : De-saturate

Those were the usual steps, now we'll start with something a bit different compared to our regular workflow, we want to make parts of the background show less color so attention is drawn onto the black car in the shot.

We will use an adjustment layer for this so we don't change the original image but rather have a separate layer to work on to remove the color, this can be easily done in PhotoShop by selecting 'Layer >> New Adjustment Layer >> Hue/Saturation...', just press 'OK' on this screen, for this case study we don't change any of the setting here but rather on the next screen.

On this screen just pull the 'Saturation' slider all the way to the left so it will say '-100' in the dialog box, this way you will see all the color from the entire shot going down the drain ... don't worry, we will get it back afterwards, for now press 'OK'.

We end up with some kind of grayscale image now, but as we are working on an adjustment layer the color version of the shot is still lurking beneath, now it's time to pull the parts we need back in the wonderful world of colors ...

Step 6 : Masking

We will now start painting the sections that we would like to have back in color, so select a nice feathered brush and make it black, while the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer is selected start painting over the parts you want to return to color, take a look at the preview we've put here, the red sections remained white while the rest of the layer was painted black, this caused the car in front to come out again.

If you make a mistake while painting here don't worry, just switch back to a white brush a paint over the error, you'll notice the mask adjusts itself and your mistake disappears magically, that's the fun of working with layers, they allow non destructive editing.

Now the shot looks like one of those old posters with only a small section in color while the rest is black and white, this is not the look we wanted, instead we will lower the transparency of the adjustment layer so that a small amount of color is still visible in the background, but not enough to draw attention away from the Ginetta in front.

A setting of 90% works fine for us in this case, but as usual when working on your own shot this value could be different, feel free to experiment with the layer opacity to get the exact look you prefer.

Step 7 : One more layer

The image is starting to look like we want, but we feel something is still missing, so we decided to add another gradient, but this time from black to transparent so it will darken the background further.

Add a new layer (using 'Layer >> New >> Layer ...') and draw a gradient from the top of the image to the bottom much like you did in step 4, only this time it should be a foreground to transparent gradient using black (that's the second one from the left in the top row of the Gradient pull down). Now that's a bit too heavy, so we lower the opacity of this layer to only 50% so it nicely darkens the background and emphasizes the Ginetta even further.

Step 8 : The final touch

It looks nice, but let's put a bit more focus on that magnificent orange stripe by increasing the saturation of it, which is very simple.

Make sure you select 'Layer 1' from your image, that's the one we were working on the first place, do not perform this on the Background layer as we want to preserve that one in case we mess up.

Now select 'Image >> Adjustments >> Hue/Saturation...' and slightly increase the Saturation setting to about 20 in this case. It will really brighten up the orange and make it 'pop' out of the image.

All done !

And that concludes our DOF Case Study.

In only 8 relatively easy steps you can dramatically improve your photograph to a level that is worth publishing, this very shot was printed in large format and framed to be hung on the wall of the office, a very nice touch.

Please feel free to experiment with these steps on your own shots, not all images are suited for this kind of modifications, but I'm sure that you'll have a few in your collection that would work extremely well with this kind of editing.

SHARPENING TECHNIQUES EXPLAINED

Canon EOS 40D - Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 L IS USM - 17mm 1/200 f5.6 ISO 400

Intermediate level tutorial - posted on September 25, 2009 by Mark

An image can look out of focus when you first start to use a dslr coming from a compact camera, but in fact it isn't (well it could be naturally, but most of the time you take a perfectly sharp image). It just looks less sharp because your trusted little compact had some serious in-camera sharpening while your brand new dslr takes the image in raw (you should set it to raw anyway) and has very little to none in-camera sharpening this way ... hence you will have to perform this step on your own, which automatically means you have a lot more influence on how it is done, so you can select the best way depending on the image you've captured.

When you use PhotoShop to post-process your photographs there are a lot of different ways to actually perform any kind of sharpening on your images, when you take a look at the 'Sharpen' menu you will encounter no less than five options. We will take a deeper look into them, starting with the original 'Sharpen' option right up to the most complex, multi layer methods using channels, in this tutorial we will go over the different ways one by one so you can go for the one that you find gives you the best results on your own images.

First the more regular options listed in the PhotoShop 'Filter > Sharpen' menu :

Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen

This is the regular filter in PhotoShop, it has been there since the early days and actually works rather well, but today there are more suitable options to get your shots looking tack sharp.

When using this basic technique the image might look sharpen at first glance, but zoom into 100 or 200% and you will start to notice some serious added artifacts to the image, this is something we should avoid at all costs, so personally I never use this filter.

If you take a closer look at the Miura SV image used, you will notice a major difference on the black line along the trunk, the logo looks a lot sharper and the pavement has been altered too, overall it doesn't look to bad however, but most of the time there are other, better options to make your shot look sharper.

Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen edges

Another option in PhotoShop is to sharpen the edges only, this is a nice option if you have sharply defined differences between the foreground and background colors, this way PhotoShop can easily calculate where the edges in your photograph are located, so the software can apply it's magic onto them. If the difference between the fore and background color isn't large enough this filter will not work perfectly. This filter actually works on the contrast between these two shades, however for most digital images this filter isn't suited, so let's continue onto other and better options.

On this specific image the Sharpen edges filter actually works better than the regular Sharpen filter explained above, again the trunk, air outlets and the logo look better on the sharpened image, but the pavement still looks relatively untouched, which we prefer actually, but there is still room for improvement.

Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen more

There is another option listed in the Sharpen menu, the 'Sharpen more' actually takes the first option one step further, and in our opinion one step too far, this is a perfect example of going over the top, the image looks way too sharp now, totally artificial and actually useless in this way.

The Sharpen more option isn't much used by professionals because it is just too much, however if you perform this one on a very high resolution image it actually doesn't look too bad, only when used on files destined for the internet it should be avoided at all costs as it ruins your original photograph completely.

Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen > Gaussian blur

This is probably the most used filter for enhancing the sharpness of an image, however the Smart Sharpen has various settings, which quickly influence the results, this first option is using the 'Remove Gaussian Blur' selection, you can enter the amount and the radius, which are set at 100% and 1.0 respectively.

Try modifying these settings with the preview activated and you'll see some immediate changes on your image, the test shot we've used was very quickly over-sharpened by only using 110% and 2,0 ... so be really careful when using this option, the results can turn bad in a rush.

We went back to the original image and selected the Smart Sharpen option again, only this time we used these values : Amount = 75% and Radius 0.5 ... which gave a nicely sharp look without going over the top, we could have dialed in a bit more, but that would have given us a more artificial look which we didn't want for this specific shot.

Unfortunately we can't give you the exact values that will work for your images, it all depends on the actual photograph, each one will require a slightly different setting, but the values we've used for this shot could be a nice starting point for your work.

Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen > Lens blur

The Gaussian Blur removal is just one option of the Smart Sharpen filter, you can also remove the Lens Blur using this filter, and this is where things get really interesting, as the Lens Blur option is a much better way to sharpen your image.

You still have the same settings to put together, the Amount and the Radius, but in this case it works better, and you can really fine tune the results to suit your needs, take a look at the Ferrari image now, using a regular setting of 100% for the Amount and a Radius of 1.0 pixels you already get a very nice image, without those dreadful halo's around the mirrors, and the text has become more readable ... it just looks better this way.

Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen > Motion blur

The Smart Sharpen actually has a third option called 'Motion Blur' and this one allows you to counteract (to a certain extend naturally) the effects of you not holding the camera perfectly still while pressing the shutter release.

With this option of the Smart Sharpen you can in fact alter the angle of the effect, so you can set it exactly the same as the movement of the camera button during the shot, naturally this isn't easy, and it will take a lot of practice to get right, however remember that most of the time you will move the camera slightly downwards, tilting to the right when pressing the shutter, so you can in fact calculate the angle and do some trial and error to get it right.

There is an option you should set for all three Smart Sharpen option : always use the 'More Accurate' setting when using this filter, it will calculate the sharpening effect more precisely and give a better overall result.

Filter > Sharpen > UnSharp Mask

The well known UnSharpMask filter from PhotoShop is probably the most used of them all, it is relatively easy to get to work like you want it, and the results are very nice.

However it does take some practice to get right, you do not want to mess up the settings or your image will not look right after all, we usually work with a rather mild setting of Amount=100%, Radius of 1 pixel and a threshold set at 1 level, these settings only apply a minor sharpening, but as you can read further down in this tutorial, you can always repeat the sharpening process a few times, until your are satisfied with the results.

Why should you sharpen your images ?

Sharpening (when done correctly) will bring out details in your shots you hadn't noticed before, like dust particles, or scratches on a body work of a car, a nice sharp image is actually a combination of things. First of all you will need a dslr with a decent amount of pixels, about 10Mpixel should do for most prints up to A4 or Letter size, any larger an you should consider those 15Mpixel or even 20Mpixel Full Frame cameras. But the amount of megapixel on the sensor of your dslr is only one part of the equation, a more important factor is the lens you mount on your body, in the Canon range for instance, those expensive L-lenses are actually worth their money because they focus a lot faster than the 'consumer' lenses, but they also produce much sharper photographs.

This doesn�t mean that your nice little kit lens can not be used, sure it can, it will only take a bit more post-processing, that's all, if you can cope with the fact of spending more time behind your computer than there is no need to invest in top of the line lenses, if you however would like to limit your computer time to a minimum and spend more time actually taking the shots, you should consider if the premium for these top lenses isn't worth it in the long run.

Another important factor that will have an image 'appear' sharp in the actual contrast in the shot, the more shades of brightness and shadows you see in a shot the sharper it appears to the human eye in fact, all without making the image sharpen in the narrow sense of the word, actually the various filters in PhotoShop play on these settings too.

The trick with applying sharpening in post-processing is to keep it moderate, you will have to decided when enough is enough, and that is most likely just before you think enough is over the top and it actually degrades your shot instead of improving it. Applying too much sharpness will create artifacts and halo's on your image, details and small pixels that shouldn't be present in your shot are called artifacts, the halo's are actually light shaded colors around the edges of your objects in the shots ... both should be avoided at all costs.

Most dslr these days are able to shoot both in jpg and in raw format, when you are shooting in jpg (which we don't advice anyway) you are actually applying some in-camera sharpening method ... some camera makes are good at this, others are really bad at it, that is why we always shoot in raw and handle the sharpening ourselves in post-processing. There is no way the in-camera sharpening methods will outperform those you can apply in post-processing, even if you can adjust the settings in your camera ... our advice, stay away from jpg in your dslr and stick to raw.

Also keep in mind what your intentions with the image are, will it be printed on high gloss photo paper, will it be published inside a book or magazine or will it become a web image ... all these option require a different approach to the sharpening technique you will apply, anything that gets printed can sustain a much more powerful sharpening than an image that is intended for web publishing. Also perform your sharpening as the last step in your workflow, there is no need to sharpen at image at the full 15Mpixel size when it will finally end up on a website at 800x600 pixels. When you downscale your image you always loose some sharpness, so execute all post-processing on the original size image, when you are happy with the result downscale it and put it on screen in 100% preview, so each pixel you see will correspond with one pixel seen on the web, only then perform your final sharpening technique ... this will get you the best possible results.

Sharpening methods in depth :

the 'old' way :

it is a bit disrespectful to call this the old way, as it is still regularly used these days. The famous UnSharpMask method within PhotoShop is very powerful and offers several variables you can adjust to create the exact look you are working towards, however it is also very easy to overdo this effect.

Another option within the more recent versions of PhotoShop is the Smart Sharpen filter, especially when using the Lens Blur option, this one will allow you to outperform the USM method easily ... with a bit of practice that is.

Both methods work very well, and we actually still use the good old USM method quite a lot, but the Smart Sharpen method does have some serious advantages on the more challenging photographs, where USM will quickly result in unwanted artifacts and halo's around the more contrast rich areas in the image.

the highpass trick

This filter is actually a nice little trick we use quite often, it is however very important to execute it on a different layer, so when you've opened your image in PhotoShop duplicate the background layer by pressing Ctrl/Command+J, now we are ready to continue.

The High Pass filter is somewhat hidden away in PhotoShop, you must use the 'Filter' menu and select 'other' from the list, so Filter > Other > High Pass ... will give you a pop up menu that allows you to enter the radius of the filter, we always use a value between 5,0 and 10,0 depending on the effect we envisage for that particular shot, the interior seen here could use some extra sharpness, so we dialed in a value of 10,0.

You might think you've totally ruined the image now, but remember we are working on a layer, so change the blending mode of the layer to 'Overlay' and you will see an extra sharp image appear on your display, most of the time it is a little too much, so we lower the opacity of the layer until it looks just right ... now 'Flatten image' from the 'Layer' menu and you're done.

using the LAB channel

This is probably the most advanced method to add sharpness to your image, and it should only be used if you are feeling really comfortable with your post-processing skills as it involves quite some steps before the photograph is ready.

The method of LAB sharpening requires you to change the color mode of your shot first by selecting 'Image > Mode > Lab Color', this will effectively change your RGB image into an LAB image, now make sure you are seeing the 'Channels' of your image by selecting 'Windows > Channels' if you don't find them, in this window you will see four sections, the LAB at the top and then one layer for L, A and B, select the L-layer here (for lightness).

Now you'll see some kind of black and white version of your shot, this is actually the lightness layer, perform your UnSharpMask or Smart Sharpen on this layer only, it will enhance the sharpness in your image but it won't increase the noise, so it is an ideal method for those low light shots you've made at a high ISO setting.

Go back to selecting the 'LAB' layer and you will see your color image again, but now nicely sharpened without enhancing any color noise that was present in the photograph ... go back to 'Image > Mode > RGB' to make it an RGB image and you're done.

applying multiple USM filters

The UnSharpMask method in PhotoShop is often used by us, but we actually don't use it like it was intended, normally you should get the image read, downscale it to the size you need and perform the USM filter on it. We do things differently in our workflow, when we downscale an image from say 10Mpixel to an 800x600 web image we take different steps along the way. We first downscale to about 2500 pixels wide and apply a mild USM setting, then we downscale again to 1280 pixels, again apply the USM and only then we go all the way down to 800 pixels wide ... and apply a final, even more mildly set USM filter over this small image. This technique tends to give the best results when used on the internet.

selective sharpening

This method actually applies to images where you want to sharpen certain sections, but would like not to touch other parts in the crop. For instance when you have a nice 'out of focus' background with the car in front you should only apply sharpening on the vehicle, and not of the background, it is actually quite nice to have a blurry background, it will make the car stand out even better ... so you will have to add a 'sharpen' layer in this case.

This might sound more difficult than it actually is, just duplicate the background layer (Ctrl/Command-J) and perform your regular sharpening method on this layer, you will see that the car will get better, but unfortunately also the background, which you would like to keep blurry. Now comes the trick, press the Alt key and click the 'add mask' option on your layer palette ... a mask filled with black will be shown next to your 'sharpen' layer. Now select a nice, soft brush that will paint white and start painting over those sections that you would like to return to their original 'unsharp' state, by painting with white you will actually allow the underlying layer to 'appear' in the sharpen layer, this way you can make your blurry background show on your photograph again, but still have a sharpened car in the foreground.

The BOTTOM line

Sharpening is required on most photographs you will take during your career, some will need some minor extra sharpness, other will require more elaborate techniques during your workflow, but the bottom line is that you will always increase the sharpness in all your shots. Which method and settings to use depends on the object in your composition, we can give you few indications, but you will be required to experiment with them on your own images, there is no simple setting or filter that can be applied to all your pictures.

Correctly applying sharpness to your images will require experience, hence time, to get perfectly right, do not get disappointed when it doesn't work out right from the start, remember your first photographs ? When you compare them with your current work you will notice that you've came a long way ... the same will apply to your post-processing techniques, of which sharpening is probably one of the most important ones.

BACKGROUND REPLACEMENT MADE EASY

Canon EOS 350D - Canon EF70-200 f/2.8 L IS USM - 200mm 1/500 f5.6 ISO 100

Advanced level tutorial - posted on August 28, 2009 by Mark

We all encounter it on a regular basis when photographing a car event, you will be able to shoot great looking cars but the background could be a major drawback as these events are regularly held on race track paddocks or on other, crowded areas, so the trick is to get a good photograph and worry about the background when you get home.

I knew the moment I took this exposure of the grey Lamborghini Diablo SV driving away from me I had a possible winner on my hands, this low angle full rear shot just screams 'power' by showing the full width of this massive car, an angle mostly seen when driving behind one on the highway.

One major drawback ... that background just looks like rubbish, it draws way too much attention from the main feature, the Lamborghini, so I knew I would have my work cut out for me when I came home ... it actually looks a lot harder than it is, and with a bit of practice you will be able to do exactly the same thing on your shots.

STEP 1 : getting the exposure right

During a car event you do not have the time to try different exposures in manual mode, perhaps when you get really experienced you will be able to shoot manual all the time and are able to predict the correct settings, but for now just put the camera in these standard settings :

Aperture priority fix it at f/5.6 or f/8.0 (depends on the light)

Iso speed dial in at 100 (on a sunny day) or up to 400 (on a very cloudy day)

Flash You could use a bit of fill-in flash on a sunny day to bring out the shadows, but be careful not to use too much power.

RAW ! I've said it before and I will keep repeating it : use raw for your automotive photographs, you have so much more control afterwards.

And that's about it, just leave the shutter speed up to the camera, it will do a good job most of the time, and in those cases where he really missed the ball (a white or a black car for instance) you can always fine tune the exposure later on in PhotoShop as you took the shot in raw ... remember ?

STEP 2 : Loading the photograph into PhotoShop

When you get home you will be transferring your shots from the memory card to your computer (using a card reader or by connecting the camera directly to the computer), first thing to do is go over the shots quickly, deleting the ones that are really beyond saving (out of focus, missing the front or rear of the car, etc ...), afterwards make a backup copy (on DVD or external HD) just in case.

As we've shot our cars in raw the Adobe Camera Raw opens when we double click the picture we want to work with, in this screen you have a lot of options and settings, and I have prepared a special tutorial explaining you how to work with ACR, but for now I will only do some basics to get started.

If the original shot is rather good you could just click the 'auto' option in ACR, this will make sure the image is calculated by Adobe's standards into a decent looking shot ... it isn't always what we wanted, but for now it will do.

If the automatic setting is way wrong you can start sliding the different settings to get a better view, mostly exposure to counteract any flaws the camera had when shooting in aperture mode (over or under exposed shot), but as I said, I will go into details of ACR in another tutorial.

STEP 3 : First things first ...

If you have taken a look at some of the previous tutorials you will have noticed that the first step in my workflow is just about always the same : USM, that's right, I don't apply sharpening in ACR when I develop the RAW file but I rely on PhotoShop to do a good job.

Actually I use two methods for sharpening my automotive photography, either the UnSharp Mask or an 'overlay' layer with a 'High Pass' filter, let me explain both of these steps :

The well known USM (or UnSharp Mask) from Adobe PhotoShop is a very powerful filter, it will allow you to put a little extra sharpness in your shots. I normally use a setting of 100 - 1,0 - 1, which are relatively low values, but in this case if the effect isn't strong enough I just perform it again until I am satisfied with the look. When you see artifacts showing up on your image, you've exaggerated and you'll have to undo the effect and redo it with lower settings.

Naturally there are also other methods to boost the sharpness of your image, putting in an extra layer with a High Pass filter also works nicely, just copy/paste your entire image on a new layer and put this layer in 'overlay' blending mode.

Most of the time this effect will be a bit over the top, simply lower the opacity of the layer to get the right look you want.

STEP 4 : determining what to replace

Now that my base has been dealt with I can start looking at the image and decide what I would like to change in it, on this particular shot the entire background will have to go, that's for sure, but there are a few other things that bother me too :

Next to the entire background I feel that the shadow parts are too dark, a downside from shooting at 1pm in the afternoon, the sun is too high in the sky and the dark pavement didn't reflect any light upwards, also a fill flash wouldn't have worked in this case because the car was too far away and the license plate would have reflected too harshly.

Talking about that license plate (I already removed the digits for privacy reasons), I think it looks hideous on the car, so I will replace it with a brand new I have created in PhotoShop, but that's not all, take a close look at the right ... you will notice a reflection from other cars and people standing just outside of the frame, I'll have to remedy that one too.

STEP 5 : putting in another background

If you take a look at the original photograph you'll notice that the DOF of this picture is rather small, this will actually be use to our advantage, it means we can put the background out of focus too, so we can get away with some minor errors, for this picture I've selected a nice treeline taken from another Lamborghini shot.

Now we have to make the parts of the car 'shine' through the treeline, so I started erasing the trees where I didn't need them anymore, normally you would use a layer mask for this, but I went the old fashioned way. A layer mask would be better however, it allows you to correct possible errors while 'masking' parts away you might need afterwards, I went for a different solution to this.

Make sure that the pavement and sides of the road from the original picture remain on the composition with the new background, these were perfect to begin with, so there is no need to start erasing, covering or cloning them, just a few papers that were lying around have been cloned out.

STEP 6 : mind the details

Drawing a mask to reveal the underlying layer, or erasing the top layer like I did, will take a bit of practice, and actually a mouse isn't really suited for this kind of work, you should really consider getting a tablet, something like a Wacom is great, but a bit expensive, I actually started out with a nice, big Trust tablet ... works perfectly on a PC, unfortunately it doesn't work on Macintosh, but the best part is the price, for about 100 Euro you are in business.

So who can tell me what I did wrong in this picture ? Easy, because I erased the background I made a monumental error with the view through the car, now we are talking about a Lamborghini Diablo here, so the rear window is rather small, more of a letterbox opening, but still you can see the original background through it.

If I had used a layer mask like I always tell you to do this wouldn't be a problem, but because I made the mistake of erasing the background in those places I felt it wasn't needed, there is nothing left to see through the window anymore, so another solution had to be found ... and it was a very simple one, let's tint the rear view window like on those black limousines you see all the time.

You must have seen Lamborghinis with the side windows tinted solid black, so I went for the same look on this car, which is very easy, just add another layer and paint the window with black, after that lower the transparency setting of the layer a bit so something is visible but you can't recognize what ... perfect solution.

STEP 7 : a few more issues

I really don't like that reflection on the right, there were bright cars parked at that side of the road, and a lot of people as this was a popular Italian car event in the Netherlands, so my next point of business was removing those, which is rather easy, just copy the necessary part from the other side, where no reflection is visible.

I copied the part of the rear fender from the left, pasted it on the right and flipped it with the transform option in PhotoShop, then a little more positioning and a feathered eraser to make it blend in nicely and I was almost there, I did need a little bit of cloning to make it just perfect, but that is part of the fun, after a few minutes the distracting reflection on the side was completely gone.

STEP 8 : the license plate

I make sure never to publish a photograph of a car with a visible license plate, just for privacy reasons and to avoid any problems, you never know. That is why I actually made a nice little license plate in PhotoShop, with a shadow I can manipulate depending on the position of the sun in the original image.

In case of this Lamborghini Diablo shot I also had to erase the license plate where the lights would be, a car like this uses two small units to light the plate at night, and they were covered when I pasted the new license plate in place, so a little touch up with the eraser and they were visible again.

Don't worry of the new license plate doesn't cover the old one perfectly, I actually made a large one that I paste onto the original image and then use 'Transform - Distort' to make it fit nicely over the image, effectively covering it nicely.

STEP 9 : the final touch

I was nearly finished, but my eye fell on the Diablo sign at the rear, normally that is finished in red, but since this car was about 10 years old it apparently had faded over time, no problem, just copy/paste the sign onto a new layer and put the 'color overlay' effect on this new layer, by default the color is red, but the entire rectangle is now red, so I switched the blending mode for the effect to 'Linear Burn' and lowered the transparency a bit which made the logo look brand new.

I usually add another soft light layer and use a gradient from black to transparent to put the focus on the car, creating a kind of artificial vignetting on the shot, by making the corner and sides darker you automatically draw attention to the car itself.

STEP 10 : different picture - same process

This method can be applied on just about every image you want, this white BMW was shot in front of some trees, the background didn't look too bad, but I still felt the car would look so much better with a different, more industrial background, so I replaced the trees with these plates ... and the image packs a lot more punch than the original one.

You don't have to replace every single background, but just in case it doesn't suit the car, or it is distracting from the main object you can follow these simple steps to put a totally different background in place. One thing to note is reflections, cars are shiny object, they reflect everything around them, so make sure there are no reflections from the old background or surroundings still visible that could unveil the fact you've replaced the background.

My Project

My aim is to provide a set of images that would be worthy of magazine publications. Planning and preparation are going to be key to successfully delivering images that work. I want to produce a portfolio of images that will seel me as a photographer. 

Audi Quatro

 These are my first attempt at car photography. The Audi Quatro has become synonymous with the middle class as a symbol of prestige. I decided to photograph the vehicle in motion to try and give the images a sense of speed and quality.  

These particular images were difficult as I was in the boot of the car in front, shooting the vehicle on a bumpy country road. It highlighted some of the difficulties that I would have to take into consideration when attempting this kind of shot. I placed a speedlight on the back seat of the Audi to illuminate the inside of the vehicle and create some light on the people in the car. I also used a speedlight on camera to project some light onto the car as it was very dark with no external street lighting. 

Reproducing this shot, I would use a flatter road, and perhaps shoot at dusk as opposed to in the dark, to perhaps give the image a bit more depth.

This set of four images were shot out of the back window of my car, at speed to capture sense of movement. The weather was very wet so the conditions were a little testing. My biggest difficulty was focusing, and keeping everything in focus whilst bluring the background. It was hard work with the elements, leaning out of a moving vehicle to capture a simultaneous moving vehicle. To perfect the shot I would have liked some sort of tripod/suction holder to stabilise the camera over quite bumpy terrain.

VW Camper

This set of images of a 1968 VW Camper was much easier, although i was still battling with the rain.

The camper has been completely restored and is currently being used for weddings. As a classic vehicle I wanted to make sure the images looked classy and give the vehicle a hint of elegance after it's restoration. i used bowens lighting to light the vehicle, giving me more control over the lighting than speedlights. With more time than the first shot, I was much more considerate in my approach, I knew what I wanted to get from the shoot and approached it with a much gentler thought process.

I wanted to capture the typical camper shot, the problem was the weather, as it started to rain we had to take the vehicle back into the garage.  

Img 517A0002-2.jpg

Evaluation

Using natural light as there was not enough time to set the lighting up due to the adverse weather.

I wanted to create a close crop of the front of the vehicle but also show some of the settings around the vehicle. The left of the camper was a heavily wooded area, I tried to illuminate some of the reflection detail using a polarising filter, this subdued some of the heavy reflective highlights in the image and worked quite well.

Because I used a polarising filter the original images was quite saturated so I decided to turn down the overall saturation in post-production to give the image a natural look.

I would have liked more time to illuminate the vehicle with lighting and perhaps expose for a slightly darker background to make the subject much more punchy for the viewer.

Main IFD

Camera model:Canon EOS 5D Mark III

Software:Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6.2.1 (Windows)

Image description:

Copyright:Sean-Telford-Photography

Author:Sean Telford

Resolution:300 x 300 inches

Exif sub-IFD

Aperture value:4

F number:4

Focal length:28

Shutter speed:33.33 milliseconds

White balance mode:Manual

Flash present:No

ISO speed rating(s):100

Max aperture value:4

Colour space:RGB

Date/time original:07/11/2015 14:15:38

Exposure programme:Manual

Exposure time:0.0333333333333333 seconds

The internal elements of the vehicle have been restored to a high quality as the camper is being used for wedding hire. I really wanted to capture some of the opulence and finesse of the finished product. I opted for softer lighting to try and create a sense of romance. 

Img 517A0050.jpg

Evaluation

This interior shot, I chose to light inside by using a single speedlight. With limited space to get a completely wide angle of the interior I chose to focus on the main seating area and try to create a stylised image for the viewer, highlighting the sense of space inside the camper.

Editing was straightforward, with no issues to deal with.

Main IFD

Make = Canon

Model = Canon EOS 5D Mark III

X Resolution = 300

Y Resolution = 300

Resolution Unit = inch

Software = Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6.2.1 (Windows)

Date Time = 2015-11-21 06:54:27

Artist = Sean Telford

Copyright = Sean-Telford-Photography

Exif IFD Pointer = Offset: 280

[Camera]

Exposure Time = 1/160"

F Number = F4

Exposure Program = Manual

ISO Speed Ratings = 640

8830 = 2

8832 = 640

Exif Version = 30, 32, 33, 30

Date Time Original = 2015-11-07 15:05:00

Date Time Digitized = 2015-11-07 15:05:00

Shutter Speed Value = 7.32 TV

Aperture Value = 4 AV

Exposure Bias Value = ±0EV

Max Aperture Value = F4

Metering Mode = Pattern

Flash = Flash fired, compulsory flash mode

Focal Length = 45mm

Img 517A0097.jpg

Evaluation

This exterior shot, we had moved the camper into the garage I chose to light the front using Bowens lights. Hannah the camper has some great characteristics of a vintage vehicle and I really wanted to capture them with a romantic feel. I used a single Bowens light with a diffuser and honeycomb to soften the intensity of the light. My assistant held the light over the top and shone the light downwards to illuminate the chrome and glance light off the bodywork. The droplets of rain lit up and created a stunning visual in the image.

Editing was straightforward, with no issues to deal with

I really feel this image, it has an emotional, romantic feel to the shot and I don’t actually think I would have changed much, perhaps I should have got the bottom of the light in the frame but I do feel the shot works.

Main IFD

Make = Canon

Model = Canon EOS 5D Mark III

X Resolution = 300

Y Resolution = 300

Resolution Unit = inch

Software = Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6.2.1 (Windows)

Date Time = 2015-11-21 06:50:04

Artist = Sean Telford

Copyright = Sean-Telford-Photography

Exif IFD Pointer = Offset: 280

[Camera]

Exposure Time = 1/60"

F Number = F4

Exposure Program = Manual

ISO Speed Ratings = 640

8830 = 2

8832 = 640

Exif Version = 30, 32, 33, 30

Date Time Original = 2015-11-07 15:08:37

Date Time Digitized = 2015-11-07 15:08:37

Shutter Speed Value = 5.91 TV

Aperture Value = 4 AV

Exposure Bias Value = ±0EV

Max Aperture Value = F4

Metering Mode = Pattern

Flash = Flash fired, compulsory flash mode

Focal Length = 24mm

Hannah is a classic vehicle and has some very nice classical features, it was important to me to be able to capture these features with that feeling of romance still in mind. Opting for a darker moodier lighting to create the right tone and aesthetic.Some of the classical refinements inside were very reflective, and had to be subtley lit, using a polarising filter to reduce the harshness of the reflections in keeping with the mood of the shoot.

Img 517A0097.jpg

Evaluation

This exterior shot, we had moved the camper into the garage I chose to light the front using Bowens lights. Hannah the camper has some great characteristics of a vintage vehicle and I really wanted to capture them with a romantic feel. I used a single Bowens light with a diffuser and honeycomb to soften the intensity of the light. My assistant held the light over the top and shone the light downwards to illuminate the chrome and glance light off the bodywork. The droplets of rain lit up and created a stunning visual in the image.

Editing was straightforward, with no issues to deal with

I really feel this image, it has an emotional, romantic feel to the shot and I don’t actually think I would have changed much, perhaps I should have got the bottom of the light in the frame but I do feel the shot works.

Main IFD

Make = Canon

Model = Canon EOS 5D Mark III

X Resolution = 300

Y Resolution = 300

Resolution Unit = inch

Software = Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6.2.1 (Windows)

Date Time = 2015-11-21 06:50:04

Artist = Sean Telford

Copyright = Sean-Telford-Photography

Exif IFD Pointer = Offset: 280

[Camera]

Exposure Time = 1/60"

F Number = F4

Exposure Program = Manual

ISO Speed Ratings = 640

8830 = 2

8832 = 640

Exif Version = 30, 32, 33, 30

Date Time Original = 2015-11-07 15:08:37

Date Time Digitized = 2015-11-07 15:08:37

Shutter Speed Value = 5.91 TV

Aperture Value = 4 AV

Exposure Bias Value = ±0EV

Max Aperture Value = F4

Metering Mode = Pattern

Flash = Flash fired, compulsory flash mode

Focal Length = 24mm

 

Img 517A0118.jpg

Evaluation

Evaluation

This interior shot, we had moved the camper into the garage I chose to light the front using Bowens lights. Hannah the camper has some great characteristics of a vintage vehicle and I really wanted to capture them with a romantic feel. I used a single Bowens light with a diffuser and honeycomb to soften the intensity of the light. My assistant held the light over the the front window and shone the light downwards to illuminate the dash and glance light off the steering wheel.

Editing was straightforward, with no issues to deal with.

Main IFD

Make = Canon

Model = Canon EOS 5D Mark III

X Resolution = 300

Y Resolution = 300

Resolution Unit = inch

Software = Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6.2.1 (Windows)

Date Time = 2015-11-21 06:50:59

Artist = Sean Telford

Copyright = Sean-Telford-Photography

Exif IFD Pointer = Offset: 280

[Camera]

Exposure Time = 1/60"

F Number = F9

Exposure Program = Manual

ISO Speed Ratings = 640

8830 = 2

8832 = 640

Exif Version = 30, 32, 33, 30

Date Time Original = 2015-11-07 15:17:23

Date Time Digitized = 2015-11-07 15:17:23

Shutter Speed Value = 5.91 TV

Aperture Value = 6.34 AV

Exposure Bias Value = ±0EV

Max Aperture Value = F4

Metering Mode = Pattern

Flash = Flash fired, compulsory flash mode

Focal Length = 67mm

Img 517A0124.jpg

Evaluation

This interior shot, we had moved the camper into the garage I chose to light the front using Bowens lights. Hannah the camper has some great characteristics of a vintage vehicle and I really wanted to capture them with a romantic feel. I used a single Bowens light with a diffuser and honeycomb to soften the intensity of the light. My assistant held the light through the side window and shone the light downwards to illuminate the radio and dash.

Editing was straightforward, with no issues to deal with

I really feel this image, it has an emotional, romantic feel to the shot and I don’t actually think I would have changed much, I do feel the shot works.

Main IFD

Make = Canon

Model = Canon EOS 5D Mark III

X Resolution = 300

Y Resolution = 300

Resolution Unit = inch

Software = Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6.2.1 (Windows)

Date Time = 2015-11-21 06:51:20

Artist = Sean Telford

Copyright = Sean-Telford-Photography

Exif IFD Pointer = Offset: 280

[Camera]

Exposure Time = 1/60"

F Number = F9

Exposure Program = Manual

ISO Speed Ratings = 640

8830 = 2

8832 = 640

Exif Version = 30, 32, 33, 30

Date Time Original = 2015-11-07 15:19:08

Date Time Digitized = 2015-11-07 15:19:08

Shutter Speed Value = 5.91 TV

Aperture Value = 6.34 AV

Exposure Bias Value = ±0EV

Max Aperture Value = F4

Metering Mode = Pattern

Flash = Flash fired, compulsory flash mode

Focal Length = 99mm

Img 517A0121.jpg

Evaluation

Evaluation

This interior shot, we had moved the camper into the garage I chose to light the front using Bowens lights. Hannah the camper has some great characteristics of a vintage vehicle and I really wanted to capture them with a romantic feel. I used a single Bowens light with a diffuser and honeycomb to soften the intensity of the light. My assistant held the light over the the front window and shone the light downwards to illuminate the dash and glance light off the steering wheel.

Editing was straightforward, with no issues to deal with.

Main IFD

Make = Canon

Model = Canon EOS 5D Mark III

X Resolution = 300

Y Resolution = 300

Resolution Unit = inch

Software = Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6.2.1 (Windows)

Date Time = 2015-11-21 06:50:59

Artist = Sean Telford

Copyright = Sean-Telford-Photography

Exif IFD Pointer = Offset: 280

[Camera]

Exposure Time = 1/60"

F Number = F9

Exposure Program = Manual

ISO Speed Ratings = 640

8830 = 2

8832 = 640

Exif Version = 30, 32, 33, 30

Date Time Original = 2015-11-07 15:17:23

Date Time Digitized = 2015-11-07 15:17:23

Shutter Speed Value = 5.91 TV

Aperture Value = 6.34 AV

Exposure Bias Value = ±0EV

Max Aperture Value = F4

Metering Mode = Pattern

Flash = Flash fired, compulsory flash mode

Focal Length = 67mm

Evaluation

This interior shot, we had moved the camper into the garage I chose to light the front using Bowens lights. Hannah the camper has some great characteristics of a vintage vehicle and I really wanted to capture them with a romantic feel. I used a single Bowens light with a diffuser and honeycomb to soften the intensity of the light. My assistant held the light over the the front window and shone the light downwards to illuminate the seat and glance light off the steering wheel. 

Editing was straightforward, with no issues to deal with

I really feel this image, it has an emotional, romantic feel to the shot and I don’t actually think I would have changed much, I do feel the shot works.

Main IFD

Make = Canon
Model = Canon EOS 5D Mark III
X Resolution = 300
Y Resolution = 300
Resolution Unit = inch
Software = Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6.2.1 (Windows)
Date Time = 2015-11-21 06:52:15
Artist = Sean Telford
Copyright = Sean-Telford-Photography
Exif IFD Pointer = Offset: 280
[Camera]
Exposure Time = 1/60"
F Number = F5.6
Exposure Program = Manual
ISO Speed Ratings = 160
8830 = 2
8832 = 160
Exif Version = 30, 32, 33, 30
Date Time Original = 2015-11-07 15:24:50
Date Time Digitized = 2015-11-07 15:24:50

Shutter Speed Value = 5.91 TV
Aperture Value = 4.97 AV

Exposure Bias Value = ±0EV

Max Aperture Value = F4

Evaluation

This exterior shot, we had moved the camper into the garage I chose to light the front using Bowens lights. Hannah the camper has some great characteristics of a vintage vehicle and I really wanted to capture them with a romantic feel. I used a single Bowens light with a diffuser and honeycomb to soften the intensity of the light. My assistant held the light over the top and shone the light downwards to illuminate the chrome and glance light off the bodywork. The droplets of rain lit up and created a stunning visual in the image.

Editing was straightforward, with no issues to deal with

I really feel this image, it has an emotional, romantic feel to the shot and I don’t actually think I would have changed much, perhaps I should have got the bottom of the light in the frame but I do feel the shot works.

Main IFD

Make = Canon

Model = Canon EOS 5D Mark III

X Resolution = 300

Y Resolution = 300

Resolution Unit = inch

Software = Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6.2.1 (Windows)

Date Time = 2015-11-21 06:50:04

Artist = Sean Telford

Copyright = Sean-Telford-Photography

Exif IFD Pointer = Offset: 280

[Camera]

Exposure Time = 1/60"

F Number = F4

Exposure Program = Manual

ISO Speed Ratings = 640

8830 = 2

8832 = 640

Exif Version = 30, 32, 33, 30

Date Time Original = 2015-11-07 15:08:37

Date Time Digitized = 2015-11-07 15:08:37

Shutter Speed Value = 5.91 TV

Aperture Value = 4 AV

Exposure Bias Value = ±0EV

Max Aperture Value = F4

Metering Mode = Pattern

Flash = Flash fired, compulsory flash mode

Focal Length = 24mm

Kia Sportage

With the last three weeks being incredibly wet.. I have found it very difficult to get out and shoot. Today has been quite dry and as I have been unable to arrange vehicles at such short notice i have taken my own car out to photograph, using Bowens lights and a battery pack to illuminate the car.

Triumph TR3


The Triumph was a pleasure to shoot. I knew as soon as I heard about this vehicle how I wanted to shoot it. I had to find some old petrol pumps to give a slightly vintage feel in keeping with the TR3. After researching the internet to find locations, I found one that was approximately 7 miles from the vehicles location.I went and researched the location, speaking to the owner of the garrage (Peter) who was more than happy for me to use the location.. It was perfect.
The weather delayed the shoot for about 4 weeks, constantly raining, by this time I was getting more and more frustrated.. Eventually a day came with some light, and a short dry spell. And we arranged to shoot it that day.
Arriving at the garage, I was disappointed to find 2 vans parked to the left of the pumps, this completely changed the structure of the images I had in mind. The wider view point was no longer going to happen.
I had the vehicle, the location and couldn't get the shot I wanted but I couldn't let the afternoon go to waste, so I set the angle of the car at the pumps, set up external lighting using a battery pack and two Bowens Gemini 400's to light up the angles of the TR3. I used a reflector to bounce more light as and where I felt needed.

Time was a key element to the shoot as it was forcast to rain in a couple of hours.

I wanted to pursue various angles of the Triumph to exploit it's form and shape, some of the angles worked, others i didn't like. This sort of shoot was interesting because I had to think constantly about getting the best shot I could in a verry short space and time. I thought I had the shot I wanted covered to find the dynamics changed when I got on location.

The TR3 has some stunning curves and lines and I really tried hard to capture them and make the car look sexy and punchy.

I would have really like a much wider perspective on this, but I was forced into redesigning the shot because of the parked vehicles. Overall I enjoyed the shoot and learned alot about shooting vehicles on location.