As I said at the end of my last post from my day with the Camaro, I will be going through the edits of one of the picture I took that day. Let me start by showing you the final result :
The goal of the picture was to show the Camaro in an urban area and to create a surreal effect with the lighting. First thing first, we’ll need to take the picture. In this street, we had the chance to park the car on both side of the street, giving us a lot more options. As you can see in the first picture below, there was nobody parked in front and directly behind of us making it possible to frame the picture easily and with more liberty.
Obviously, this side of the street was giving boring result with a ton of disturbing elements, bringing me to my second location and the actual composition I used.
The next step in the process is to spot the problem and everything disturbing in the image. I like to outline some of them at the beginning but I keep adding some to the list while I edit. Simply create a new layer (Shift+Cmd+N on mac) and use the brush tool (B) to circle the selections.
There we go. As you can see, a lot of the edit will be pretty easy to do with the healing brush tool (J) and for some trickier part we might have to use the clone stamp tool (s). There’s also two bigger transformations to do in the image and this is the pole on the left side of the screen and the one on the far right. The difficulty with the removal of the red pole is it’s location since it is directly on top of the edge of the concrete column. This mean, I would have to recreate the edge. This is why taking multiple pictures with a slightly different angles come handy. On the next image, I was able to see the edge of the column so I simply copied the column from this image and paste it over the other one.
In order to align the newly added part of the image, I simply lower the opacity of the object and try to align it as best as I can. For trickier situation, I use the free transform tool. The tool gives you more liberty when aligning and changing the shape of an object. In order to use it, select the object or layer you want to modify, then you can use the shortcut command+T (cmd+T). This will bring the transform menu and all of his transforming options. On the right side, you’ll find the Free transform tool.
Test and experiment the free transform tool, you’ll get use to it! After aligning the part from the other image, it’s time to create a vector mask on the object to hide some unwanted sections. Since you will be revealing the image under the one you copied, you want to take this step slowly. I like to use a soft brush and simply use the edge of it to slowly reveal the area behind the one I want to keep. The vector mask will allow you to hide and reveal part of the selected layer without erasing the image itself. In this case, start with a white vector mask (to inverse the color : cmd+i) and use a black brush to hide the unwanted sections. We’ll do a similar trick with the other pole with all the crazy no parking signs on the right side of the image in order to cover the flower pot area. Simply copy and paste the first flower pot and put it over the third one. make sure it doesn’t look exactly like the other one by removing some of the shape with the technique used before (vector mask and the brush). The rest of the edits around those areas are going to be done with the clone stamp tool (s).
Before
After
Flower pot correction
When all the sections which needed to be replace are in, it’s time to modify the picture by creating that halo of light on the top right. In order to do so, we will need to create a copy of the actual picture and all of the layers we created earlier. We will use the shortcut Shift + Alt + Cmd + E to create a new layer with all of the visible layer compressed into it.
The next step will be to apply a Gaussian Blur to create that mist effect on the desired area. Go into the filter menu -> blur -> Gaussian blur and adjust the slider to your liking. You can always Cmd + Z and restart the blurring process if you’re not satisfied. Then, select the layer and use blending mode : screen. As used earlier, create a mask on the blurred layer and use the Gradient tool (G) with the circle option checked (it’s actually call the Radial Gradient). Make sure the colors of the gradient are set to : Black to White and use it wherever you want (in our case the top right). The Gradient tool help to set mask quickly so I recommend experimenting with it a bit.
To finalise the halo, simply play with the opacity slider and adjust it accordingly. You can also add some exposure adjustment (in my case) to brighten up the halo a bit. The photo filter adjustment was added to match and warm the color of the halo. If everything went well, you should have something similar to this! Of Course, I quickly adjusted the exposure of the image in Lightroom when everything else was done.
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Last week started with a lot of emails and preparation for an upcoming wedding. Had to confirm my second photographer and make sure everything was, from legal aspect to the gear, ready. While Marc was enjoying Italy testing the new Mercedes-Benz GLC Coupe, I was in Montreal, enjoying the rain like I could. Rain = water = mud, why not get my mountain bike out and have some fun riding in the mud. After a great ride, I took news from Marc and we scheduled a shooting for the Camaro he had this week.
We decided to shoot the car on Canada Day (July first) so the streets would be less crowded making it easier to find some sweet spots around the city of Montreal. The shooting needed to be different since the Camaro really got a nice hard look. We wanted something more urban/industrial so we headed to a part of the city with more business and warehouses. Concrete, graffiti, metal were all considered options for a nice shoot.
While I was waiting for Marc to come and pick me up, I suddenly heard a nice engine sound getting closer and closer. I’m pretty much able to tell when Marc is coming to pick me up with a new car since I never hear those sounds in the neighbourhood, also, he kind of like to rev. the car a bit when he gets close. The sound was pretty cool and I really thought it was fitting the car perfectly. All packed, it was time to get going with the shooting.
Gear list :
- Nikon D600
- Nikkor 24-70mm (Just in case)
- Nikkor 70-200mm
- Manfrotto tripod
I really liked the interior, especially the ventilation controls. On the previous picture you can see the two air vent in the bottom right of the image. The silver rings on the outside are actual wheels which controls the air flow and the temperature. I thought it was a cool feature. One thing to noticed, was that the windshield was pretty small and I thought it was reducing the visibility a bit compared to some other car. Would I trade style for a bigger windshield, definitely not. You really feel inside a cockpit while sitting inside the Camaro and the size of the windows are part of the effect.
Our first stop was in a small clearing in an industrial area where we found some graffiti. Nothing to complicated, I simply wanted an interesting background.
Even though the picture was fine, I found that the background was too disturbing. While I was setting the photo, Marc was scouting the zone on the map application of his cellphone and when we were ready to go, we decided to drive around the area just to see what we could find.
How cool! We found some kind of deserted overpass which created a small dark environment for the car to hide under and show to the world the aggressiveness of the front grill. I know…the license plate ruined the car a bit…but still, the picture turned out alright since I didn’t had flash to light the car.
Since we had in mind to shoot the car in some urban area, we went in the Old Port of Montreal to find some great looking building. When parking the car and looking at the possible frame, a family passed by in a car and we heard the kid talk about the Camaro. They parked right in front of us and Marc asked the kid if he would want to sit in the car. The kid was really happy and told us it was the second car he “tried” that day (the other one was a Corvette). While the mother was taking some picture of his child sitting in the car, I was still framing and scouting the zone.
I wanted to see a bit more building behind the car and to do so, I knew I had to photoshop a lot of thing to clean up the image.
I really like the wheels on this car and thought it would be nice to have a classic rolling shot of the Camaro. With the wheels spinning it would make a nice effect while creating some movement in the image. As we were driving back home, we made a quick stop to a location I previously shot the Mazda Miata in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue. The place was pretty crowded so we tried to take this picture as quick as possible. A slow shutter speed with a small f-stop would give me the result I am looking for. As usual, Marc did a test run so I could adjust my settings to the environment and we were set to capture the shot.
Wrapping up the day, it was time to edit the pictures. This time it was more about finding locations then anything else. I didn’t took any close up of the car especially because it was supposed to rain so we wanted to maximize our time in Montreal. The car itself was pretty fun to play with and the look was great. I really liked the harsh line defining the car making it look massive and powerful.
Stay tune for my next blog post where ill go over my edits in photoshop on the image with the building in the background.
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After some really busy weeks, I am finally able to write my second blog post! This time, ill be going through the shooting process and some of the edits I did.
Everything started when my good friend Marc messaged me and asked me to shoot the Lexus LX 2017 he had for the week. With the beautiful weather coming up, we decided to set up a sunset shoot and preferably in some rough terrain where would be able to test the off road system of the truck.
We didn’t had a lot of time to put into this shoot and with the engine consumption at 18L/100km, we surely didn’t want to go too far. Thankfully for us, we still live in an area with a lot of farm land and forest, giving us the opportunity to find what we were looking for, trails.
The first step was to use our good friend google map to help us save some time on the scouting. We found what we were looking for, any green spot and dirt road accessible via some public property and headed there shortly with the strict necessary.
- Nikon D600
- Nikkor 24-70mm (Just in case)
- Nikkor 70-200mm
- Manfrotto tripod
The trip took us 10 minutes and it was time to look for those trails. Although, it’s not too easy to look for a small trail when you’re driving 80 km/h and you got a ton of cars behind you. We drive for about 30 minutes discovering that all the trails were blocked for the summer since they are for winter sports mostly and decided to have a look at a spot we used before with the Subaru STI 2016. We were hoping to find the same gravel road there was last year with the forest surrounding it but we actually came across an house development project starting out. Turning this “bad news” into a good one, it was the perfect place to test the offered system of the Lexus LX since there was a lot of bulldozers trail and muddy terrain. We eventually found a small plot of land where we decided to shoot the car. Here’s what it looked like.
While I was setting up to take the shot, Marc was actually taking some pictures himself with his trusty iphone.
The first picture I wanted to take was something a bit different with the sun directly into the lens to create an artistic effect.
I wanted to separate the background from the truck and add a gloomy effect to the sun so I decided to shoot it with a large aperture instead. I wouldn’t have any problem fully capturing the truck since I was shooting it from the side. I knew I would be able to bring back the truck to a normal exposition, so I chose to underexpose it a bit and tried to get as much of the “boring” sky. Have you seen the cloud?
The first tweak I did, was to create that summer feeling of warm and hotness. I used the White Balance tool and cranked the “heat” a bit and then went to the split toning tool to had even more warm to it.
Then it was time to adjust the exposition itself.
Even though those changes made some really great adjustment, I wanted the car to pop a little under that harsh sun. I already knew that this picture was drawing the eyes towards the huge sun glare, so I had to find a solution to lure the eyes on the car a bit more. The brush tool and some clarity would do the trick. I did I quick selection of the car and cranked the clarity slider to a point I liked and decided to give it even more contrast.
The adjustment looked great, it was time to get on photoshop and correct some of the problem the picture has.
It was all about using the healing brush tool and the clone stamp tool to correct those mistake except for the bush on the right where I used a curve adjustment layer just to brighten it up a bit.
That picture was finally done.
Here are some of the other images I got during the shooting. If you want to see more of them, you’ll have to wait for the release of the article on The Car Guide’s website. Ill make an announcement on my Facebook page (Guillaume Fournier Photographie).
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