Chevrolet photos - Criticism and ideas welcome

[sublimatica]

I want to print some photos as a gift for someone who's done me a favour. I took some photos of a couple of his cars and I'd like to make something of them. Unfortunately I was limited in the location/time of day I could use for shooting. My processing skills are very noobish so I'd welcome ideas of ways in which I could get the most from them.


Original: http://www.corvetteclub.org.uk/images/user_special...


Original: http://www.corvetteclub.org.uk/images/user_special...

I'd really be interested to see how people get the best from these photos, provided they're prepared to share their techniques with me, step-by-step. I'm trying to learn.

I had a play with the first but it looks a bit odd with no driver, and a little clichéd perhaps:



Comments welcome.

Also tried working on a different subject. This truck's not as close to his heart as the Vette, but it makes a good subject. Again, feedback welcome. These photos are more for my benefit than his.

[CVP]

I'd got for the first of the truck, I think that is a great image

Chris

[sublimatica]

Thanks Chris. I tried to emulate stigmundfreud's workflow with the sky to add contrast with the clouds, and cropped it fairly closely to get rid of trees and surroundings. You can see the trees' reflections in the front of the bonnet.

[Simpo Two]

The one thing that strikes me as odd is that in number 3 the car is driving itself...

ETA and if the car was actually moving, the wheels would be blurred too. Radial blur y'know...

Edited by Simpo Two on Tuesday 13th May 19:46

[CVP]

Having looked at the truck again I'd say the only thing I would try is to clone out the things in the bottom right of the windscreen. Is it a stciker on the back window? I like this one as it is nice and tightly framed and is a slightly unusual view. Also I do like B&W for a nice big print.

Cheers

Chris

[The_Jackal]

Do you have the originals of the truck, I'd love to have a go for you.

[The_Jackal]

A quick draft, I've not messed with any levels or effects.


My idea would be a poster like above, or if you wanted to spend a bit more money get a set of 4 canvas type blocks printed of each of the individual slices and display them one above the other on a wall with a slight gap between them.

Edited by The_Jackal on Tuesday 13th May 21:00

[The_Jackal]

Any comments?

By the way dont hide away your own Corvette, that would make for some sexy photos.

My favourite pic is the rear of the truck, very imposing in its stance.

[sublimatica]

Hi Jackal,

Thanks for your response - I like what you've done with the poster-layout one.

Here are the originals of the truck -
Front: http://www.corvetteclub.org.uk/images/user_special...
Rear: http://www.corvetteclub.org.uk/images/user_special...

And an extra one -
Tailgate: http://www.corvetteclub.org.uk/images/user_special...

I'd like to be able to print these out on my trusty Canon MX700 and mount them in frames to present as a gift, so while the poster idea is good it's going to be tricky for me to arrange. The recipient is not a stylish youth and so I don't think anything too trendy/cool is going to work.

I've taken a couple of photos of my Vette that I was pleased with, but haven't got the perfect setting yet. I want to find some dilapidated industrial backdrop to contrast the car's new paint but I haven't seen much like that in Sussex. The car's off the road for a major chassis overhaul at the moment so there won't be much happening for a couple of months at least.





Sorry for delayed response - I've been working and didn't check for replies.

Edited by sublimatica on Tuesday 13th May 23:40

[sublimatica]

Simpo Two said:

The one thing that strikes me as odd is that in number 3 the car is driving itself...

ETA and if the car was actually moving, the wheels would be blurred too. Radial blur y'know...

I know what you mean, Simpo. I cropped the image so the driver's position was slightly ambiguous, but perhaps not 100% successfully.
I don't have a clue where to start with radial blur (especially in an elliptical shape like the wheels!). Strictly speaking the ground's blur ought to be curved too since the car's turning a corner.

I only wanted to remove some of the detail from the ground to hide the distracting texture of the concrete and draw the car out of the picture a bit. I'd welcome alternative suggestions if you've got any good ideas.

[The_Jackal]

Mmmmm I love that side on pic of the Vette and the moody sky.
So for your mates pic you want just a single image? If you choose the one you want I'll have a mess around. Is there any text you would want as a title or details incorporated in the pic (for example the exact make model and year of the vehicle?)

[sublimatica]

The_Jackal said:

Mmmmm I love that side on pic of the Vette and the moody sky.

Thanks - that was my first HDR experiment but I didn't have two perfectly-aligned source exposures so I can't blow that one up large enough to be stunning. Will practice more when the car's back on the road.

The_Jackal said:

So for your mates pic you want just a single image? If you choose the one you want I'll have a mess around. Is there any text you would want as a title or details incorporated in the pic (for example the exact make model and year of the vehicle?)

I figured I'd try and do something with the two photos of the red Vette above. That's John's favourite car and I took a whole load of pictures to try and get one or two that I could do something with. Those are the best two, given the poor backdrop and light that was available. I think I'm keen to keep the car red (rather than B&W) so it's obvious to John that it's his car. I'd like to use them both if I can, so that I can give John something more than a single photo of the car.

Don't worry about adding text or borders to the images thanks - I'm fairly happy doing that sort of thing. It's the creative ideas on how best to turn OK photos into stunning prints by clever Photoshop techniques that I'm keen to learn. I thought stigmundfreud demonstrated this well in his photos of Swindon.

The truck was mainly for my amusement, since I don't plan to give John photos of it. I thought I'd post them for comment only.

[The_Jackal]

Something like this?

Oops didnt see your last post. One thing I noticed was that the ISO was about 300. Especially in daylight, if you are using a tripod try and use 100 for the least noise.
I'm off to bed now but I'll try and come up with a two pic idea for the Corvette.

Edited by The_Jackal on Wednesday 14th May 00:38

[TypeRandy]

Something a little different maybe...

[9.3]

Dogs were up early.... maybe I should have stayed in bed.....

[sublimatica]

Thanks for those suggestions.

TypeRandy, it looks like you've posterised the image to create yours, or did you just boost the saturation? I must have played with those kinds of filters myself, but when someone else does it it looks better somehow

9.3, I like yours too. How have you done that? It might be a bit abstract for the recipient but I like the effect. The dashboard and wheel look really cool - proper '70s movie poster. That's the kind of thing I could do to my own car quite nicely.

[9.3]

Cropped. Radial Blur on wheel (Filter, Blur, Radial Blur). Levels / Saturation (Layers, Levels, Saturation). Poster Edges (Filter, Artistic, Poster Edges).

[TypeRandy]

All I did was a high pass sharpen, boost fill light, boost contrast and boost highlight. It was the increased highlight that made the red look shinier and the slight loss of detail combined with extra sharpening give it the slightly posterised look.
Hope this helps.