How to Create Professional Product Shots with a Light Tent and Digital Editing!
October 1st, 2006
Step 3: Now we will begin to deal with the background, which at this point is too bright for my tastes. By tweaking the shutter and aperture and moving the lights during the physical photo session, you can actually get a very dark almost totally black background and bypass this step completely. It can be a bit tricky though, so I thought the really new folks could benefit from this step. The key though is to try and achieve as much as you can with the camera and do as little as possible during digital post editing in a graphics program. After all, the point here is to become a better photographer and not just a better at editing photos!
Let’s start by creating a duplicate of the photo by doing a copy/paste (hit ctrl-c followed by ctrl-v).
Now click on that object and pop open the Brightness/Contrast/Intensity tool again and darken your image to the point that the background is totally black. You may want to pump the intensity and contrast up so you can still make the photo’s focal object if lowering the brightness makes it too hard to see. I used the following settings:
Our background is the right color now, but now our statue is way too dark and we need to get rid of it. So grab your eraser tool and use a 50 pixel rounded nib and start erasing the statue from the object.
Start erasing the statue from this layer object, and the lighter version under it will start to appear:
The statue has been erased from the dark layer:
On the object docker, you can see that all that’s left of the dark layer is the black backgrounds… the white is where we’ve erased the layer.
You now have a black background to the photo!
Please contine to the next page »
Dan I don’t have time to read through an 11 page tutorial atm, but from briefly browsing through looks brilliant all except that disgusting thing lol
Pleased to read no aliens, chestbursters, or humans were injured during the making of this tutorial.
Hope Corina got her room back.
Wow! I’ve always wanted to know how you did that “dreamy” effect!
Thanks for a great tutorial! =)
Cheers mate. This will come in very handy.
[...] read more | digg story [...]
[...] One of the things I get asked on here the most is what are my tricks and secrets for the professional quality photos I take for my product reviews. Well look no further! I spent almost 8 hours writing out all my tricks and tips along with photos of how I set up all my gear, what I use and how I edit the photos digitally. You can read my entire tutorial on my personal blog in my new tutorials called “How to Create Professional Product Shots with a Light Tent and Digital Editing!“. Enjoy! [...]
Awesome tutorial! Thaks for publishing it on the web for all of us!
Cheers,
Scott
Thanks Dan for all the time and effort you put in to help us fellow predator fans. Your site has been an unbelievable source of info and your photo guide is no different. More power man.
regards,
dan
I found rather than shelling out for a light tent, my £2.75 Ikea clothes bag works just aswell http://www.ikea.com/PIAimages/05345_PE079848_S4.jpg
Using the same set up as you (with the two lights either side) I got some decent results.
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/38345567/
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/38345357/
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/38345425/
Nice tut Dan
Cool idea Mooey, thanks for sharing
That would definitely work well and your pics look great 
Dan