First Car Shot

One of my colleagues saw some of my street shots and asked if I could take some pics of his Camaro, he wanted a pic of it sort of emerging from the dark looking aggressive. I told him I've never really done cars before but would be happy to see what I can do and the next day I brought in my 5D2, a couple of wide angle lenses and a tripod and we went down to the public car park to see what we could capture. Obviously there is a lot of PS involved in the shot (I think this applies to most car pics)and this is what I ended up with. He was happy and I was quite pleased. Going to shoot another guys Mustang weekend after next as he thought the pics were good as well!.

Hardest part of the edit was removing the front number plate. Took a lot of cloning.

Let me know what you think would have been better.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/AGYb​C9

For "sort of emerging from the dark looking aggressive", it looks like you did OK, & it's far better than most "first car pics" here. I can't say that I'm thrilled by the leaning concrete pillar growing out of the fender. Maybe it could have been off to the side a little.
Here's spot9's idea for a black Chrysler 300 in The automotive strobist setup pic thread.
My idea for a Camaro just looking aggressive.
And for the 'Stang lover, how about a '70 Mustang Fastback?

Look over the links in my Sig, and...

You are right about the pillar. I was too focussed on other stuff!! I did say we shot it were it was parked in the public car park but we could have easily moved it I guess.

The Mustang Man has his own, bought it last weekend!! I will post the pics when I get them done in about 2 weeks as he is back in HK for a bit.

Will see If I can sort the pillar out. Might just look too fake if I remove it completely. Something to think about this weekend bit pleased it was an acceptable first attempt on at least 1 judgement

Edited the pillar away. Will delete the really distracting area next to where it used to be tomorrow as it is 23:30 here and I am out with some street photo friends at 5:30 tomorrow so I should go to bed!!

Heres the latest version

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/AGYb​C9

I like it. Nice low standpoint, nice background.


Michiel>=-

I like that better, except for the bright part of the background intersecting the top of the right fender.
And in this forum, we prefer that you not delete the original images in a thread that you've started.

Good shot for your first try!

It doesn't matter what you do to the image, something about it will always bother Frank. When you fix the bright area over the fender, the pipe coming out of the passenger mirror will bother him. Then the pillar on the left. Then the curb behind the car, etc...

Just take a black brush to the entire background and it will be satisfactory.

96whiteknight wrote in post #17781466
Good shot for your first try!

It doesn't matter what you do to the image, something about it will always bother Frank. When you fix the bright area over the fender, the pipe coming out of the passenger mirror will bother him. Then the pillar on the left. Then the curb behind the car, etc...

Just take a black brush to the entire background and it will be satisfactory.

You forgot the halo around the body? If somebody didn't point those things out, you guys would never see them.

You're right.

OP should've pasted this onto a photo of the car's hood and erased the background.

big_g wrote in post #17781129
One of my colleagues saw some of my street shots and asked if I could take some pics of his Camaro, he wanted a pic of it sort of emerging from the dark looking aggressive. I told him I've never really done cars before but would be happy to see what I can do and the next day I brought in my 5D2, a couple of wide angle lenses and a tripod and we went down to the public car park to see what we could capture. Obviously there is a lot of PS involved in the shot (I think this applies to most car pics)and this is what I ended up with. He was happy and I was quite pleased. Going to shoot another guys Mustang weekend after next as he thought the pics were good as well!.

Hardest part of the edit was removing the front number plate. Took a lot of cloning.

Let me know what you think would have been better.

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

Savs car intermediate 2.jpg by Big_g2, on Flickr

can't see the original photo..

Sorry guys I am copying the links from my flickr site and haven't got all the various stages of the edit on there. Haven't worked out how to post from Lightroom (doh!)

The final version is this, I gave up at this point as my mate was well happy with the result

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/AGYb​C9

It's a lot easier if you select the edges of the car first. This is the overall best way that I've found for objects with hard edges: Selecting areas in PS.