Depth of colour and sharpness

Not sure were this should be posted Transportation seems to be more of a show it off than advice section.

What I am looking for is setup and execution advice for this type of shot. I should explain that I detailed this car and take this type of shot to promote the detailing business. What I am looking to do is show a customer the quality of the finish stands apart from your basic car valet/detail, in fact that my work stands above other high-end detailers.

Both shot RAW, 350D and 28-85mm at 28mm with polarising filter. Auto mode

1. Shot handheld.

Color saturation and sharpness look good to me. One thing I would do is to find a less distracting background, maybe in the middle of a parking lot or in a grassy field. You want people looking at the car, not the shrubbery. Shooting AP mode is fine. try to shoot around f8 to get the maximum sharpness from your lens.

Thanks for the advice.

Agree with the location, unfortunately most customers don't want to drive their cars when I have finished with them. So persuading to move them is a problem.

With the set of pics for this one there was a nice open space to the left of the shots, but the sun was setting there and obviously I didn't want to shoot into it.

So I often to work with the environment I am stuck with.

This is one of my most frustrating pics, 8 hours labour on the car and then stuck under flourescents and the workshop backdrop

You got a paintbooth in that shop?

Why not cut the car out with Photoshop and add the background you desire. I will take you some time but will give you lots of pop with no distraction.

chauncey wrote in post #3908694
You got a paintbooth in that shop?

Nope that is a Porsche Dealership.

poloman wrote in post #3908781
Why not cut the car out with Photoshop and add the background you desire. I will take you some time but will give you lots of pop with no distraction.

The trouble with that is the customers begin to suspect the whole pic is doctored and that the finish may not be representative of the work.

Oh...well I thought I'd do a quickie on the first one for you. I used a path to select the vehicle. In retrospect, I think I should have only feathered the mask 1 or 2 pixels instead of 3.

Thanks for the demo. The window and door pillar become a problem

Yeah...I only wanted to spend so much time...I think you could pretty easily control what is reflected and a piece of black cloth would go a long way in the opposite glass.
Looks like you do a beautiful job!