In yesterday's post, I mentioned the Bombay Sapphire Gin product shot that I had been working on at the same time as the Corona bottle. As you can see, its a 'dynamic' product shot (ooh, its moving) and is one I'm rather proud of.
You can see the multiple curve layers at work, on the label, the bottle, the glass, even on the background at work here. The glass was a little tricky, some color creeped in from somewhere, but luckily when shooting clear liquids and glass, the 'screen' layer mode will basically retain the image while making it translucent for all intents and purposes in photoshop. The 'gin' being poured in is actually technically in black and white, and the whole pour and glass are separate from the bottle and on completely different layers. More tips and tricks after the jump.
A lot of the same techniques used in the Corona bottle came in to play here. The setup (and lack of a picture of it) was two softboxes, angled downards from the front and back of the bottle get nice, even lighting and make the highlights on the bottle. this was originally shot horizontally, but I switched it to vertical to maintain a little differentiation from the shot I for all intents and purposes did rip off in order to practice this, and also because a client would likely want their viewer to not have to tilt their head to find out what the product was. Not that anyone could mistake this beautiful blue bottle for something else.
But once it was rotated, the asymmetry of the bottle was revealed. cloning over the entire left side while maintaining the label gives it a much stronger and professional impact than if it were noticeably different one side to the other. There are a few highlights in the bottle than I may put back to their original form, but I rather like it. Hyper symmetry is no good either.
One thing I did know going into this shot, and that I decided against incorporating for several reasons, is that alcohol pours and appears different than water. Most people won't notice the difference, but alcohol pours much smoother and appears more viscous than water. In real product shots, the real product, or something made to mimic the real product is the final touch to ensure the image is perfect.
And again, a 10 minute ( or even less, just moving the foamcore to the ground, moving the lights and adjusting the tripod to use a different lens) setup, 10 minutes of shooting (took so long to go refill the bottle and empty the glass after 3 frames), it was just about an hour in photoshop. All was going according to plan until that 90 degree CCW switch, which revealed the bottle to be ugly on the (now) right side. the duplication of the left occurred after, as well as some futzing with the glass and the masking getting lost somewhere.
But, by 5 am, I did have another colorful product shot that I'm only slightly less proud of for the fact that it was not originally my idea. Credit goes to Rob Dowsley and his array of very nice product shots that makes me get off my ass and work on my own.
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