Car Show Shots

RealityCheck · Sep 1, 2013

Opinions on the colors and logo placement? Trying to get a distinctive look going. Feedback from any car enthusiast would be great. Must improve! (Pics look better in PS without the compression)

tirediron · Sep 1, 2013

Not really a fan of logos in general - if you feel the need to put one on your work, then I would say the lower-left-corner is the best of the options shown here. It looks like the weather was working against you for these, dull, soft lighting means you get rather flatly lit images without any real 'pop'. Consider some fill light and the use of a polarizing filter to help combat this (a polarizer is a must for this sort of work to help control reflections).

Shipman · Sep 1, 2013

I shoot a lot of automotive photography and am an avid enthusiust so I understand the look youre going for here, its very popular on auto forums as a way to edit the pics, I actually see this soft overcast quite often and happen to like it. As far as the logo is concerned I dont really care for it, I think it needs to be more subtle, if youre going to use that logo try fading it and seeing if it will blend into the picture a little more. As far as the shots themselves I feel like you need to capture more of the car, youre getting about 75% of them and then cutting the rest out of the frame. The one of the GTI would be much better if the horizon was level however I really like the evo pic.

Was the edit done in lightroom? Regardless can you give me the settings you used in a PM, I have a couple pictures Id like to see how this would look on.

RealityCheck · Sep 1, 2013

Thanks to both of you for your responses. These pictures were taken during a cloudy day which is the reason why I edited them with some exposure, contrast, brightness and slight gradients on them. Hoping to make them not so dull.
@ Tirediron, I often do put them in the corner if anything, but will place it off to the side in certain positions.
@ Shipman, appreciate your understanding of it. I was afraid no one would get what I was trying to get at here,
because I see a lot of this style on automotive photography websites and I was trying to go for it. I didn't want my logo to be too obnoxious,
yet I like to tune down the opacity a bit depending on the photo like in the GTI photo. The blue Evo was definitely my favorite. It was showroom clean and I decided to do that 'top down' view.
Which settings would you like? GTI or the Evo? I used lightroom on the GTI and the Chevrolet.

Shipman · Sep 1, 2013

I like both the GTI and the chevelle

RealityCheck · Sep 2, 2013

These were actually done in Lighting Effects under Filter > Render
I placed the light points in the center and expanded the range to give it a soft light spot.
Chev -
Gradient map (black and white) opacity set low.
Light Point 1: Color: Tan/Warm sand color ~ Intensity - 11 / same settings after vvvvv
Light Point 2: Color: White ~ Intensity - 6 / Colorize: Gray ~ Exposure - 66 / Gloss: -66 / Metallic: -100 / Ambiance: 14

GTI-
Same settings but with warm filter used first and gradient map.