Getting the "magazine look"

[yardley]

I've downloaded it but CS4 won't open it.

Here you go, I saved it as a TIFF.

http://rapidshare.com/files/365622956/IMG_2080_copy.tif

 

[ANDS!]

Lol. As if that were the Mona Lisa. . .

Anyway, as has been clearly demonstrated here - you can get ok results from mediocre beginnings with what you have. Just run the posted file through Photomatix or a similar program. Something like this:

Which is just an extreme example of what you can "fake", if you can't make it in your camera.

 

[yardley]

Lol. As if that were the Mona Lisa. . .

Anyway, as has been clearly demonstrated here - you can get ok results from mediocre beginnings with what you have. Just run the posted file through Photomatix or a similar program. Something like this:

Which is just an extreme example of what you can "fake", if you can't make it in your camera.

Thats pretty cool. Mind sharing how you processed the picture? I tried Photomatrix and actually used exposure bracketing but I didn't get the results I wanted. Either I'm not good at tweaking the settings or I'm not taking good enough exposures. Here's a set of bracketed exposures. I'm I doing something wrong?

http://rapidshare.com/files/365713153/car.zip

 

[kami]

Maybe you might want to ask a friend of mine who just recently shot some exotics. He used a couple of vivitar flashes and 1 AB which he moved around to light up the cars correctly then he made a composite.

check it out:

Flickr: Jan Paul Yap's Photostream

 

[BrandonS]

I think I went the wrong way with my PP; but since I spent time; here ya go lol. I'm willing to bet those are HDR's you posted along with multi flash/diffuser/reflector setups. Instead of see everything, I ended up with a dark grungy look. Sorry.

What I did was dodge the highlights and burn the shadows to make the features pop a little more. I also went over the ground dodging highlights and burning the shadows. Where there were tire marks I went over them once again. I desaturated the picture, which is just my taste, but I think it lends itself with the black car because you don't have the background colors distracting you. I also created 3 layers of gradient from black to white and put those on Multiply for their type to create a vignette affect; of which I controlled the amount with the opacity of the layer. I also have 2 brightness/contrast layers with masks. One controls the entire image minus the car and the other is just an inverse of the first ones mask to control brightness/contrast on the car. There are probably better ways to do this, but this is how I've figured it out and I know how to do it so it's how I do it; haha.

Good luck.

Additionally, looking back I would have not burned the tar line and cloned it out.

 

[yardley]

Maybe you might want to ask a friend of mine who just recently shot some exotics. He used a couple of vivitar flashes and 1 AB which he moved around to light up the cars correctly then he made a composite.

check it out:

Flickr: Jan Paul Yap's Photostream

Thanks for the link! Really like your friends pictures.

 

[yardley]

I think I went the wrong way with my PP; but since I spent time; here ya go lol. I'm willing to bet those are HDR's you posted along with multi flash/diffuser/reflector setups. Instead of see everything, I ended up with a dark grungy look. Sorry.

What I did was dodge the highlights and burn the shadows to make the features pop a little more. I also went over the ground dodging highlights and burning the shadows. Where there were tire marks I went over them once again. I desaturated the picture, which is just my taste, but I think it lends itself with the black car because you don't have the background colors distracting you. I also created 3 layers of gradient from black to white and put those on Multiply for their type to create a vignette affect; of which I controlled the amount with the opacity of the layer. I also have 2 brightness/contrast layers with masks. One controls the entire image minus the car and the other is just an inverse of the first ones mask to control brightness/contrast on the car. There are probably better ways to do this, but this is how I've figured it out and I know how to do it so it's how I do it; haha.

Good luck.

Additionally, looking back I would have not burned the tar line and cloned it out.

Thanks for taking a shot at it Brandon, and for the detailed explanation! I def have to look into some equipment for multi-flash work.