image editing Image editing encompasses the processes of altering images, whether they are digital photographs, traditional photochemical photographs, or illustrations.
36 1 2 路 workflow
the project
Jewellery on model
DIAMANTSMYKKER
Taking good jewellery shots on a Prisgaranti model is so incredibly challenging – Danmarks billigste – 14 kt. guld because making the model and the jewellery look right at the same time is nearly impossible. So faking jewellery on a shot is much easier and gives a much better result if you master the right technique.
Fra kr.
1.795,-
14 kt. diamantsmykke med 0,05 ct.
workflow · 17
photoshop, my good old fellow! I must admit one of my absolute favourite applications in the Adobe Suite is good old Photoshop. The development might hang a bit compared to some new players like Sketch but it has a rock solid base and I love it. This case is centred around Photoshop, but as explained in the typography case I can’t explain all the stuff that I know in one single case, so I’ll stick with the relevant stuff for this project, and touch a few others but not in great detail.
18 · image editing
RAW and colour settings Before we even start creating anything, we need to ensure our original files are in our desired colour space, and that we edit as much as we can in the RAW converter, so we don’t loose colour data.
Sadly this photo is not in a RAW format, so editing the photo with the RAW converter can not save any colour data, but you can still use it if you want to.
In this case the model image is a stock photo with an embedded colour profile that probably comes from the camera the photo was taken with. But before we start editing I will like always recommend to convert the photo to Adobe RGB 1998 to ensure the same starting point on all images. It’s a common workflow to use Adobe RGB 1998 because this profile ensures a correct white balance if all channels are set equal in the high blacks the middle greys and the bright white. This gives us a nice way to easily adjust the white balance correctly.
Now that our image is converted to Adobe RGB 1998 (using a perceptual conversion to save the best colour gradients, which is highly important in skin tones, rather than using the relative colorimetric conversion that would just preserve the actual colours), we can begin our editing of the model. My experience is that most good stock models are already very well edited, and there might not be much work to do other than sparking the contrast a bit. However, I am going to show you how to do it anyway, and also how to check if it's necessary.
white balance and skin tones As mentioned above we have to ensure that the white balance is correct. But what dos that mean? Basically that the white is actually white... and that grey is grey, and black is black. 95% of the times I just look at the image to see if there is a problem. I simply just ask myself, dos this look right? But there is also a way to check it in numbers if in doubt, and you also need to know how to do that in order to fix the images that you might actually think are wrong. So let’s get into this. The white balance can be checked and fixed in a couple of ways.
light caucasian
caucasian
dark caucasian
asian
light black
dark black
3 15 16 0 CMYK
6 27 32 0 CMYK
17 50 58 0 CMYK
8 30 48 0 CMYK
21 53 69 0 CMYK
46 67 77 0 CMYK
image editing · 19
The easy way is to open the image in the RAW converter and use the white balance tool. All you have to do is simply click on a white spot with the tool and it will adjust the white balance accordingly. This works on 99% of the images that I have worked with. But there is also a manual way, and that is also a similar technique you need to use in order to fix skin tones. To manually fix a wrong white balance you simply put an info point with the eyedropper in the black, the grey and the white. Now you are able to see what channels that holds
it will be fun, they said Next step is to remove the background. Well, no problem! But wait.. white hair on a white background? Yes my friend no worries, Photoshop has introduced our saviour in CS5. It's called Refine edge! Now we simply walk around the edges with Pen Tool just like normal, and then convert our path to a selection and click on the magic button refine edge. Oh wait, first invert your selection, in my experience this gives a lot better result using this magic wizard stuff. Now all we have to do is find a good size brush, not to small not too large, and then just move along the fluffy hair edges. Afterwards you have a ton of different options to adjust on, but in most cases you don't have to touch any of these, just select layer mask and hit okay. Tada' if you are lucky the result it pretty good, and if not try again or simply clean the errors with a normal brush in the layer-mask.颅
20 路 image editing
too much colour. Remember, all channels have to hold equally much colour. So now all you have to do is use e.g. levels to adjust the image until all 3 info points are even in all RGB channels. The same way you place an info point on the skin to see what values it holds. The standard skin tones are measured in CMYK, so we switch to CMYK in the info panel. Now you are able to see if your tone is close to some of the corresponding skin tones you want. The most important here is not the exact numbers, but the distribution between them.
ready to dress up! Our model is ready to get the jewellery on. And now it's time to find our own camera, in my case Canon EOS 6D and start shooting the images in the right angel. It is crucial to have the same angel on the photos in order to have a good result. I've done this by placing the jewellery in the combination I want on a paper role. One image for each finger in the right angel. There is a lot more to this, but I am not going to cover it in great detail, but I can tell you it's not easy getting those diamonds look shiny! This time we have RAW images, which is great! All the lighting is the same, so I simply start recording an action when I open the first image, i adjust it using the RAW converter to my preferred colour and brightness and save it as a PSD file. Afterwards I batch all of the files so that they are ready for our beautiful model to wear them.
final light, shadow and spark Now it's time to remove the background on the jewellery just by using Pen Tool. Then placing the jewellery on the right fingers and resize them in the correct aspect. After the jewellery is placed accordingly by masking and tweaking, it's time to adjust the colours and lights once again to ensure it looks 100% realistic.
layer. This time darkening and masking to get a more natural shadow on the rings them self. Now I add shadows beneath the rings by using a simple drop shadow. Sometimes I have to release the drop shadow using "create layers function" from the layer panel, in order to mask on the specific shadow.
This is the crucial part that makes everything look real. I do this by using adjustment layers with levels, and in that way adjust each individual set of rings. After all the colouring and brightness is adjusted accordingly to the model, I start to add shadows with another levels adjustments
As a final touch I add custom starts made in Adobe Illustrator to give the diamonds a little extra spark.
image editing 路 21