A few more for consideration

[RayGuselli]

I enjoy playing with auto images and would appreciate any comments/feedback re my ideas on these.

My thanks ass always to Kid deuce who kindly allows me to work on his car shots.

Thank you for looking

Kind regards

Ray

a typical before

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/89/24...6a025935_b.jpg

after

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/9486/duesenberg2.jpg

A couple of afters

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/9379/duesenbergred.jpg

http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/9486/duesenberg2.jpg

[ChiefK]

I love the work you did on these images. Wish you would share your techniques.

[RayGuselli]

Thank you for your kind words.

I am happy to share what I do.

I have a couple of tutorials out, one is a video.

I did them some time ago so have moved on a little, but the principles are the same.

Have a look and see if they help.

Kind regards

Ray

Basic tutorial

http://www.tutiki.org/w/index.php/Pen_Tool_Tutorial
video

http://rapidshare.com/files/40440637..._size.wmv.html

[Bigdawgz]

Awesome job. Your end results have such a cool feel to them. Almost dreamy or something. I like them alot. Autos can be tough to work with you did a good job making the car even more appealing. I look forward to seeing more keep it up

[seattle-light]

Hey RayGuselli...

Nice work on the cars overall. But a couple of quick observations.

1) The starbursts on the highlights don't look realistic. Too many and too uniform. You don't need to paste a starburst on every bright spot.

2) The reflections of the cars in the floor just aren't believeable. If you're going to try to fake a glossy reflection in the floor, you're going to need to spend a lot of time to get it to look even halfway convincing. You could easily spend more time on the reflection than on the car (and probably still not get it quite right).

Meanwhile, it's probably not worth your time and effort to build those reflections to actually make them look believable. Reflections like that can be dramatic, but they can also be a real distraction from the central subject. Seems to me that you'd be better served by not using a glossy reflection and just creating natural looking cast shadows to set the car into its new environment. Maybe a bit of a diffuse reflection to show how light bounces off of the white tire sidewalls and quickly dissipates. A deep glossy reflection shows every shortcoming (which you're trying to cover through ripples and such) and your original images don't really give you the information you need to work with.

Even if you get it mostly right, the human eye and brain detect minor discrepancies and know that something is wrong even when you don't consciously know what it is. The glossy environment isn't something that we regularly encounter in the real world so our minds are predisposed to disbelieve it anyway. Seems to me that you're creating an unnecessary uphill battle for yourself.

Keep up the good work.

Hope you're doing well. Take care. Alan.

[RayGuselli]

Hi Alan

That is great help and much appreciated.

I will bear this in mind when I do my next car

I am very grateful for such helpful feedback......so much to learn

Kind regards

Ray

[seattle-light]

Hey Ray...

Glad you found that helpful.

The more you learn the more you realize how much more you need to learn. And that we are all on a pretty steep learning curve in this life.

The work on the cars is pretty amazing. It was a bit of a shame to see the reflections undermining the images.

Keep up the good work.

Hope you are doing well. Take care. Alan.

[SalBolzano]

Hello my Friend ! I liked the Red one of the afters of yours but a litttle question - the spare tire in over a step but yet i shows in the reflection.. i think it shall be shown less because it is obstructed by the step... Agree? Love your car retouches always !

[NCP Doug]

You have some great work here. I do agree with Alan on the sunburst reflections, a little goes a long way. I also like subdued reflections - on some images, I do agree that they can be distracting from the main image.
An example of a subdued image can be found on this '31 Chrysler;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ratrods...ol-1024451@N24

Photo by Gene, at Rat Rod Studios.

Keep posting your images,

Doug

[RayGuselli]

Some good points re the reflections....

I think that they should be substantially less - or perhaps not there at all.

They are only intended as an artistic effect but perhaps are too strong.

Good point re the tire Sal.

Also, too many starbursts.....agreed.

Will try another and post.

Best wishes and thanks

Ray