Shooting and compositing inside garments/clothes.

[julius0377]

I'm comissioned for a shoot on thursdag where I will do both the photography and the retouching/compositing.

The client wants a look somewhat similar to the popular "look, there is an invisible person inside" for producers of sporting clothes.

Here is an example from Casall:

Casallsportswear.com

The AD was convinced we could shoot it with see through dolls, but I'm pretty sure that will not work, the rear of the products will be way too distorted.

I'm thinking shoot it on a doll, then remove the doll and thoot the inside separate with wire/string etc. and PS it all together, add some masks and shadows, etc. etc.

Would love to hear from someone who has done this type of product photography and compositing before.

By the way: Greetings from Norway to the Retouchpro forum, this is my first post, although I've been lurking in the past...

[ktg222]

There was a thread here on RP some years ago that discussed this very thing. Doug, do you remember? Any other long-time members? I'm not sure what word to search for.

k

[palms1]

Hello and welcome julius

I cant remember seeing anything on this site but here is a link to a tutorial hope it is of some help, please keep us informed on how you get on,

http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161099&page=1

Palms

[julius0377]

Thanks for the help so far.

The tutorial certainly gives some tips as to how to deal with nonexistent content, but the inside of the garments I have to shoot need to be the actual inside composited or shown using a photo technique.

I'm going to try shooting multiple angles on dolls and using wires to hold up bits an pieces when shooting insides. Then compositing... puh, it's going to take time (some 60+ products.) Some of the tutorial techniques will come in handy for edges and stuff where I'll be missing image content.

I'll be back to let you know how it went (it's due august, so some time....)

[pixeltek]

have you considered using a clear mannequin? scroll halfway down the link:

http://www.mannequinco.com/hard_shell_form.htm

maybe you can find one with a dull/clear finish.

just a thought.

[Richard Quindry]

I've done some similar things to this with smaller products (headlamps that strap over your head so the strap holds the shape like a head is in it.)

I do the following -

First - steam the garment so it looks as good as possible using a high quality steamer.
Next - I use several layers of masking tape in hidden areas to make things "stiffer" while fabric is in the shape that you want it.
Last - Add wire forms wherever you can to provide more shape and support. The best wire to use is called armature wire and comes in a few thicknesses in the US. Its a heavy (the thickest version is about 1/4" thick.) leaded wire that is very easy to shape and cut. It's used by sculptors to act as a form to build on. It's sold at professional art supply stores.
By building up shapes with the wire - perhaps hanging the whole thing on a rig so that the bottom doesn't flatten against a surface and you get "gravity" effects", you should get a very good starting point and the wire doesn't cover that much and it's easy to retouch out. You also might use "batting" material (It's the stuffing used in quilting) over the wire so that the shape of the wire doesn't show through on the front surface.

Hopefully you can make up some forms that will be reusable for several products.

You can do it - have fun.

Rich Quindry

www.Quindry.com

[Richard Quindry]

I just reviewed the site (Cassallsportswear) that you referred to, and looked at a lot of their images.

I've believe that they did indeed use a transparent mannequin. Lighting could be done in a way to minimize glare - a polarizer could also be used (although it might pick up stress lines in the plastic mannequin). Then you could use the patch tool to copy the fabric texture from elsewhere in the photo or another photo of the fabric (doesn't even need to be the same color) and drop in a large patch of texture in the back section - the use the healing and clone stamp tools to take it out to the edges.

Rich Quindry

www.Quindry.com