Car Retouching??

[luciengordon]

Anybody know how to professionally retouch cars? Or know of any good websites on the subject all i can find is sites that tell you how to put a body kit on a car or make it chrome.

any help would be cool
cheers

[MrAlexajlex]

I'd be interested in this as well.

The #1 thing I can think of is refelections (even with a PL filter some may still be left because of the angles, etc.)

I can imagine the demand has to be there after all most of of us don't have access to hangars with huge white screens for diffusing light. We deal with a lot of outdoors stuff and that introduces a lot of reflections.

[SandiG]

Check out BAEKDAL.COM, scroll down to Toyota IQ and then poke around to find various tutorials on how to make car graphics.

[palms1]

Not too sure on what sort of tutorial you mean but just incase this is the sort of thing you are after take a look here

#9

http://www.nikoncafe.com/vforums/sho...d.php?t=176815

Palms

[Steve Payne]

I find you should treat them as if they were portrait shots. Remove imperfections, enhance highlights and contours, why not just treat the headlights as if they were eyes. It's all the same really.

If you know how to retouch it shouldn't make a difference what it is you're retouching.
Objects are just objects, there's no real difference. They're all made up of light and shadow and the gradients that link them.

[luciengordon]

not really i was looking for some thing that showed me tips on how to get the professional retouched look on a car. i have been trying to get a few scratches and un wanted shadows of it and bring out the shape more but i have tried all i know and it does not seem to work.

i cant show the photo because i do not have the rights to but i have tried clone stamp history brush and D&B pixel by pixel with the paint brush but non of it works.


http://www.stuarthallphoto.com/

this guys work is the affect i am trying to go for (on his car work)

cheers

[pod]

yes it will be great find a nice car retouch tutorial but I did not see it anywhere
I

[MrAlexajlex]

Originally Posted by palms1

Not too sure on what sort of tutorial you mean but just incase this is the sort of thing you are after take a look here

#9

http://www.nikoncafe.com/vforums/sho...d.php?t=176815

Palms

Thanks.

Very good video.

Covers the main issues I think people will run into (reflections of course, shine, color depth, etc.)

Here is the direct link

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

[wtowle]

I used to sell the pros retouching . Some of the best car retouchers are in Detroit. Try looking at sites like armstrongwhite.com or geckoimaging.com. These guys are the top of the line. If you truly need professional assistance I can give you some names of these retouchers to call.

[MacBurg]

Downloaded the video but it has no audio? Anyone else have this problem?

[MrAlexajlex]

Originally Posted by MacBurg

Downloaded the video but it has no audio? Anyone else have this problem?

I downloaded it and it played fine in Media Player 10.

Try VLC

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

I was able to play it in VLC as well however, note that due to the encoding of this video file if you fast forward or jump forward you will loose the sound and it won't come back. It works fine with sound if you just play it from beginning to end.

As far as the video itself the main car retouching steps go to about minute 28.
After that he goes into adding different backgrounds and such which you can skip over (not that they are bad but you probably already know how to do that kind of stuff).

[plantphoto]

Probably too late for you now but I'm currently producing some car photography & retouching videos.I'm working on my second volume at the moment which will cover car rigs and retouching.
Cheers,
Simon

[chex]

i worked for a long time with car retouching, and in general, probably, you can treat it like if you were retouching a face, not the same, but gives you an idea, but for example, if you want to get rid of reflects, you need to paint over and that kind of tricks..

[ray12]

I have been having a fun time taking the reflections off of perfect pictures... and lifting off the sheens... and making up sheen brushes... to be able to transfer those reflections to other cars. Use the blend-if sliders on a layer to isolate just the sheens...then make a library of sheens or brushes that can be softlight stamped onto other surfaces.

Ray12

[garibaldi]

most of those great car shots you are seeing and oogling over are most likely cgi

[chex]

i don't know wich images are you saying, but i worked for over 3 years with real photos, from profesional photographers in the US and some other few i took sometimes here in Mexico, etc... i'm just talking for Honda and Acura, wich i worked for...

[garibaldi]

These days they are using more and more cgi, not saying that you cant shoot a car on location, its more cost effective to fake it thats all, but in that you can get perfect images

[plantphoto]

I think you are right it's now becoming more mainstream to use CGI.
I did these in 2006 before it really took off
http://www.plantphoto.com/cgiautomotive.php
The image of car in the cave was only one I did not retouch and this cost £25,000 GBP to produce in post production NOT including my photography and shooting the HDr dome.The model and rendering on this image was done in collaboration with Taylor James in London.
Simon

[eraanexact]

CGI is used more often, true. But those CGI cars still need a lot of work from the retouchers to make them look more realistic and less like a render. A lot of smoothing of polygonal lines has to happen, and I routinely have to put in much more shape than a straight-up render can allow for. That might speak more to the quality of the renders I get to start with, and some renders are definitely better than others; but all of them get worked on by a retoucher.

[chex]

well, yeah, i know that it's more cost effective to make a cgi picture, but what i was saying, is that the car is a real photo, most of the times, and then you get the cgi of the enviroment. and as eraanexact is saying, a render most of the times needs a lot of work from the retouchers... i see a lot of advertising with rendered cars, like VW or Audi, sometimes Mercedes, and for a trained eye pops up a render...

[abenormal]

the car is a real photo, most of the times, and then you get the cgi of the enviroment.

In my experience (several years on GMC and SAAB), it is exactly the opposite; CGI cars are being placed into real environments. This makes sense for the company because they already have perfect 3D models of the cars modelled as part of the design process, it's just a matter of lighting and rendering the existing models for the ad work.

The CGI cars still need work, it's just usually less work than the real shots. The CGI cars never get wrecked on the way to the photo shoot... and yes, I did once have to de-wrinkle a quarter panel on an SUV from a $50k photo shoot.

Cars (and cell phones) have a lot of distinct shapes with hard edges. I use a lot of paths to isolate entire sections, then apply masked curves, paint, or gradient fill with the appropriate colors. Minor scuffs and reflections can sometimes be cloned out if they lie on a gradient with the right orientation, but if they are in a gradient with 3 or more axis then sometimes it is easier to replace the entire section.

[eraanexact]

I made a workflow tutorial for car retouching a few years ago, just found it on a backup drive yesterday.
It goes over the rudimentary, nuts-and-bolts stuff like fit and finish and masking/light illustration to remove and simplify environmental reflections. I left off on how to do drop shadows though, so it's not fully complete.

Here is the link:

http://www.box.net/shared/uxej5onnft

It's a 9meg .pdf file, so everyone should be able to see it.

[plantphoto]

Nice tutorial Richy you should do a screencast.
Simon

[eraanexact]

@plantphoto:
Thanks! Screencast? Like do this stuff live and field questions?

[plantphoto]

No record the screen while explaing the retouching..basically a movie.
Simon

[robglemas]

What kind of things are you looking to do??? I have retouching cars now for around 10 years....

[plantphoto]

Hi,
I do these type of training videos for my members site I just thought Richies PDf might make a good video.
Simon

[Flashtones]

Originally Posted by eraanexact

I made a workflow tutorial for car retouching a few years ago, just found it on a backup drive yesterday.
It goes over the rudimentary, nuts-and-bolts stuff like fit and finish and masking/light illustration to remove and simplify environmental reflections. I left off on how to do drop shadows though, so it's not fully complete.

Here is the link:

http://www.box.net/shared/uxej5onnft

It's a 9meg .pdf file, so everyone should be able to see it.

I enjoyed your tutorial. Was sad it ended abruptly - I hope you'll finish it someday or make additional ones.

Got two questions;

1. It appears you do your airbrushing first then hide with a mask. Is that true? Just curious because I typically do it in reverse (mask then paint) under the assumption I will better see what I am getting. Should I rethink this?

2. When working the side mirror shadow around the fender, what is your method for making the mask where the fender blends into the body (looks to be layer #34 or 35). I'm assuming you use the pen tool to follow the curve, but then what is your preferred method of softening the mask edge so the transition between surfaces and masks are smooth?

Let me know if my questions are confusing. Thanks.

[eraanexact]

Simon: Oh, I see. I'll take that into consideration! Thankfully, I'm still a little too busy to figure out how to do such a thing.

Flashtones: Glad you enjoyed it, and yeah it could be much longer for sure.

For your questions:
1. For that instance, I did the airbrushing first and masked it off afterwards, but lately I've been doing the reverse. So no need to rethink your workflow. It all depends on what you're comfortable with.

2. The first layer of airbrushing (layer 35) was essentially the base of the sheet metal, so it didn't need an exact mask. The next layer (34) has the fender shape mask, and I'm pretty sure I just freehanded it with a softish brush, probably a 25% hardness and around 50pixels wide. You can use the pen tool though if you prefer, and then just gaussian blur the mask so it's a softer blend.

[Flashtones]

Thanks Richy, I appreciate you sharing the knowledge.