Smoothing and Creating a Satin Finish Paint Job

[knewsom1]

I have seen countless automobiles in magazines where the car just looks perfect. As a photographer first and foremost and graphic guy second, I have always wondered about these perfect cars. Can anyone shine some light on how this is done. It is very common to see, so there must be a simplistic method. I am attaching a picture of a car that has been doctored and hope to have someone tell me how to do it or point me to a tutorial.

[0lBaldy]

In the OLD days we used a spray to kill/dull the shine!

I thought this short conversation might interest you:

Originally Posted by pixel_monkey

Definitely, there will always be jobs for highend beauty/fashion and production retouchers. If you want something done that camera can't capture or just too expensive to produce, then you need 3D artists/retouchers with those specific skills to come in. Car companies, at least Chrysler has gotten rid of their on location photography. They just render out the cars in 3D at every angle imaginable and composite them in any background they want for their print outputs without worrying about locations, re-shoots, or anything in that matter.

Originally Posted by mac monkey

Absolutely Pixel_monkey. I was recently working with a photographer called Nick Meek on a Landrover campaign who says he can't wait for all car retouching to go this way. It saves a hell of a lot of time and effort trying to get the car on Location and in the right position. You also have the car in any angle the creative/art director needs. I must say, I would have thought most photographers would be against CGI as to protect their own interests.

Originally Posted by zogdart

From what i Gather the car photographers now needs to become landscape photographer. since there is no car to shoot your just need to provide the scenery or and the element of it, to the retouching team!

what do you guy's think of cinema 4d?

[knewsom1]

Thank you for that, but there must be some method in photoshop for those of us who still do location photography. I am the photographer for a LSV company here in the states. Our "Golf Cars" or Low Speed Vehicles are street legal on all roads posted 35mph and below. When photographing these cars, I battle with reflections, highlights ect... I wanted to know how these cars paint jobs can be smoothed and corrected. As I say, I could probably take 5hours and some trial and error but was wondering if there was a tutorial any where. I will attach a cart of ours and see if someone out there will create that satin finish for me, and explain to me how they did it. Thanks Everyone.

[jimbo6389]

I can see the problem here knewsom1, and I have at times come across a similar problem. Your photo was clearly taken outdoors, and for this type of shot the duller the day the better, together with using a polarising filter to deal with the reflections. If you were able to get this golf buggy under cover you could try a long time exposure, and use a couple of daylight balanced floodlights, and literally paint the buggy with light. If you and an assistant kept out of shot, and with very broad sweeping movements kept the lights on the move during the exposure you would be amazed what a difference that can make. You may need to use a neutral density filter to lengthen the exposure, and of course a small aperture, but this technique could save you hours of retouching. The image you have put up here is too small to do even a half reasonable attempt at retouching, merely big enough to see the problem. I have used the aforementioned technique on a light aircraft in a hangar, and the end result made it look almost as if it had been airbrushed. I hope this might help you for future shots.

[knewsom1]

I agree with you on the photography and how important that is, but if you go to the top of this thread and look at the sample photograph I submitted, I think you will agree that this not all photography. In fact I would say the majority of it is not.

[cainam]

If you want to achieve something like the example beneath, it is indeed simple.
All you have to do is simplify the reflections and paint in the metal parts on separate layers.
At the end you adjust the painted parts so they match the original photo (grain, noise, sharpened noise, blurred noise, no noise, a little noise,... whatever it takes).



http://www.pbase.com/mvc/image/81164067

To be honest: the technique is simple, doing it is not that simple.

[SteveB2005]

Also, you might pick up a copy of master retoucher
Glenn Honiball's http://www.retouch.ca/
book on commercial retouching. He covers automotive retouching

Glenn's work is very inspirational and a good link to start with

[palms]

not sure if this is up your street but maybe worth a look

tutorial

Ray has also made a video, but i dont have the time to look for it (sorry)

another example of a car here

Palms

[0lBaldy]

I would not use umbrellas and just use creative lighting fitted with diffusers and polarized film on the horizontal on all your lights and use polarized film on your camera lens at the vertical or vise-a-versa.. You may have to use more lights and selectively light the vehicle for a custom shoot but If you are tethered to the puter you can easily check how much the reflections and highlights are suppressed and make minor corrections by turning the polarized film on the individual lights... you also might have to adjust the shots by 1 or 2 stops to compensate for the polarization... also a number of strategically placed flat black reflectors might help a bunch (sort of like when shooting jewelry to control the highlights and reflections)

OR

just paint with an appropriate color post shoot..

down and dirty quick paint job

[plantphoto]

There has been a trend of late in advertising to shoot the cars in the studio where lighting & reflections can be controlled then comp in the cars to the location.
It's not a natural look but certainly clean and one solution to the problem.
Of course now things have moved on again with cgi which I have dabbled a little in.

http://www.plantphoto.com/cgiautomotive.php

Not for those on a tight budget though one image can cost £25.000 in post production without the photography!but no doubt production cost will come down over time.

Simon