How can I achieve this look?

[noxish]

Hey guys, just seeing if anyone has any pointers on how to achieve the "finished" look in these images by Josh Haskin

http://content.clickbooq.com/586/photos/355ca2d057.jpg


and this one


http://content.clickbooq.com/586/photos/0971abfae2.jpg

I'm mainly interested in the lovely soft glow on the bag itself.
Any help/sugestions/ideas muchly appreciated.

[Andrew Lawrence]

Originally Posted by noxish

Hey guys, just seeing if anyone has any pointers on how to achieve the "finished" look in these images by Josh Haskin

http://content.clickbooq.com/586/photos/355ca2d057.jpg


and this one


http://content.clickbooq.com/586/photos/0971abfae2.jpg

I'm mainly interested in the lovely soft glow on the bag itself.
Any help/sugestions/ideas muchly appreciated.

This is a shot were the lighting is essential to the final look of the image. The best way to get a feel for how the lighting was done would be to look to the most reflective areas of the products. In the gold cap of the first link you can see that it might be two very large reflectors/white flats were used by shinning light on them.

Because the bag is has reflective parts itself, the light causes direct reflections off of those parts giving it giving it a soft glow. The out of camera image probably looked pretty close to this only a little less contrast, there might have been some selective dodging and burning and enhancing the text. But probably not too much photoshop magic, more like lighting magic.

[monsterpix]

In contrast I would say that the lighting is intentionally flat and simple and that the key to the image is the photoshop work. A subtle working of curves, levels, hue sat and lord knows what else. I'm with Noxish on this and would love to learn the finer art of the tight lipped employed here.

[noxish]

yeah the reflection and smaller products and shadow have all been post production added, and the fabric of those bags does have natural sheen, i'm interested in how it looks so clean without looking overly plastic.

[Andrew Lawrence]

Originally Posted by noxish

yeah the reflection and smaller products and shadow have all been post production added, and the fabric of those bags does have natural sheen, i'm interested in how it looks so clean without looking overly plastic.

I'd agree that the finished look is very subtle and the image works very well. However, I'm sure the products were not added in post. The only thing that was added in post was the pink/green color in the background (which adds a lot to this image.)

The reflections weren't added later, the products were most likely shot on white plexi and the reflections diminished a little bit with a slight fade out downward. If you look at the green shot, look closely at the "DayWear Plus" bottle's reflection. You'll see that the bottom of the glass differs slightly from the bottom of the glass in the reflection (not a duplicate.) This is because you're actually seeing the bottom of the glass at a different angle. Also, look at the bottom of the glass bottle ,on the right side of it, where you can see in the transparency of the glass bottle that it is refracting the line of where the bag meets the plexi table top.

If you look at the pink one, You'll see in the all gold cap of the "Resilience Lift" that on the left side of the cap you'll see little black lines, this is the reflection of the text from the "So Moist" mask.

With how this looks now, all the work that would have to be done if each of these items were shot separate would be......

If you still have doubts. If you can find out what store I could get this bag at, let me know and I'll try to reproduce this as close as possible and let you know how it turns out. I'd be interested in working it out.

[pellepiano]

I would think retouching the bag is not so different from retouching a face, to get it nice and clean. Healing and Dodge and Burn.