Am I going to get fired?

[johnblender]

Hello there, Retouchers!

I've been given a handful of really crappy jewelry pictures by my boss at work, and he seems convinced that Photoshop will be able to turn those into better pictures that are to be used for their new online shop (as product photos).

Being a complete Photoshop newbie (my boss thought getting me a few Photoshop video tutorial DVDs would help much), I don't even know where to start to make those look better. I've managed to adjust the levels a bit to turn the black background into a homogenous black area, but that's pretty much all I can do.

Does anyone have any idea how to fix those images up? Any help would be much appreciated, I might lose my job over this...

Picture's here: http://gbatemp.net/up/DSCN4105.JPG

Sincere thanks for the help,
John

[JSFphoto]

Clean up, Neutralize, Sharpen, Crop. You might want to start by cutting a path around the jewelry just to have it if you want to apply an adjustment specifically to the background or the jewels themselves.

What is the final output size of the file? If its a web thumbnail you should be able to get something decent out of this file.

-JSF
http://www.exposingfashion.com/

[garibaldi]

tell your boss to get a grip and hire someone who knows what they are doing Both to shoot and to retouch. If you lose your job over that, then do you really want to be working for such an idiot to begin with?

The best way to clean those up would be to not shoot it handheld with your iphone on a lint filled velvet form using two lights on the side, and get a proper camera and lighting and have a photographer who knows how to shoot jewelry come in and do it honestly

[crfbillmann]

Hi

For a newbie i wpuld recommend you to paint your homogenic Black on a new layer into the image.

Then try to use filter/unsharp masking to sharpen it.

Raise contrast.

An clean it from scratches and dirt.

Here is a quick work over:

Regards
Chris

For further information let me know.

[mhartman]

Not the best solution in the world, but, if you are in a pinch, you may be able to use a scanner to get a nice, sharp shot of the jewelry. You'd have to play around to get the black background right (velvet, black card stock, etc.), but I've gotten some amazingly clear shots of objects using a scanner when I didn't have a proper camera, lighting setup handy.

[SilvaFox]

Originally Posted by garibaldi

tell your boss to get a grip and hire someone who knows what they are doing Both to shoot and to retouch. If you lose your job over that, then do you really want to be working for such an idiot to begin with?

You tell your boss to find someone else? I know what you're saying but I think he wants to KEEP his job.

[isaac_magana]

This is what I ended up with, after 30 minutes...
I know is not so good, but is not so bad

http://i1081.photobucket.com/albums/...id/Jewerly.jpg

[toan thai]

what's with all the dead space? did your boss take these photos? crappy photography; crappy lens...

get rid of chromatic aberration!

[JayRiches]

haha the dream of every product retoucher...Crappy material to begin with. Next time your boss really should get a proper camera and some lighting...this is just ridiculous!
Well overall i would cut the jewelry out and get it onto a proper black background..clean up the flaws,sharpen it,give it some good contrast and color adjusment and you should get something like isaac_magana did.

[johnblender]

wow thanks everyone! those were some really really nice answers from everyone of you!
you are fantastic!!

I will try to answer each of your posts----
1) JSFphoto: ideally a low resolution but still enjoyably large image, like 640*480 or something. Then out of that we could generate thumbnails easily.

2) garibaldi: thanks I kind of agree with you but it isn't a good time to be losing your job. Also, they used a light tent and a Nikon coolpix camera for shooting this, but thats about all I know.

3) Chris: that's amazing!! It's exactly the sort of stuff that my boss is expecting, I've showed him and he seems satisfied with it. Now all I gotta do is apply the same stuff on the 50 other images he gave me (pretty much all the same quality).
Did you apply some kind of filter for the shiny effect I can see on some parts of the necklace?

4) mhartman: yeah, I pretty much told my boss I wasn't going to be able to do anything without better shots. But he didn't listen to me and he said with a bit of photoshopping it could be fixed up. Well he was right apparently since Chris (above post) managed to get something very nice out of it !!

5) SilvaFox: yes you're right, I'd rather keep my job at this point... you never know with the economy and all. Besides I am originally a web developer, not a graphist, which explains my lack of skills when it comes to retouching...

6) isaac_magana: wow that's amazing too! could you please share the steps you've used for this? perhaps send me the PSD so that I can see the layers and operations applied? thanks in advance!

7) toan thai: yeah I uploaded a raw picture, I didn't even bother cropping it, my bad...

8) JayRiches: so getting a better camera would really help? basically my boss said his camera was good enough already and he wasn't going to purchase a new one cause he wasn't certain it would improve the quality of shots.

[isaac_magana]

Of course, I'll be glad to.
Give me your email so I can send it.
I don't remember exactly what I did, but with the psd file you'll get an idea.
If you want, you can use mine.

[helvetes]

Hi all !!
First of all ,sorry for my bad english.....I'm from Italy and not so good to write in english :-(
This is one of the worst shoot I ever seen....but one of the good thing u can do is to clone the red reflex on Jewels. U have many clean jewel on the picture.....take the best u see and replace all the worst jewels. I hope u understand what I mean :-P

[johnblender]

Hi helvetes,
yes I understand what you mean!
I will try it, but to be honest I am pretty amazed by what isaac_magana and crfbillmann have been able to do. So i'll be trying their solution first, hopefully isaac's PSD will help me understand things better :-)
isaac_magana: my email is filetrip /at/ gmail.com and your help is really really appreciated! thanks again

[JayRiches]

yeah a better camera would definitly improve the image. It should atleast be a digital SLR cam in mid range...something like a canon 450D or 500D. Those are quite cheap and have good quality. I dont know what your boss knows at all but that camera looks like some mobilephone camshot...seriously. At best its some digital cam but never ever a good cam...If hes got an online shop he should be able to get a good cam for the money he earns.

[garibaldi]

This is a classic example of trying to make chicken salad out of chicken shit.

The picture is crap, its shot with a chintsy point and shoot, and lit with a couple of household bulbs. the angle is awful, the exposure is crap, the lighting isnt controlled or done properly, and the velvet form is covered with lint and hairs... plus the jewelry is crooked and isnt even exposed properly. This is some kind of joke right? Your job is really on the line for this? Ok, then do what you can do with that, I dont know if you are looking to duplicate a tiffany or david yurman ad with this, which just isnt going to happen, this is more at the level of a chinese food menu shot, so I wouldnt set your hopes too high if this is all you have to work with. Youd spend less time, money and aggravation just having it shot properly in the end, and it wont look like some amateur hack shot it, that is what you should tell your boss

[aartist]

You should loose your job over this. The job of making them better,
since you do not have the skills to do the assignment. Let your
boss know that there are people out there that do this every day.

He sounds like a cheapskate and doesn't want to spend the money to
make money. Stop kissing his backside. Or not!

[Chud]

Originally Posted by aartist

You should loose your job over this. The job of making them better,
since you do not have the skills to do the assignment. Let your
boss know that there are people out there that do this every day.

He sounds like a cheapskate and doesn't want to spend the money to
make money. Stop kissing his backside. Or not!

So he should lose his job as a web developer because he doesn't have a photoshop skillset??

For a senior member you ought to know better to read the thread...yes the boss does sound like a cheapskate but that sort of comment is trollish and unnecessary.

The photos are crap and I can tell this from a 60px thumbnail! - AFAIAC there is a bottom line to retouching - if the shot cannot be redone due to budgetary, chronological etc. constraints then fine but when the shot is taken in a cheap pop-up 'macro soft box' and appears to have been shot with a pinhole camera I'd re-shoot with a much tighter crop before wasting time in retouching.

To the OP if you can get better photos to work with then fine but otherwise I believe you've been given some good advice...so unless you've got your job off claiming to be a photo retoucher you do not deserve to lose your job!

At the end of the day you can polish a turd but 9 times out of ten you just end up with a shinier turd...

[mozy]

Ok My feeling about this image!
you can not correct this to likes of Cartier web site images in fact it would be easier to shoot this again! because this is shot @ F:3.1 Hmm that means you have very shallow depth of field and your image not sharp any where? this image was shot with
Nikon Coolpix S210 Digital camera - compact - 8.0 Megapixel - 3 x optical zoom = £121
new this is not going to happen at all! You have no starter here!
Ok Who's idea was to say this I can do this? I think you should get rid of that person!
You need to learn how to take pictures first then photoshop it! But there will be some really skilled illustrator artist who could re-draw this image really nice but that will cost you more than your camera! may be 10 times more!
I think you need tell your boss to get some pro's involved with the web project other wise non of you will have a job soon! that include your boss! times are hard and no one would buy crap looking crap! Sorry this may be bit hard but the truth!

[aartist]

Chud, sorry, I miss-spoke.

Meant to say:
"You should loose your job OF MAKING THESE PHOTOS BETTER for your boss AND stick with the job you do best for the boss.

But I stick with the part about the boss being a cheapskate.

[Chud]

Lol Aartist - sorry if I jumped on your comment - I get what you mean.