Product retouching, what to do?

[LunaLuna]

Hi!

I shot some stuff at home for practicing how to retouch products.

The thing is, I don't know where I have to go with it...


I don't know how to continue:
what thing should I pay atention? What should I fix? What should I enhance?

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[edgework]

That ain't bad.

Boxes need to have bends and creases smoothed out of them. If the flaps aren't flat you need to make them look like they are. Probably sharpen worn corners and do the same type of color moves you made here.

Bottles usually need to have the refractions simplified, but not removed. Detail needs to be brought out on labels, excessive reflections need to be muted. In general, everything needs to look pristine without looking painted.

[Repairman]

Edge has covered it really. The double reflection doesn't add to the appeal of the shot and I would introduce a black gradation, from solid at the base of the crop, up to maybe 10% near the base of the tin. I would rotate the hilite on the nearest edge to vertical and the gold colour trim could be cleaned up. You're well on the way though and another hour will nail it.
R.

[edgework]

One thing I didn't mention, that Repairman touched on, is the need to control drop shadows, reflections and backgrounds. You need bullet-proof masks for the product itself so you can then address shadows and reflections on underlying layers, and comp them against whatever background you end up with.

If the original shot was lit half-decently, you can steal the shadows from one of the layers. I like to make a selection from the channel after jacking up the contrast to bleach the background to white, then paint black into a transparent layer underneath the product which avoids the always clumsy task of getting the background out of your shadows. This layer can then be blended into your background layer in multiply or linear burn mode, with opacity adjusted to taste.

The double reflection you have here is probably impossible to fix. Sometimes you can flip a duped layer of the product vertically, put it underneath the product layer, use transform on the side or else just clone, and use overlay or softlight with a mask to get a clean reflection. Or, you could simply do a motion blur on this reflection. As long as your actual product is masked on its own layer, you have a lot of flexibility underneath.