Documenting design work
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- kota
I'm currently photographing and producing case study imagery for print materials my agency has produced, shooting in our little ad hoc studio. Anyone have any advice/tips/dos and donts?
I think I'm doing alright so far, but am curious what other people's approaches are.
- vaxorcist0
I think about the eventual layout.... i.e. web page with white background? black background? grey background? printed book? square or horizontal or vertical?
I use this to determine if I'm shooting on white or black, if diffused shadows are allowed, if no shadows, if sharp shadows, etc....
I shoot a few tests, do my layout, see how it all fits together, then reshoot....
I use a lot of bounce flash for informal shoots + color checker card from xRite.
If more formal, with time, and/or for 3D objects... especially shiny ones..., I have a studio setup with lots of softboxes and diffusion panels. If I'm shooting glass bottles, I use large diffusion panels very close to them, with softboxes behind them so the highlight is smoother edged.....
- sorry about the 2 pix... I do love those color checkers thovaxorcist
- thisHuebert
- Agreed. Very much so.hellobotto
- vaxorcist0
also, shooting tethered, with a camera on a tripod, USB cable to computer, monitor really close, you can REALLY QUICKLY see if you're on the right track... I photoshop a test, lay it in the layout, then get it all right before I shoot a ton of pix, so I don't have to do a photoshop marathon later....
- monospaced0
Shoot each project in the same session so that your white balance and other variables affecting the images are the same.
- kota0
excellent! some of that I have been doing in my tests, but i really need to see if we have an xRite card around. I'm mostly shooting printed brochure or programme type materials.
What I'm not sure how to do is shoot with the Canon tethered to a laptop. I should figure that out. That would help a lot.
- vaxorcist0
Once you get everything right, grab another camera or even a phone and take a bunch of whole-room setup pictures, so you can re-create it all next time for the same look.
- vaxorcist0
Also, I use a couple of sawhorses, plywood and a 4x8 sheet of white formica, shooting from a tripod at one end of the formica with lots of white space behind the artwork so I get a clean "infinity sweep" behind the art....
I don't have to cut anything out in photoshop this way...faster production... 2 or 3 flashes bounced/boxed/umbrella'd can easily make the background an even color...
I shoot RAW + jpeg small, so I can quickly send comps to an art director who may not be able to read my RAW files...
- vaxorcist0
use Manual White Balance / Kelvin Temp. Shoot some tests, determine Kelvin temp based on eye-dropper samples of the Xrite Color Card while tethered, then shoot the rest at that white balance so there's minimal post production.
- kota0
Unfortunately we don't have an Xrite card, and I'm not sure where our grey card is. On the other hand, we do have decent seamlesses to shoot stuff on. So not an ideal set up, but not bad either.
I'll definitely take your advice wholeheartedly. Thanks for the input!