Tuesday 30 March 2010

L3 Coca-Cola studio session ... 'It's the real thing'

The studio was booked, the bottles and glasses were sourced, baby oil and water spray neatly packed, I get to the college and into the studio with Pete in attendance Mr Steve (A) showing us the ropes.

Our set up was simple, light table in the middle of the room.

Starting camera set up was 1/200 sec shutter at ISO100 and f/9.0 and adjusted the f stops to adjust for exposure



The bottle placed on a clear container to raise it and a barn door at the back, power setting after a dew trial shots ending up at 5.









A snoot underneath, and a strip soft box to the left. power setting starting a 3 then working up to 5























Initially I took some pics of the bottle without any oil or water on and exposed for the liquid, then wiped some baby oil on the bottle and sprayed water onto it (not too close as it just runs) making sure we catch any residue on the paper towels I had brought in.

It was a struggle not to get the strip light softbox reflecting across the logo, so I moved the strip light back away from the front and got Pete to hold up a white reflector to bounce and soften the light , not 100%  but at least you coud see the logo.



Strip light setting was at 5










Used  two exposures of the bottle one for the glass and one for the liquid and brought them together in photoshop along with a new white layer, sampled the white background and erased back to the white background. changed the opacity on the top layer  and adjusted the levels to bring a better colour to the liquid.

As I had moved the light back away from the front of the bottle I couldn't get the logo to stand out enough so I sampled a similar brighter white and painted it in, afterwards I reduced the opacity of the layer to make it more realistic




 1/60 sec shutter at ISO 100 f/9.0 - f/11.0


With only half and hour to go before the next bod booked into the studio Steve (B), I had to rush to Asda to pich up some ice and a big bottle of Coca-Cola, I had some Pepsi at home but If I had been doing this for a client it wouldn't have looked very good coming to a Coca-Cola shoot with a bottle of Pepsi, once back at the studio I again wiped the glass with baby oil and sprayed with water. took a couple (or ten) of the empty glass, then ten more with the Coke and ice in the glass. Post production wise I did the same for the glass, three layers all merged then erased any obtrusive background, leaving a slight shadow the same as the bottle, again changed the opacity of the layers to improve the colour




This is the final glass composite shot















1/60 sec shutter at ISO 100 f/9.0 - f/11.0


Brought them both together on to another white layer again removing anything that should be there such as the clear base under the bottle, erased the bottle layer to reveal the glass underneath.

















This is the two flattened together ready for some text















Took a while to sort out the text, I was trying to get it as similar to the original text for Coca-Cola, Gave it some texture and a graduation  Ithink it works
















The finished article apart from some splashes, which I'm not sure if I can do, I have a go possibly over the weekend and add them in later as I have saved all the stages with the layers intact.


I'm thinking that I may have to put in some shaddows linking the two subjects as at the moment they look like they are floating and need something to anchor them.


























here's one for you Pip, Is this how this works?

3 comments:

  1. Hi Jim
    Thought provoking isn't it? To me it looked a little 'squat' if you know what I mean. Then I clicked on it and put my translucency over it and found your squares are rectangles, which make it a wider curve so not the magic proportions.
    It won't work for every composition, but I tend to put the tight start of the curl over the centre of interest eg the face for a portrait, or the hands for the osteopath pics.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Pip,
    I've had another go at it, not quite the perfect fit to the spiral.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi
    1st May blog entry and others clearly show you have identified and evidenced why you have chosen your images.
    C5 criteria met as labelled.

    Steve

    ReplyDelete