Product Photography Retouching
Product Photography Retouching
Product photography Retouching, creative image retouch. How to, start to finish.
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RESEARCH PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY
When browsing images online, you will notice the vast difference in images. On social media, some brands will take images on mobile phones, maybe do a few tweaks to the photographs, add filters etc. They may have built up a following and for consistency it works best to stick to that style of photography. Sometimes this type of photography is the best option.
Some brands hire professional photographers for all of their social media content, in order for each post to look as well presented as possible. Some brands use a mix of mobile phone photography and professional photographic images, there’s as many different strategies as there are individual businesses.
When it comes to other types of marketing, photographs used on websites, web banners, print media, or even billboards. These are more than likely professional photographers work, and when the business has invested in professional photography, these assets can be used for social media marketing also. To get maximum usage out of the images created.
Businesses that don’t use professional photos for the products or services could be losing out to their competitors that have a more professional appearance to their target audience.
product photographer
HIRING THE RIGHT PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHER
When a business is looking into hiring a photographer, there are many photographers to choose from, and if you approach any of them I am sure most would say they can do the work. My advice is to look at the previous work, their portfolio. Look for the style of photography that would best suit your business needs. Does your business sell cosmetics? Look for previous shoots of cosmetic products.
One area of product photography that is often mentioned is working with shiny products, or even chrome products. An experienced product photographer would have worked with these types of products many times, if you hire someone who does not have this type of experience, there’s a good chance that the image wont look as good as it could do.
AMATEUR VS PROFESSIONAL PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY
For a small business that is trying to save money, it is tempting to take on the multitude of tasks yourself. If you see a professional photographer at work, you can see that they have done shoots thousands of times before.
They know what changes need to be made to improve the images, they know when there’s some bits to change in Photoshop. They own expensive equipment that will have the quality that smart phones don’t have. Specialist lenses, tripods, lights, and hundreds of little things that a amateur wouldn’t even think of getting.
You’ve spent months developing your product and are ready to start marketing it, so you decide to hire a professional product photographer. But how can you be sure that hiring a photographer is worth the expense? Read on.
PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHER REQUIREMENTS, ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
There are 2 major skill-sets when it comes to appreciating how good or how experienced a photographer is: the technical & creative skills and the managerial and administrative skills.
Communication is key, ask the important questions that you need in order to make the shoot a success. Ask about the years of experience, not always is it the case that a photographer who has 15 years of experience is better than a photographer with 5 years experience, but it does show that they have a wealth of knowledge to reply on.
What shoots have they worked on before, and who was it for? If the photographer have worked on brands that are not widely known, they may of only worked for smaller businesses, if they have multiple shoots for recognisable brands, they they may have had experience shooting for large companies or design agencies.
You can ask about equipment used, but unless the client understands the equipment mentioned then this may not be the best question. But it is something that determines the cost, and therefore the value.
What’s included in the cost, some photographers offer a day rate, and you get their time, equipment, skills for that day. This can also includes the pre-production work. This may exclude image usage costs. Is there equipment hire needed for the shoot? Shoots that require a studio, extra, or specialist equipment is something that may increase the costs of a shoot depending on the needs of the shoot.
The cost could increase if you intend to use the images in many different ways, e.g websites, banner ads, print ads, TV ads, billboards. Some photographers don’t charge extra for image usage, best to ask these types of questions when looking for the right photographer. Other photographers have post-production included in the cost, but it’s not an infinite amount of post-production, best to ask questions on this to find out what is it you are getting.
To find out more about copyright topics when using photographers, it’s worth visit AOP website (Association of Photographers). They have detailed information regarding the legal side of copyright law in regards to image usage.
Find out about the photography team, is the photographer working alone, or are they hiring an Assistant Photographer, or a stylist, production staff etc.
What time would it take to complete the work? Great question to ask for the client, knowing the turnaround time can be crucial. If your business needs a very quick turnaround time there may be an increase in costs to make this happen quickly.
How many images can be created per day? It’s such an important question, the answer is it totally depends, it depends on the type of photography required. Food photography can take a long time to work on because each photograph takes time, and the food preparation takes time, how long does the food take to make? A question the food stylist could answer. Most product photography timing can be worked out easily, e-commerce photography is relatively quick compare to creative photography, plain background or many different props? Just another factor to consider.
One thing that is worth noting, photographers are business owners, the more work you ask for the higher the costs are going to be.
Organisational skills:
Although product photography may seem like a simple process, it is in fact a complex design task that requires preparation and keen attention to detail.
Photography sessions are both a process and an art. There need to be many pieces of the session puzzle in place for it to go smooth: from having the right equipment and ability to use it, to setting up lighting, using correct poses/product placement, asking for direction at the right time, taking product photos and positioning them in all possible scenarios.
WHERE TO FIND THE BEST PHOTOGRPAHERS?
This may seem obvious, because you found this blog post. The No.1 place to find photographers is a Google search. Best to type in the specialism your seeking, e.g product photographer, or include the location also. Product photographer Manchester. Go through the list, looking at each one, the first page is going to have some great options, if you really want to do a in-depth search you can peer at the second page of Google. Take a look at the work on these sights, reach out via email with all your questions ready. Get some prices and see which ones can work within your budget.
The next best place to find a product photographer would be Instagram. It does seem to be more difficult to find a local service when using Instagram’s search tool. However you will find the best photographers, they just could be in another country.
Word of mouth has always been a reliable method of choosing a photography service, if you know other people that have hired photographer before, reach out and asking about their experiences. I suggest you always do your own reach also.
BUDGETS
Most businesses seeking a photographer will have a budget to work to before speaking to anyone in the industry about costs. It is worth thinking about how did you come up with the budget number? Most photography clients have a pre-conceived idea of what a commercial photography shoot should cost, with no prior knowledge of hiring a photographer.
One comparison that I think people could refer to is, how much does it cost to hire a wedding photographer? Most people over a certain age have been married and hired a wedding photographer and can get a good understanding of the costs involved. From my experience I would say that commercial photographers are cheaper then wedding photographers. It is a good starting point and if the photographer you want to work with is out of your budget, it is always worth asking questions to see what can be done with the budget they have.
product photography
OTHER OPTIONS
A large company that needs to hire photographers can browse the market of freelancers, or it could look into a large photography studio or agency. When a studio scales up and hires many staff, the costs increase for the clients, but the turnaround time is usually decreased. It depends on a clients needs, if a business needs thousands of product images every month, then a large photography studio with multiple full time photographers is going to be able to handle requests like this.
PHILLIP PILKINGTON PHOTOGRAPHY SERVICES
Phillip Pilkington is an experienced photographer, ready to help your business. We take pride in our service and offer high quality photos with a quick turnaround time and transparent pricing. Give us a shot, and see how your product will look through a professional lens.
I was asked to shoot for a local Vodka brand called ‘Monk’, They needed content making for their social media and google ads etc. There was a lot of variety to the content which is great. MOst of the drinks photography I did was studio based but also when on several Manchester location shoots for these brand images.
I have more images than what is shown here on my Instagram page.
Instagram: phillippilkington
Facebook: Phillip Pilkington
Floating iron with some steam, I don’t normally do the Art Direction on product shots but this one I thought I had an idea that would work. Also included, see BTS image and I have a close up and a second option of the same image. The iron in this photo is Russell Hobbs 3100w
Powersteam ultra. Follow me to see future posts.
Happy with these images, high quality, effective advertising photography.
instagram.com/phillippilkington
facebook.com/phillippilkington
studio-set-up
detail photography
commercial photography manchester
Hello again,
I have some images to show, these are images of hair dryers and they are to be used on Remington packaging covers to show off the products to their full potential. All 3 images have very different lighting used which can be seen in the reflections on these shiny products.
It takes a lot of studio lighting skill and techniques to make the reflections look as good as these. Every photographer has their own way of working and controlling the reflections through lighting. I have as used some image stacking which is to make sure the whole product is in focus. If you don’t know then I will tell you that lots of photographers who get a shot in one photo may be leaving parts of the product out of focus, not that noticeable but could be an issue if the image is printed large. Than some technical details are more visible.
If you want to me to post about anything in particular then please let me know. I hope you enjoyed reading about my product photography.
Phill.
Hello again,
This weeks photography blog post is showing a product shoot I did not too long ago in bury. It is a cover image for Russell Hobbs packaging of their red textures kettle, it is a nice looking kettle and the highlight is it mixes smooth and textured plastic surface. I think it is a nice touch to help the look of the product.
It was a bit of a challenge to show off the different textures when photographing the product in the studio, When you use softboxes and diffusion sheets for the correct lighting techniques the textured surface starts to look too soft, the lighting technique for textured materials is to use a harsh lights without any diffusion. I do usually use multiple different lighting setups for a packaging type product shoot but this one was just harder to work on. I then need to blend multiple shots together in Photoshop which is a high level skill all on it’s own. I did find the right set-up to showoff the different textures and the end result is pleasing to the eye. If you are looking for a specialist product photographer then lets talk and I will be able to show off your products in the same way.
Many thanks,
Phill.
Hello,
I am showing a shot I did last month, in the brief it mentions that this coffee machine has a unique way of infusing the water into the coffee beans, one aspect which was required to capture was being able to see the underside of the water feed and the coffee beans from a single image. To capture the way the water comes from the water feed we needed to cut open the coffee machine, and to get the angle required in the brief I used a super wide angle lens and photographed the product at very close range. A super wide angle lens has a large range of what it can see concerning viewing angle from left to right, but also a wide viewing angle up and down, or vertical axis. This was the perfect lens for the job.
This final image image is a composite of 8 or 9 images each capturing different aspects, one image is of the water feed and coffee, one image is of the steam, and the other 6 or 7 images are different water steams, this is because water doesn’t always behave and go where you might want it to. All the images are put together using photoshop retouching. The final image looks great and the client was very impressed by what I had manged to capture for them.
This other example of technical photography is a good shot of a men’s foil shaver, it is a close-up shot showing the detail and the features clearly. The reason why this is a technical photograph is because even if you shot this close up on a camera setting set for maximum focus (F22) it would still not all be in focus, normally shots this close would lead to out of focus areas at the furthest part of the subject. To fix this issue and keep the whole product in focus I used a camera setting F11 which is even worse for the current issue of keep the shot in focus, I then took several shots all at different focus points, from the front the back. Lets say I took 4 photographs to get the whole product in focus, and I used 2 different light set-ups, that 8 shots in total all which need to be combined using photoshop retouching. The reason why I used F11 and not F22 is to get an overall sharper image, lets not mix up sharpness and focus….I hope I explain why a shot like this can be a technical problem for some photographers, but not for me, it just takes a bit of time, skill and experience.
I hope you liked my example of technical photography, if there is any other topics you wish me to show on my blog or a photography assignment you need a high end product photographer for please get in touch.
Thanks, Phill.
Hello,
Recently I worked on some social media product photography for Remington, the theme is simple but effective. The product is black and orange, using the colours choosing a background colour to match has an aesthetic appeal. The birds eye view is on trend for social media platforms, mainly Instagram. Along with the straight on arrangement of the props and products, the branding is on point for Remington and the images I have created for them in the past have been successful for the brand.
Thank you for reading my photography blog. If you have any suggestions on the content you want to hear please let me know.
Phill
Hello again,
I am showing some images that I created this week. These product images are from a shoot for Remington electrical company, these products are part of a series of hair care products called ‘Silk’. The black material has a unique silky effect which has it’s appeal and differs from other hair care products. The idea was to show these two products together as they are being offered as a double package. The main image is a normal product image with some quality studio lighting skills to make the products look premium and glossy.
When photographing these I shot them upside down to hang them from a fishing wire. All images I create are cut out using Photoshop and other editing to polish the products are also done using Photoshop. The other image with these two products shows them in a location setting using a table dresser as the main prop, this was also shot in a photography studio. Often is is a good idea to shoot studio images and location images on the same day if you have the ability to, these images will be used in e-commerce websites and for other online marketing needs. With Remington using these images they will also be used around Europe and other countries could also use them like USA and Australia, the brand has a lot of impact worldwide and they also share their assets.
I hope you enjoyed this weeks photography blog update.
Phill.
