Retouching

This photo for Sutton & Suzuki Architects was shot a few months after the original interior shoot. There were several exterior shots taken that day, but this one was wanted by the client to finish the story. Due to scheduling this shot had to be taken close to high noon in summer. Where as the other shots were taken on a cloudy morning at the end of winter.

To not have this image stick out like a sore thumb it was necessary to add some low lying clouds to mimic the other photos. The shadow in the foreground was also too severe for winter light. I created an exact copy from the raw file, at a much lighter exposure, and then used it to paint detail and contrast back into the shadows.

On several magazine shoots I have assisted on, and done the retouching for, we were required to shoot the scene with specific retouching in mind to appease compositional concerns of the designer or art director.

In this shot for a California Home and Design story, the designer brought in art by a local painter that they wanted to showcase. Rather than put new holes in the otherwise pristine wall, we propped the painting behind the couch and later removed the containers we had used for spacing with Photoshop. This was one of the “hero” shots for the story so It was worked over heavily to remove all of the distracting elements and a color cast from the long exposure time, as well as adding texture back into keyed out lamp shades.

This photo is part of a story recently featured in Home Magazine. While shooting this scene the art director and stylist both expressed concern about filling in negative space under the desk, as well as styling it to be easily recognized as a work space. The solution… we raised the stool by placing it on drinking glasses, which were removed later, and the stool legs were lengthened to touch the ground. We also used the same laptop that the digital images were being captured to, later removing the cable that was connected to the camera.

Often photographers find themselves physically limited by equipment and space constraints. A perfect example of this would be a recent shoot for Robert Nebolon Architects that I did the retouching for.

A photo of the exterior needed to complete the story was impossible to capture in one shot, due to a steep drop off on the other side of the street. Even with the widest lens available it was necessary to capture the image in multiple takes and composite them into a single image back in the studio.

Robert Nebolon Architects website

This was an interesting retouching project for Brownstone Furniture. In order to reduce the cost of shooting on location for new product lines, Brownstone built a studio in their local warehouse. With a little bit of paint and styling, along with a healthy dose of Photoshop work, we were able to create the illusion of a bedroom setting in the corner of an industrial warehouse.

We also found ourselves in a position of only having a single prototype of furniture that would normally be in pairs. Several shots were necessary, with close attention to continuity, to create the composited finals that you see below, paired with a before shot.

In this shot we were trying to preserve the effect of the natural lighting style while keeping detail of the view through the windows. With the brightness of the sun it was almost impossible to get the view properly exposed without over lighting the scene. The scene was shot with multiple exposures and composited to achieve the desired effect.

These two images were part of a shoot focusing strictly on the design of the architecture. A rather large plasma screen was physically removed from above the fireplace and I erased the remaining traces. The bathroom had reflections removed and lightened to emphasize the clean lines of the design.