Car Critique

[Wu]

Alrighty, last week I was the photographer for a VW/Audi car show.

My photos for the most part, are very rainy but I had a few okay ones that turn out.

such as this:



Question is, how can I improve it? I have to get about 300+ photos edited and sent off to the head coordinator by the end of Sept

tips? Suggestions?

Thanks 365!

Wu

[Peter Van Allen]

Hi Wu,

looks like you got yourself a big job here with 300 edits.

Apart from minor saturation and shadow/highlight corrections (this can be achieved by recording a standard action in Photoshop, then repeating the action on each image) the images could also be run through a program like Topaz Adjust which will certainly make your images pop.

I think your main problem is that you need to isolate the car from the background in some way, and the only way I know is to add a mask around the car and add an effect to the background, this can be either a blur, fade, desaturate, or maybe all three of these effects.

With 300 images this will take some time, but the finished result might be just what you are looking for.

I took the liberty of downloading a copy of this image and applying this solution,

hope you like it:

[Wu]

Whoa! That looks amazing!

Thanks for the tips and I'll definitely download that program

Thanks :)

[The Steve From 2010]

You *might* find that using a polarising filter over your lens can make some interesting reflective effects in the cars' paintwork too. Just an idea to experiment with, perhaps.

[Carol-Ann]

Geez, Peter, that's fabulous! Wu, I don't have enough expertise to advise you, but I hope you share some of your before/after shots on here. It would be interesting to see what you have done. You will be a pro after that project! Good luck.