Perfecting Perfect Photography

Mazda 3 Photo Retouching
Great photography is a master class in itself, but all too often the photograph is just the first process in a long chain of production.

Above is a 'before and after' comparison of some recent work I did for the new Mazda 3. It shows three possible reasons for retouching a photograph.

1.Mistakes. The photograph was originally shot at a studio in Europe. This means that the car was a left-hand drive and therefore the driver, wheel and column needed to be painted out.

This was quite a tricky thing to do as you then have to paint back all the glass reflections over the top of the treated areas.

2. Imperfections. Even the best photographs will have imperfections somewhere in the composition. Technology and bandwidth has moved on at such a pace that mega pixels, bitrates and download space has vastly moved on as well. Viewers these days can expect to download higher res images without impacting on file size restrictions. This means that the days of hiding imperfections in a small unseeable image are long gone and images that can be zoomed into need to hold up under a closer scrutiny.

People know what to expect and they are becoming more aware of quality as they become more familiar with image based home software. Nowadays ALL people are amateur photography critics as they can expand their knowledge with Photoshop and display their own work on social sites like Flickr, Picasa and Facebook.

The average user has become wise to photography techniques and can spot imperfections a mile away. So for expensive high-end advertising you need to have a perfect image - one that sets apart from average standards.

In this image, the natural lighting in the studio caused a lens flair to refract on the Mazda logo on the bonnet. So naturally the client wanted to have a clear view of their brand logo.

3. FX. I am a strong believer that if it is at all possible then you should always try to capture the whole image in the camera without the use of FX. But naturally there are times when due to time, budget, weather,etc it is not always possible to capture the correct shot. Hence post-production FX are recruited!

Here the client wanted the effects of speed and motion blur on the car. Naturally it would be more dangerous to shoot a moving car and also you lose the control on where the motion blur affects. By shooting a static car, the photographer is able to control the lighting on the car and get a crisp and detailed image. By adding the motion blur in post, we can affect certain areas of the car while maintaining the clarity and detail of the rest of the vehicle.