Industrial photography

[gare]

A friend of mine had a "rush favor"...can I please clean up a photo of some machinery, and do it today?

Okay, I used the Paths tools to create an outline around the machine; it's hard-edge in geometry, so a path was a natural. I sampled a light and a dark foreground and background color for the gradient fill--as a rule, sample colors from the photo when created a background--it's more harmonious and natural than picking colors on your own.

The drop-shadow in the image was no good to use, I traced off both the umbra and penumbra of the shadows in the pic, loaded the selections, and filled 'em with the original shadow colors. Details, details, right...but a single-source shadow replacement would have looked phony. I blurred the filled selections on separate layers and used Multiply blending mode.

Hey, maybe I found a new career...

My Best,
Gare

[gare]

And then there was my own version...


-g-

[SCync]

That's funny stuff, Gary. Great job on the cleanup. You know, I was just thinking, this morning, how underused umbra and penumbra are in casual conversation these days.

Anyway, like the concept of this forum. Looking forward to taking it in, and hopefully provide some input.

[Lee]

Nice work. I like your version best, Gary. ;)

[sfm]

lol brilliant
just don't seem to be able to pinch one of the gumballs to munch
sfm

[gare]

SCync--I'll sure give it my best try!

Lee, thanks and glad to see you're still kickin'

Sue--I swiped the gum machine front from an image on the Web. The gumball machine was pink, however, so I used the Color Replacement tool in PS.

If I'd had more time, I probably would've done worse.

My Best,
Gare

[Raven]

[excited] Where can I buy one of those lazer gumball machines?! Seriously, these days that's a good add-on feature. [confused] :}

Terrific work btw!!! ;)

[gare]

Oddly, my friend who asked for the retouching says that the manufacturer is gobbling up smaller companies (no, the manufacturer isn't Adobe Systems), and that their compound analyzer (it tells you the percentage of what's in a sample) costs $95,000, and it's a piece of crap, but there's no competing product anymore. So when he saw my "makeover", he laughed and told me, "that's about the size of it!"

Funny how we never anticipate what career we'll take on years later. My friend was lead guitarist in a band I played in, and now he works for the state of New Mexico; he got his Masters in Chemistry and checks water quality out there.

Me? I art directed TV commercials in a previous life, then learned PageMaker and CorelDraw (and a computer, sort of); and now I write books. Good News: I think my agent landed me a book due out in the fall...can't say much more, but it's on Photoshop.

My Best,
Gare