Watch

[highlydope]

I'm doing a series of shots of Panerai watches. A lot of work on this particular one - about 2 hours in pre getting the lighting and whitebox reflections right, then another 4 hours in post between PS and LR. First I cropped the image, adjusted the black and white levels and toned down the blues in the reflections. Then I went to work on meticulously removing every blemish and piece of dust or any errant marks. After that I made the text a little lighter and bolder and fixed some problems with the crown guard like the faded letter "T" in T.M. and the lever pin. Last, I did a high pass sharpening on the whole image...

Before:


After:

[Rolex John]

Beautiful watch! With some "gobos" cards to go between the light source and the subject, you should be able to better control the light on the dial. Or possibly use the exposure adjustment brush in LR to darken the lighter areas in the dial.

[3bayjunkie]

nice watch, and photo. what was reflecting blue light on it?

[highlydope]

Originally Posted by 3bayjunkie

nice watch, and photo. what was reflecting blue light on it?

Inside the light box on each side I placed two full bleed pieces of paper each with a horizon printed on it - just basically a fade I created in PS going from a yellowish white at the top to blue to a wavy black line in the middle (the horizon midpoint) - then it fades from dark brown to light brown at the bottom.

I've been tweaking these side panels for this series of photographs and in this early version, the blue was too intense so I lightened it up since. Now it works really well giving the chrome something interesting to reflect.

[tal_ninio]

Very well done.
A bit over sharpened in some areas.