Wrist Watch - Critique Please

[highlydope]

About to do a series of these and just wanted to get some critique of my technique before I start. I believe I've got the lighting and background the way I want it. Taken with a D5000 and the kit lens, inside a lightbox with CF daylight bulbs. Chrome objects are difficult!!!

Thanks in advance...



Camera Nikon D5000
Exposure 1 sec
Aperture f/13
Focal Length 60 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off - controlled lighting env inside lightbox under CF daylight bulb

[sk66]

Lighting looks pretty nice.
I think the image could use some sharpening (high pass) and the highlight could be knocked down a touch (white output set to 245)

[highlydope]

Thanks for the suggestions sk66, I've adjusted accordingly and linked up the before/after shots below...

Before...

After...


Do you think the image now needs a bit more vibrance or saturation?

Thanks,
HD.

[highlydope]

Here it is with +10 saturation...

[harish sutar]

Its a pretty shot..no improvements i think

[edbayani]

nice lighting but i think you lost some detail on the upper, inner side of the chrome and as sk66 says tone done the vry white highlights a bit.

[sk66]

Ok, I took a shot at it. What I did basically was:

-Highpass sharpening, hard light 50%
-Copied watch to new layer, normal, 100%, and applied gaussian blur to original image 1px (to remove BG sharpening)
-New layer and circular selection of watch face diameter. filled with green, multiply, 50%, erased color from small text. (might be a bit much)
-watch layer (including band); saturation +100%, vibrance-100% to remove metal color cast
-flattened all and did a levels adjustment w/ white output set to 245.

[edbayani]

hope you don't mind. i also took the liberty of editing it.
selected the bottom part of chrome including the inside minus the face.put it in another layer and flipped it vertically and aligned with the upper part circle. with layer mask, removed the extra image. adjusted with levels and merged. selected the top portion of the watch and put it in another layer and with layer mask removed the excess image retaining only the blown out white areas of the chrome. applied layer mask and locked layer. with eye dropper tool selected the lightest part of the bluish gray reflection on the chrome and with a small soft brush, opacity 40% brushed the locked layer to add some reflections. flattened

[highlydope]

Thanks everyone, this gives me a good feel for the kinds of tweaks I need to make in pre and post as well as the workflow I need to set up for this series. Very much appreciated!