This is my final image and was a tricky brief to do and get correct. Even with this final image more adjustments could have been made by using the Perspective Tool to straighten out the bottle. The main improvement was to make the background whiter than the original image as it was more gray than white. I brought up the blacks to help the bottle stand out as when I increased the whites, the look of the bottle was pale. Although the box is in the background and not in focus I still wanted that to play a part, in doing this I adjusted the blues in Colour Mixer. Clarity was also increased to help the letters on the bottle stand out. I felt the letters in the original image were to dark. I like the perspective in this image, the bottle towering over the box.
This brief came in several parts, above the final image. One of which was Focus Stacking. To look at you would think anything had been done differently. This is not so.
Focus stacking is a process whereby multiple images are taken at different focus distances. In doing this technique enables for a better Depth of Field. Focus stacking can be adopted in any situation, however, it is more prevalent in macro and landscape photography. To Focus stack it is important to use a tripod for stability, set exposure ( this must be the same setting when taking the images), focus on your first area then continue to do so with other areas of the subject, each time adjust the focus on each part. Open the images in Photoshop, open as separate layers, the next and final step is to merge, this is achieved by having Photoshop automatically do this by clicking on Edit then auto-blend layers.
All the work was done in Photoshop. However, before any Focus Stacking in Photoshop was done, I made some basic optimisation to my images in Lightroom. In order to have consistency with the images I synchronised the changes I made for one image to the rest. i went to File, then Scripts chose Load Files Into Stack. A dialogue box named Load Layers opened up, I then browsed which files I wanted opened, highlighted them then clicked on Attempt to Automatically align Source Images then ok. All layers (7) appeared in the layers panel. After layers were aligned, I clicked on the Edit menu and chose Auto-Blend Layers, a dialogue box opened in which I chose Stack Images. I also ticked the boxes for Seamless Tones and Colours and Content Aware Fill Transparent Areas. Photoshop then began the process of focus stacking. When focus stacking was complete I then cropped the image and optimised in Photoshop.
A part where i had to cut out the bottle from the background, this wasn’t to bad a task,
In order to remove the bottle from the background I opened the image in Photoshop and used the Pen Tool, I clicked on each corner until I got to the first corner I started with. After which I went to paths and clicked onto Load Path as Selection, on doing this small dashes (known as ants) circled the object. I then clicked onto Select and Mask. As I was happy with my cut out, I went to Output then New Layer with Layer Mask then ok. There was now a transparent background. Initially I used the Quick Selection Tool but this was not precise enough and parts of the background which were close in colour to that of the bottle were still in the cut out.
The other part was to place the bottle in another background,
I thought that the blue bottle top go with the colour of the sky and the colour of the DKNY goes with the colour of the building. The background is also a picture i took for my Geometry Club brief.
