Editing my still life images

As mentioned in the previous post, after my shoot with the Hasselblad and the still life subjects, I now needed to composite all of the different parts of the image to create one whole photograph of commercial quality.

Do do this, I used layer masks. Here are all my final layers which I will talk you through below.

First, I opened the first box image as the background;

I created a copy of this my having the background selected and pressing control and J. This wasn't necessary in the end however I wanted to just ensure I wasn't touching the actual background and if anything needed retouching on this layer I could go back to it easily and delete the retouching if need be while still having a background.

I then added the base layer for the bottle. I did this by simply dragging the bottle image to the photoshop file I already had open. This opened the image on top of the box image.
However this doesn't place the file perfectly on top of the other one, in the exact same place. The two need to be in the same place in order for the edits to work otherwise there will be overlapping. To avoid this, when the image is on the layer I set the blend mode to 'difference'

This allows me to see where the below layers are in relation to this layer.

As you can see they're not in the same position at all. To move the layer, simply use the arrow keys to move the photograph a few pixels in the direction it needs to go to match perfectly.

Once this has been achieved, we can now put the blending mode back to normal and it will show up as just the bottle image, because we've covered the box photo. This is of course not ideal as we only want parts of the bottle image. For this we now use layer masks.

while having the bottle layer selected, press 'add layer mask'

When the layer mask has been made, press control and I on your keyboard to invert it. The mask will turn black. We do this because the majority of this layer we don't want, and it's easier to paint in the parts we do want than the parts we don't.

 
When that has been done, you can now go to the tools bar and select the paint brush tool. Make sure your primary colour is white, which you can change at the bottom by clicking the little squares. Additionally, there is a small black and white square option above the bit that shows what are your primary and secondary colours, this resets your colours back to black and white. You can also use the arrow buttons to switch out which is your primary colour, making the secondary colour your new primary colour.
After this, you'll want to change the brush. Mine was a good size at 180px however this will depend on the size of the image.
I also chose a hardness of 17% because I wanted the edged to not be too diffused but neither too hard. This balance allowed me to get the look I wanted. Now you just need to paint the bottle in. Do this by clicking and dragging over the parts of the image you want to keep. Once your done, the layer mask will show you what parts have been kept.

The small white part is the bottle that we wanted to put on to the background. That's the only part of the image we kept from this layer.

These techniques are then repeated all the way through the rest of the editing.
The before and after of this layer shows a more vibrant and uplifting image compared to the bottle that was in the background. It feels cleaner and more commercial to me.

The next layer was do add some darkness to the edge to create more of a contrast. as you can see below this layer mask was very small because I didn't need too much from the layer.

The next step on the bottle was to add one of the strong highlights.

The highlight is very subtle however i really believe it makes a difference in the big picture. I really wanted to show off the grooves and shape of the bottle and by highlighting the curves and indents of the bottle it really helps to achieve that.

This layer really had quite the difference. This is where I integrated the cap differences. This version of the cap has a lot more tonal range, depth and contrast and is in better focus.
I didnt end up using the metal part of this image, only the glass. The glass has a more warmth and golds in it, making it feel more luxurious.

In the next layer I focused on the top of the cap. This was to show the flatness, show some relfections and to have it in focus. The new top of the cap has much more contrast to it, and makes the cap stand out more from the palette that sits behind it. I particularly like how dark the left had side is because it stops it from merging into the background as it does a bit in the before image.

I then worked on the metal part of the cap. I preferred how it looked with just one light doing down the metal, because it looked more sleek and smooth and simple. I simply painted in that part of the image with the layer mask and I feel the simplicity gives a much more refreshing feel to the image. It's still a little grubby however this can be fixed layer on.

In this final image layer I brushed in the palette mask. The result is a palette with sharp focus and a better iridescent quality. The textures are also more prominent because of the sharper focus. The way the back of the image is in focus as well as the front helps give the illusion of it all being in focus despite the side of the box not being so, especially when zoomed out.

This is how the image looks so far, with all the image components in there. I now need to do some final retouching to the image as a whole.

I first used the clone stamp tool and spot healing tool to erase the writing on the back of the bottle that reflects to the front. I found this to be rather distracting, and it was only there due to the position of the lights. I should have taken an image where the writing couldn't be seen and used a mask to edit it in however I didn't think it would bother me as much as it did. It wasn't the hardest fix, luckily, and i think it appears rather realistic because although it's patchy it looks as if it's just the palette reflecting through.

I then used the healing tool even more to get some of the dirt patches off of the metal in the bottle. The nozzle is always being touched and so had a lot of marks. To make this easier on myself I should have polished it before taking the images, and I will do that if there's a next time.

I still wasn't happy with it however, as there were still many marks to be seen on the metal. So I took the brush tool and with a very light opacity started colour matching and drawing over the dirty bits. This makes the tone more consistent over the parts that were splotchy beforehand. The result is a much more smooth looking cap and it's far less distracting.

I then used an overall curves layer to make the image have some more contrast and for it to pop a little more. This really helps the greens pop and for the blacks too stand out. After the curves, the image feels stronger and less subtle. I think this is important in commercial work because you need to sell the product, and to do that you need it to look good and draw in attention.

The curves layer wasn't anything over the top but enough to give it that extra pop. I used the traditional 'S' shaped curve to bring up the highlights and darken the shadows.

Finally, I used the paintbrush tool to remove the shadows. This is to make sure all attention is on the actual product. The shadows were disruptive to the image. I removed them by simply colourpicking the tones around the shadow and painting them on with a very soft brush. I then erased any mistakes I had made my going over the box with a very hard eraser tool, to ensure the edges were still sharp.

And with this my image is complete. All you have to do now is resize the canvas to the desired width and height. Having so much white space allows for this image to be very narrow or very wide, which means it could be used for a lot of different advertising formats.

The above image is just a PNG file of the final outcome, the result of a printed version of this would appear much better. Overall i'm really happy with this image and although there are things I could have done differently, I now know what i'd do next time thanks to this process.