There must be an easier way

[theo_dibbits]

A friend who has a small business and no money has asked me to

photograph a large number of chrome tools for a catalogue. My set up

is to put each tool on a grey cloth and bounce the flash off a

reflector above the tool. I shoot in RAW, convert in C1 LE and the

rest is done in PS Elements. The problem is that he wants the

background removed. Because of the low contrast between the chrome

and the grey cloth I can not use the wand tool so I have to mask or

use the lasso tool. It is very time consuming and mind blowingly

boring. Any help appreciated. Theo

[emre]

Get a chroma key screen. Bayer-masked cameras resolve green best, so get a green one. Grey is no good. Even black would be better then grey; at least you could do a luma key.

[patricklavoie]

shoot over green (dont understand why you think of gray at first) or white, the close cut will

be already done! if you keep the gray or had already shot everything over a gray

backgroud...well yes you will have to mask everything, lots of time, pretty borring im agree.

have fun ; )

[tomweis]

Using the chroma key green background paper is good advice. Additionally, I would place

the tool on a piece of clear Plexiglas (acrylic) suspended above the green paper. This will

allow you to light the paper separately, and eliminate any shadow under the tool that

would give you headaches when selecting the background in PS. You will have to adjust

the camera and lights to avoid glare from the Plexi, but it's worth the effort.

[theo_dibbits]

Only done some test shots. The smartest thing I have done to day is ask the question. Thanks for your help. Theo

[karl_knize]

Put the majority of your labor into the setup and not the photography or post. If you have

enough gear, I would create a setup which allows you to expose the product and the

background separately from one camera position. Shooting on glass or clear plexi as

mentioned earlier is a good solution, because doing a quick clone of unwanted reflections

is pretty easy and it allows you more flexibility in the lighting.

 

Set up the background so that it's lit separately from the product, and give yourself the

space to slide in or remove a black card or cloth like black velvet.

 

Lock everything down tight, start with the black over your background, expose the

product, remove the black and expose the background as a separate capture. Now your

lighing and setup has created a mask for you. In PS, take your background capture, select

all, copy and paste it in as a layer and there you go.

 

 

I've done this kind of thing many, many times and a light table/plexi under the product

works great. Now, you can gel the light source if you want color in the background layer or

you can leave it neutral if your product is separating.

 

The trick is setting up so that the lighting from one capture/layer doesn't contaminate the

other, and you aren't getting any movement. I've probably done a hundred of these where I

set it up so that I would capture the product, remove the black and capture the

background without moving my feet.

 

Hope this is of value to you!