Can you help disect this photo? How's it done?

[lindamccague]

Can you help me figure out how this shot was done?

 

I'm guessing that incence or something was used to make smoke. Looks like fire,

but I don't think it is. Would you need a long exposure to do this. I'm confused by

the highlights though... is it flash with two lights?

 

Any help would be great. Thanks! Linda<div></div>

[steve_levine]

If it were 1988, one could give an accurate guess as to how this was done. But it's 2008, and digital has been around for over 15 years in commercial work such as this.

 

 

In the old days this would be a large format, double exposure with back lit smoke.

[craig_supplee]

I am going to venture a guess that it is two shots, one of smoke, one with bottle photoshoped together.

[pujo]

Just like steve said. the lighting on the smoke is back lighting. 1 light is usually enough. the smoke can be a combination of several smoke shot, no long exposure, just flash sync speed. dark background like black velvet is good to use, or other as long as you don't light the background.

[ellis_vener_photography]

As far back as the early 1980s it would have been a digital composite , probably done by a retoucher named Raphaele who was the pioneer in this sort of work. The "smoke looks like it is either completely digitally painted or is a composite of several photos of real smoke. No doubt its color has been very carefully chosen to match the color of the product.

 

Thw product itselfis likely a retouched composite as well wit hthe bottle lit and illumianted one way, the cap lit and photographed separately, and the brand and product names lit and shot separately and composited in later.

[ellis_vener_photography]

The bottle and the cap are definitely lit with two lights, one on either side, probably "Strip" type soft or hard boxes.

[lindamccague]

Thanks for all the help. My photography instructor gave me this image in class last night. He instructed us that in our class next week we are to try and recreate this image. My first comment to him when he handed it to me was also PHOTOSHOP!!! LOL

 

If you were me and had to try and recreate it only using digital camera, lighting, etc. (other stuff in a school studio)... what would you do. I like the idea that the smoke was backlit. That helps!!

 

Any more suggestions now that you know I have to try and actually do this WITHOUT Photoshop? Let's pretend it's 1980. :)

[lindamccague]

I have softboxes at school and can use more than one light. What is a strip light? Is that when you black out some of it on the sides to make it into a skinny strip?

[craig_supplee]

I went on the Clinique website, and they use frosted glass on their products. I bet the top is a gold shiny plastic and that is why the bottle and cap side highlights are different.

[stephanie_b]

Does your photography instructor -really- expect you to shoot this digitally without

compositing? Because I would bet the entire tuition bill at my school that is a

composite. Maybe he's trying to teach you how many possibilities digital has opened

for work like this because shooting this in one shot would be a mess.

 

Extract tool for the smoke. A lot of times smoke is inverted as well. The bottle looks

like it's lit with two strip softboxes, on either side. The curve of the glass and the metal

are different angles so of course the light is reflected differently. I don't believe they

are lit separately. I think two strips with even light from both sides about 45 degrees.

[g._armour_van_horn]

There is smoke both in front of and behind the bottle, which would call for a pretty tricky physical set. I don't know what color the contents of the bottle actually are, but I'd think that there are at least three lights on the bottle: the strip lights on the side and something from the back to illuminate the contents, possibly gelled. The smoke is probably three or four different shots, backlit with strobe, either gelled or recolored in PS.

 

I wouldn't want to say this is impossible in a single shot, or even as multiple exposures on a single sheet of film, but it would take so much work to do that I consider it only a very remote possibility.

 

Van

[lindamccague]

Thanks for the answers everyone. I'm pretty sure we aren't to use photoshop as part of the building blocks of this image. He never wants us to retouch anything more than sharpening and white balance. It's a lighting class that I'm currently in.

 

My class is next Wednesday night, so I'll post some images to see how close can we get to this final product. :)

[digitmstr]

Bottle: likely two strip boxes with scrims. Real shot, not composite.

 

Smoke: shot separately and added in PS. Color tool used to match bottle color.

 

My .2 guess

[terry_spade]

It is done very similar to this. Except the smoke. Click on the setup link below picture. The cut out shadow is very key on a black background.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30916815@N00/2462575989/

[ellis_vener_photography]

The way you get the very smooth backligh glow through the bottle is an old trick I learned from someone who shot the Chanel No.5 bottles for chael's US advertising back in the 1970s.

 

use a reflector covered with metalic foil (in this case I'd advise trying either silver foil or gold foil) behind the bottle -- it should be just smaller than the bottle and positioned just behind the bottle make sure you trim the edges and corners so they aren't visible. Yo uhave to adjustthe size and shape ofthe reflector while through the virewfinder or on your camera's LCD preview screen.

 

I take back what I said about strip style softboxes. given the curved shapes ofthe cap andthe bottle use medium to large softboxes positioned on either side ofthe product . Once again you need to adjust their exact position by looking at your LCD ( and if you can shoot with the camera tethered to a computer and it's display even better. Start with the back edges of the softboxes lined up with the product and then move them way (towards the back ofthe set) until the shape of the reflection looks right on the first side and then do the same with the other side. Yo ujudge this by eye and having a slight bit of assymetry is sometimes a good thing.

 

Solve the bottle lighting problem first and get a good clean exposure befor tackling the smoke .

 

You'll also need to use flags -- black matt board works well -- to keep the light channeled to go only where you want it to go.

 

Also don't be afraid to bring the softboxes in as close as you can to the product without getting them in the frame.

[richard_cochran]

Coming in late, I'll add one more point that's probably obvious to most, to answer the "Would you need a long exposure" question in the original post.

<p>

Assuming the smoke wasn't drawn, but was shot as a photo (whether in the same shot as the bottle or not), it was most definitely NOT a long exposure. It was almost certainly done with flash.

<p>

Smoke naturally moves. A long exposure of moving smoke produces a sort of blurry mush. The finely detailed contrasty wisps frozen in time mean a short exposure time was used. It could have been continuous light with a very short shutter speed, but my bet is on flash.

[paolo_dvorchik]

I concur about it being two exposures photoshoped together. Also, it so be fairly obvious that it's two lights not one -- just look at the reflection on the metal.

[lindamccague]

Ok, as promised... we had class tonight and here is my attempt!<div></div>

[lindamccague]

Here is out lighting setup...<div></div>

[pancho_skywalker]

Hi, I was waiting for your pics, thanks. I would have used incense for smoke (don't know if you did). I also think that, seing your pic, it's easier to make two separate pictures and merge them in photoshop, this allow to control smoke separatly and modifie it on photoshop also separatly.

Any way I think your not far from the original pic...congratulations, what does you teacher said?

[lindamccague]

Hello Pancho,

 

We did use incense for the smoke. It wasn't ideal as no one in our team brough a lighter or matches!! DUH!! We were able to borrow a few matches from another team, but we couldn't light as many incense as we wanted to. I agree that using photoshop to merge two pictures would be better, but for this assignment we were not to use photoshop to manipulate the image.

 

Thank you for your congratulations. The bottle was a frosted white with clearl liquid, so we used an orange gel over the backlight to turn it orange and to make the smoke look like fire.

[ellis_vener_photography]

nice work.

[marius_sipa]

Hi everyone,

I'm a Johnny Comes Lately to this thread but I can tell you without doubt that this is a composite image. It was

created through layers in a photo editing program such as Adobe Photoshop. I can detect several layers (albeit

barely) just by looking at the photo.<p> By the way, here's the original photo in a bit larger size so you can

see what I mean:

<a href="http://s81.photobucket.com/albums/j232/mgsipa/?action=view&current=clinique.jpg" target="_blank"><img

src="http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j232/mgsipa/clinique.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><p>

 

There are six layers that I can detect immediately. The first is the bottle itself. One could argue that the

sprayer and cap are another layer, but I don't think it would have been necessary. The smoke at the left of the

bottle is a second layer. The smoke at the right of the bottle is a third layer. The smoke at the top of the

bottle is a fourth. The small puff at top right is a fifth layer. All of these are different puffs of smoke. Look

at the bottom of the bottle at the sources of the smoke... there is no source where there should be, especially

with the smoke at left. The source was edited out of the photo. The puff at right almost looks like it was puffed

in through a tube from behind, the tube directed directly at the lens. There is also disconnect between the

different sections of smoke, so if these were from one source of smoke, i.e. no layers, and one shot from the

flash, how can there be a disconnect? Look at your own photo... all the smoke flows in one smooth puff of smoke,

no loose pieces of smoke drifting off on their own.<p>

 

Finally tha last layer, layer six is the text on the bottle. All the words are evenly lit. If the text were not a

separate layer, then the first and last letters would be somewhat lighter than the rest due to the curvature of

the bottle and because of the two soft boxes on either side. Try it and see.<p>

 

Lastly, the color of the liquid in the bottle looks too perfect to be simply lighted orange. I believe it's

colored liquid, or even better, Orange Juice!<p>

 

Sorry for the long-worded reply, but you asked for a dissection. Obviously I don't have all the answers, but this

looks very obvious to me. Hopefully this helps. <p>