Last year we had the great opportunity to capture some amazing images for our friends at the
Camden Harbour Inn, in Camden Maine. Although the images were shot originally for the Inn itself we were pleasantly surprised to see that
Maine Home & Design ran a story about the Inn featuring our images in their
June 2013 issue.
(click on images to view larger)
That finally gave me the opportunity and motivation to begin posting some "in-depth edits" highlighting the great care and attention to detail that we value so much when it comes to creating images for our clients. This will be the first in a series of posts that I will be presenting regularly to showcase our editing process.
When we capture our photographs, we are very aware of elements within the field of view that could draw your eye away from the intended subject matter. We pride ourselves on finding creative, interesting perspectives that showcase the subject of every photo we take and sometimes that is all it takes to crop out an unwanted element. However we are not always able to eliminate everything we would like from a scene with creative cropping and for those circumstances we rely on our proficiency with
Adobe Photoshop. This shot was a great example of just that situation. Below is a before & after image showing the room with and without the air conditioning unit that we removed from the image.
Typically if we know we are going to do a sophisticated edit like this we would shoot the wallpaper straight on to give ourselves an undistorted high-res image to work with. Unfortunately the decision to take out the air conditioning unit was made in post. In this case we had to work with what we had so we were forced to use a section of the existing wallpaper within the scene. (see below)
That selection was then copied and moved upward to cover the air conditioner.
From there we distorted the selection to match the perspective of the wallpaper (no easy task I assure you), then the exposure & color were adjusted to blend in with the existing wallpaper. We completed the edit by cloning out the area where the AC unit overlaps the wall as well as the shadow it creates on the ceiling. Hover your mouse over the image below and you can watch as the air conditioner magically disappears.
( hold your cursor over this image to view the animation, be patient while images load for the first time )
We felt that although the original image may be a more truthful rendition with the air conditioner in place, it could draw your eye away from the aesthetics of the room. It's one of those things that you may not notice while in the environment, but when you capture it in a photograph, it becomes frozen in time and can stand out like a sore thumb. Just like light switches, outlets and thermostats, (which we regularly remove) we accept them as they are for their utility but removing them from an image allows your eye to move smoothly through the scene without getting tripped up on those (generally) inconsequential bits of our everyday lives.
Until the next time,
Mike
Software used
- Adobe Lightroom 4
- Adobe Photoshop CS 6
As always we appreciate any feedback that you would like to leave in the comments below or likes on our Facebook page.
