Follow-up tutorial on composites

Scooter

Scooter

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Owen
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This tutorial is mainly about post-production, however there is a set-building and studio lighting component so may be of interest to those who hang out in the Lighting and Studio forum. Lighting is something that is traditionally, almost impossible to fake in post production (ie the the direction, quality of shadows, highlights etc) unless you painted it on pixel by pixel. However you can re-create studio lighting in 3D modelling software. Something the movie world has been doing for more than twenty years now (they are moving away from CGI on some productions now in favour of practical models in real-time projected backdrops). Again, for stills, we don't need a render-farm the size of a small town, and so can adapt these techniques quite efficiently for a single frame.


Right - the sudden lack of fan noise from my GPUs tells me my sword has finished cooking - time to see if it fits :)
 
Excellent in every way, thanks for posting.
I think that there's a massive difference in attitudes between photographers when it comes to post-processing, ranging between those who won't embrace it at all to those who like to use software for everything and for whom the actual photographic image is almost (or even completely) irrelevant. But, of course, all approaches and all attitudes are valid.

To me, the biggest single challenges with intensive PP work are:
1. The learning curve
2. The incredible amount of time that it takes it do it at all, let alone to do it really well. For those of us who actually enjoy these complex processes it's fine, but for those of us who appreciate the need but who don't want to do it ourselves, there are options.

Many years ago I started contracting out even relatively simple tasks such as cutting out backgrounds to https://www.clipping-path-asia.com and I did this partly because of the high quality of their work (but make sure that you deal with them and not one of the many copycats that have very similar names) partly because of their speed (they're in Thailand and work when we're asleep) and partly because it provides work for people who need it. And the commercial benefit is clear too, charge the client for my own time/services and tell them that there will be an additional per image cost for contracted-out services of X, which not only makes things simpler all round but also helps the clients to appreciate that the TV programmes have got it wrong when they show that any image can be totally transformed in seconds. . .

Right now I'm into video editing, which involves a VERY sharp learning curve, especially with my programme of choice, Adobe Premier Pro, and I'm gradually improving and becoming half-way competent.

And, I've discovered www.fiverr.com which is a talent portal - just go on there and find someone who specialises in the effect you want, brief them fully and leave it to them! But there's a downside to contracting out too, because I've found that if I create the special effects myself then the process helps me to discover new and better ideas as I go.

You mention rendering time. I've found (now that I have a very high-spec computer) that even with video, rendering time roughly approximates view time, so a 20-minute video only takes about 20 minutes to render.
 
Hi Garry,

You could just render the whole thing in Daz tbh, as there are plenty of figures, costumes etc in the library. It even does volumetric fog as of the last major update. However, much as I love playing with this technique, I know what you mean about the learning curve and I don't want to do it too often as it is very time consuming. Plus, even with the latest advances in the physics model for clothes, hair etc, they don't look quite right to me, and the skin detail isn't quite there either in Daz, so I'm sticking with Real Humans® for that :)

It's not really the sort of repetitive formulaic PP you can outsource to Clipping Path as there's quite a lot of artistic input to the masking, and painting on of various effects i.e. giving them all the assets in a Saturday Kitchen sort of way and saying "make me an really artistic image from this lot" would not, I suspect result in a great image :P For more mundane PP though absolutely agree - especially if you have multiple images of the same thing to process. Processing skin for example for high-end beauty results gets really old when you've healed the same spots and creases 6 times :) Photoshop has got really effective at automating selections (clipping paths) for certain situations recently, notably people, sky, and a growing library of objects, however it's not perfect and often just decides to miss off a chunk of the thing you've told it to isolate.

For me (and continuing the movie analogy), I'm a one-man production company: Producer, Director, Photographer, CGI artist, Colourist, casting director, catering manager, location scout.... :) and I do these things for fun. Commercially though, just as on a movie production, I agree it would be bonkers to assign all those roles to one person and expect good results in a timely fashion. They are all separate and skilled jobs tbh, and whilst (because I'm nosey) I like to try out all of these things, it's generally accepted that specialising gets better results in each field. I just realised, there is one job I don't often do on-set: Director of Wind! (or First Air Technician :P )

Ahh the video editing :) This is also another pie I have a spare finger in. I'm using DaVinci but the learning curve is just as steep. I have a YouTube channel of sorts https://www.youtube.com/c/OwenLloyd which I mainly use to post up live recordings of me processing images from a workshop or tutorial, so the attendees can see the rest of the process after the shoot, however there are some behind-the-scenes style videos too which require a but more creative input on the editing. The Fog Workshop Trailer was probably the most complex video - and I spend most of the time lining up key events with key moments in the music track.
 
Scooter said:
It's not really the sort of repetitive formulaic PP you can outsource to Clipping Path as there's quite a lot of artistic input to the masking, and painting on of various effects i.e. giving them all the assets in a Saturday Kitchen sort of way and saying "make me an really artistic image from this lot" would not, I suspect result in a great image :p
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I wasn't suggesting that it would work for this, it obviously wouldn't. I was just pointing out that outsourcing can often offer a good solution.
Scooter said:
For me (and continuing the movie analogy), I'm a one-man production company: Producer, Director, Photographer, CGI artist, Colourist, casting director, catering manager, location scout.... :) and I do these things for fun. Commercially though, just as on a movie production, I agree it would be bonkers to assign all those roles to one person and expect good results in a timely fashion.
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I've just watched the James Bond "No Time To Die" movie and the list of credits seems to go on for ever, and gives an idea of why the costs are so high:)
Scooter said:
I have a YouTube channel of sorts https://www.youtube.com/c/OwenLloyd which I mainly use to post up live recordings of me processing images from a workshop or tutorial, so the attendees can see the rest of the process after the shoot, however there are some behind-the-scenes style videos too which require a but more creative input on the editing. The Fog Workshop Trailer was probably the most complex video - and I spend most of the time lining up key events with key moments in the music track.
Click to expand...
Interesting. I've just subscribed to it, and will look at the various videos later. From what I've seen so far, you do a great job of explaining how you go about these tasks.
 
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