Making car wheels appear move

[andycallaghan]

Due to my limited panning ability, a lot of my Brands Hatch pics were shot at 1/800 or 1/1000 at 500mm.

This means that the car is sharp, but the wheels make the car look static.
Is there any kind of magic that can be done to make it look like they're moving?

 

[OlyPaul]

Select the wheels using the elliptical marque then go to filter blur and select radial blur and tick the spin box.

 

[Scarecrow]

Don't go overboard with the amount of spin thogh, as if the wheels look as if they are moving a lot, the lack of blur in the background will look strange.

 

[sam_cat]

Could always apply a linear blur to the background as well...

Or get yourself down to some local (cheap) motorsports and practice.. Lots.

This was taken at Prescott speed, about 20 minutes from home for me:

Prescott Speed - Afternoon - Bentley Continental GT - Panning Shot by Sam_catch, on Flickr

Spent most of the morning getting duff shots, in the afternoon it started to work.. This was the best of the day.

Sam

 

[hairboy]

Yeah, but the PS motion/linear blurs tend to look a little fake, Tell tale signs are in the shadows.

Practice, practice, practice! if you don't want to spend all that cash into going to the main events, just go to main road near you, and practice your panning technique until you can judge the speed of car, and how much you need to pan by. Also, calculate the shutter speed you want for the amount of panning. That's crucial to a good pan shot.

 

[Rich R]

Yeah, but the PS motion/linear blurs tend to look a little fake, Tell tale signs are in the shadows.

Agreed, tried it, didn't like it, went to the inside of Druids and practiced panning !