I joined this job after the photo shoot for Ford’s SUV line image had been finished. I was briefed on the art direction and provided a reference image of last years line-up.
The challenges on this job were the tight deadline and the fact that this art director and I had never worked together before. We had to quickly become accustomed to one another and communicate well. I was passed a hard drive with the entire photo shoot and was expected to figure out how to create one final image. The photography of the vehicles was shot for strip, which meant that I had to review hundreds of images to mask into one master image.
I started by reviewing the hard drive. I quickly able to organize and prioritize the retouching workflow to build the entire composition. The background base image was first composited from many different images not from the shoot. I the city on the left were composited from two different images. The mountains on the right were composited from two or three different images. The sky and ground were also created from multiple other images. I adjusted the color and contrast to match the reference image provided as I build each individual vehicle with its shadow.
At this point, I felt that all the images combined properly into one huge working file and requested a review with the art director. We worked together selecting distractions to remove in the background and on the product. I removed reflections of the vehicles next to each other to help bring out shape of the form and removing anything through the windows that would not bee there.
Once all changes were incorporated into the images, I sent the images back for review and approval. After minimal corrections, the image master image was approved
I was able to achieve high quality results under pressure. The art director was very impressed and reported that the client loved the work. This image was used in print and in digital for Ford dealerships.
