colourised matte finish

[nathanw38172697]

Hi all

A client has asked me to produce a brand book with a specific look very similar to the images I have uploaded. Despite trying I cannot get this look and any threads/posts do not give this result by which I mean the objects blue matte tone and or the white/grey tone.. Can anyone help with this before I stick two pencils up my nose and headbutt the table? Many thanks people!

[c.pfaffenbichler]

I suspect most of those objects were physically painted before photographing.

[nathanw38172697]

I would assume that some are. however I doubt all and there is always a way.... some look like a Plasticine effect. I am looking for a matte finish meanwhile keeping the defining features of the object including the shadow.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

I expect complex clipping of the object is unavoidable then and where simple colouring does not suffice Frequency Separation may be necessary.

[davescm]

Can you post an image, or a section of it, on which you are trying to achieve that look?

Dave

[D Fosse]

This is a lot trickier than you'd think. You can't just "lighten to white" in a linear 1:1 relationship - what's required is in fact a complete remapping of all tonal values. Otherwise it will just look glaringly fake.

Which isn't to say that it can't be done, but you really need to buckle down, punch the time-clock and put in some tedious work. In almost every instance the simplest solution is to spray-paint the objects and then take the picture.

We had a similar discussion a while ago, and then I made my own attempt just to see if it was possible. I spent a lot of time on this one, but I'm still not convinced it looks credible:

[davescm]

Yes my thoughts are curves + gradient map and then painting out any glossy reflections. Not a quick job and the amount of effort will very much depend on the starting image.

Dave