Product Photography... Done in Photoshop or Not?

[lee5E9E]

Hello community,

A little about me, 

My wife started shooting portrait photography and I have been doing the editing. It will be our first year in January. We have learned so much since then from our education investements, however one thing still eludes me when it comes to product photography...(I am curious as friends want me to shoot/edit their Amazon products.)

If you look at the samples below, they both use a different way of editing. One is more "real" than the other. 

The lipstick sample is very edited and I see this a lot in advertisements. Is this type of editing done exlusively in Photoshop? I can't find any tutorials regarding this type of editing for products. The tutorials I have seen have been for products shot with minor cleanups including some gradients on the lid. 

To sum it up more clear, 

1. Is the lipstick sample photo and other advertisements done completely from a Photoshop or is it a real product shot in studio and over edited?

2. Does anyone know of any tutorials regarding this type of editing? I can't find any. 

Thank you,

[Ussnorway]

The lipstick sample is a fake image and while you can do it in Photoshop, 3D software like Dimension, Iclone or Blender do a much better workflow

the cleanser could be real or fake... its very bland either way

[lee5E9E]

Thank you very much Ussnorway for the reply and help!

[Mike_Gondek]

Lipstick image is vector, so likely was done in Illustrator, using gradient mesh to illustrator lipsticks.

The other image was shot with this camera then likely retouched

[D Fosse]

Product photography is done with lighting. Several studio flash units and a range of soft boxes of different shapes and sizes. Very often backlit backgrounds to remove shadows. Most of what you see is done by highly skilled photographers with tons of experience.

Yes, the lipstick is vector, but the other one is a real photograph. It was probably shot just like that, with minimal touch-up in Photoshop. People often think that looks "unrealistic" because they can't do it themselves, so they think "it must be Photoshop". But it's not. It's just good photographers.

Had to get that off my chest...

[jane-e]

Good reminder, @D Fosse !

~ Jane

[lee5E9E]

Thank you D Fosse for the reply! 

[D Fosse]

Here's a very simple DIY backlighting setup. This completely eliminates any need for masking. The principal light here is a large overhead softbox:

I have to be careful what I post for copyright reasons, but these crops should be safe. All these images come straight out of Lightroom, no Photoshop whatsoever. No masking:

Softboxes are incredibly flexible lighting. Not only smooth light and very soft, subtle shadows, but you can also use them for light/dark effects to emphasize shape:

Studio flash units and softboxes cost a little money. But if you plan to do this a lot, it's a very good investment that will cut your hours down to fractions of what you would spend in Photoshop. And there are varieties of this, like the light tent to simulate "white-out" lighting, very effective in some cases.

When you look at those ads and wonder how to do it, this is how. It's not Photoshop.

[lee5E9E]

Wow. Thank you so much for the response! I'm feeling the love here! This will help us immensly! 

[josephlavine]

For a little background information; I have owned a commercial photography studio for thirty-plus years.

There is no simple answer to your question. Yes, it does appear that much of your sample advertisement is generated in post-production, but the level of manipulation is based greatly on the project and client. Some projects have minimal manipulation and others take days.

warmly/j

[lee5E9E]

Thank you Joseph! All this input from everyone really helps.

[davescm]

I agree with the comments on lighting above, but there is something else that makes it very difficult to tell between retouched real objects and 3D rendered models (which would be created in a proper 3D application, not Photoshop).

Real objects usually have some marks and defects on their surface which, in the kind of photograph you show, would be retouched to remove them. This can be very successful - take a look at retoucher Earth Oliver's sessions on frequency separation that he made for Adobe Max.

 https://www.adobe.com/max/2020/sessions/frequency-separation-20-part-1-photoshop-fs20-reto-l6153a.ht...

https://www.adobe.com/max/2020/sessions/frequency-separation-20-part-2-taking-images-to-th-l6153b.ht...

https://www.adobe.com/max/2020/sessions/frequency-separation-20-part-3-problem-solving-tec-l6153c.ht...

Conversely, when modelling and texturing objects in 3D applications, it is common to add such defects to the surface in order to make the rendered image look real. It doesn't take much, just a small bit of edge wear, fingerprint or scratch. By doing so, it is quite possible to make a 3D modelled object look more "real" than a photographed and retouched actual object.

The only way you would get a definitive answer would be to ask the creator of the image.

Dave

[lee5E9E]

Thank you very much Dave for the input and the links! I'm am so very happy to take a look at these. Thank you thank thank you!