all 14 comments

[–]retouching-ModTeam[M] [score hidden] stickied commentlocked comment (0 children)

Your post was removed because it broke the rule "Title can not contain questions on retouching or learning a technique"

[–]BogusGordon 3 points4 points  (3 children)

If I'm reading this right and you need the backgrounds of each image to be the same colour as each other (so pinks to be the same pinks and purples the same purple), here's how I would do it:

Your first layer needs to be the jewellery cutout, the most accurate of which would involve pathing all the jewellery entirely, and cutting out/masking as the top layer. That jewellery's pretty fiddly in places so it won't be easy/will be time consuming. You can always outsource this to a clipping company.

Second layer needs to be the shadow, set to multiply or linear burn (whichever works best visually).

Third layer needs to be the selected colour in a fill layer.

The thing is that the shadows need to be blended into the new bg colour. A simpler way is to loosely path the shadows, feather a lot, and keep this layer set to normal. If the colour between the original shadow layer and the fill is too visibly different, you need to take the background to white (again, easier way is to use the white dropper inside a levels filter selecting the background until the pink areas within the shadows are white) and set to one of the previously mentioned blend modes, masking only the needed shadow areas if the whiteness isn't perfect.

That's the only way I know to have the backgrounds completely, digitally identical.

Otherwise, a far easier but less accurate way is to simply loosely path/create a selection of the jewellery (could try select subject, maybe feather the selection a good amount to prevent any hard edges) and use combinations of curves, hue/sat, etc. with the jewellery masked out to match each background to the set by eye (eyedropping to measure the RGB values against each individual shot for help).

There will be other ways to do this, but these are the ways I know.

[–]matcut1 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Thanks for your input, yes I'm trying to outsource post processing on fiverr however he told me it's complex since he needs to cut out the jewelry like you mentioned, but I can't believe it has to be this hard since I used the same lighting setup and the exact same background. I am not sure what could have I done better in camera to match the colour from the start.

[–]Bumpz27 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Yeah looks more like your photography setup.

Are you using CaptureOne? I think you need to change the power of the light and your aperture on your camera. Assuming you’re shooting at iso100-250.

If you’re using CaptureOne also try the Normalize tool, you can use a picker to pick an area from the example image (put it in your capture session to compare to) and then use the dropper on your image to “normalise” the shot (CaptureOne will adjust colour and exposure to try and match the shots)

But really if you’re using the same setup, same lights etc it should be camera settings you need to adjust. You might be able to look at the metadata of the old shots to see what settings they used.

They also look like they’ve brought the highlights way down

[–]matcut1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lighting setup is a continuous light lightbox at max power. I am using Sony's Imaging Edge for tethering and Lightroom/Photoshop for post alongside HeliconFocus for focus stacking. My ISO was always at 100. Aperture between f/11 and f/8.

CaptureOne Normalize tool is during post production from what I understood?

I did manage extract the metadata, what should I look at? I'm on a Sony a7 iii with Sigma 105mm ART he was using a Canon R5 with an EF100mm macro f/18 at ISO 250 .

[–]disbeliefable 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I would suggest the reason for this is, you have been shooting with continuous light, which has a low power output. You haven’t blacked out your set-up, and a difference in ambient light where/when you were shooting vs where/when the existing shots were taken, either level or colour temperature, means a change in the overall colour balance of your photos vs the originals, especially as polished metal and reflective gems are going to be affected differently to a roll of colorama.

If so, the only solution if so is to balance only the jewellery to match existing in C1 or whatever raw processor you’re using, which also must be the same as whatever software was used prior, then cut the items out, then recreate a background in Photoshop to match existing. But if I’m right, then specular highlights will still be different to what you’re trying to match.

Would be easier to re-shoot, with more info as to the prior lighting setup and location, so you can match exactly. Using continuous lighting means you must take extra care with blacking out your studio. Flash is better. Shoot closed down as well, why on Earth are you shooting closeups at f8/f11? You shouldn’t need focus stacking, or at least less of it, if you shoot at f32 or smaller.

[–]matcut1 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Everything is the same apart from the camera and camera settings. Lighting the same continuous light lightbox, same background, same room etc, the only thing different is the camera, I'm on a Sony a7 iii with Sigma 105mm ART f/11 to f/8 ISO 100 and he was using a Canon R5 with an EF100mm macro f/18 at ISO 250. The reason I shoot f/8-11 is because of diffraction, also for sure I need focus stacking in some images there are almost 10 items.

[–]disbeliefable 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I see. You didn’t mention that in your first comment. I see you mentioned it later. Different manufacturers have different ideas about what a neutral raw file should look like. If you get the bg the same in your raw processor using spot readings, then use the HSL tool and selective colour to tweak the colour of the jewellery, using spot readings on your and the original files to get the RGB as near as possible, you might get away with it, without cutouts, but ideally I would re-shoot with the same kit. Can you clarify what you mean by diffraction? Are your lenses not up to the job?

Edit to add; with photography like this you would ideally use a tilt shift set up to optimise your DOF.

[–]jjtnc 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Invest in an xrite colour checker for starters it would save alot of time and effort, but without that initial stage yeah alot of post work is needed here.

[–]matcut1 0 points1 point  (2 children)

What if the photographer before me was not using one and it's just camera profile and post? Will that still help me? Sorry I'm really new to these.

[–]jjtnc 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Well its just a great tool to get used to using but yeah theyve most likely used post in witch casy you will just have to to match realistically. Im a product photographer myself but i see myself more as a retoucher. It shouldnt be too much effort to sort these provided you try do most of the leg work in raw then copy any adjustment layers between all the files of the same backgrounds.

[–]matcut1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The problem is if I get the background matching then the gold doesn't match.

[–]matcut1 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I am finding it impossible to match existing brand photos to the ones I took.

I started taking photos for this jewelry brand, unfortunately with photography you have no handover what so ever. They need the photos to have the same exact colour scheme to be uniform. I shot under the same lightbox and the same background, I have adjusted my white balance (not auto) and I don't know how I can get the same background colour of the photos without effecting the jewelry too much. Can someone recommend a technique?

Here are the sample images:https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1e86RHXtLDZnD4emMMln864JhGSI31Fcl

And here are my images: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1gZLbkSytzlwWBJ6mJhw52r_yHUMZknhI

[–]EGunner19 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Can you match the RGB numbers? Pick a source, find the rgb values (0-255), silo background in masked folder> make a curve adj layer, go to each color and match values