YSL Libre | Post-Production

Discover the post-production behind this perfect product shot.

Follow professional photographer Karl Taylor as he walks you through every step of his Photoshop workflow, explaining how to transform the various shots captured in YSL Libre Product Shoot into a single pristine final image.

The primary task is combining the numerous layers and blending different elements to produce the ideal composite. There’s also plenty of cleaning up to do, and some ‘ghosting ’ to deal with. You’ll use layer masks, the Pen tool, the Polygon Lasso tool, the Healing Brush, the Clone Stamp tool and more. You’ll also use Gaussian and motion blur, add noise, and do some crucial burning and dodging.

By the end of this class, you’ll have boosted your post-production skills and created a stunning new image for your portfolio.

In this class:

  • Post-production for cosmetics product photography
  • Layer masks and compositing
  • How to use the Pen tool
  • Adding noise and blur
  • Healing Brush and Clone Stamp
  • How to burn and dodge in Photoshop

To learn how to capture the shots you’ll work on in this class, watch YSL Libre Product Shoot.

Just getting started with post-production? Explore Photoshop For Photographers.

If you enjoy this in-depth Photoshop tutorial, check out Mugler Angel | Post-Production and Sunlit Shadows Cosmetics | Post-Production.

Questions? Please post them in the comments below.

Comments

  2. Hi Karl, thanks for the video!

    I want to ask:
    1. If this image was for a client, would you still change the color toward more golden?
    2. How do you assess how much color is to be accurate and how much color is to be more pleasing?

    Thanks

    1. Hi,
      1. Yes. Lots of things in advertising are tweaked to look better.
      2. That just comes down to taste and experience. Clearly it couldn’t be a blue or a completely different colour but it’s quite feasible that a warmer light from early or late in the day could be shining through it which would change the colour. It’s really a matter of how it feels, with certain products such as clothes where the end user is very focused on the ‘actual’ colour then you couldn’t push things too far otherwise the end user would be saying ‘hey this isn’t the same colour’ but for drinks, perfumes etc there’s a bit more wiggle room. For example if you look at every whisky advert, the colour of the liquid doesn’t look like that in the supermarket!

  3. Two questions:
    1) Have you ever gotten to the post production phase decided to reshoot the product? I ask because the glue blob seemed quite a hassle to deal with and that maybe you may have been thinking, “wait a minute, there’s a better way to get this into the pose without creating this huge blob in the middle.” I am primarily curious whether you’ve ever done it on an assignment, though also curious whether you’ve found that you really had to reshoot it, regardless of context.

    2) As I looked at all the sensor spots you had to clean off in post, I was reminded of my most recent sensor cleaning experience from last week. The sensor cleaning supplies are ridiculously expensive, and as far as I can tell, don’t work very well. The intstructions saw to wipe once, then dispose of the material used to clean the sensor. When I do that, I always get liquid streaks that are as bad or worse than the dust I was trying to clean off. The most recent occasion I did this, I gave up on “one swab, one wipe, then dispose.” Instead I wiped about ten times with the same swab until it looked clean to the eye. It still had a few spots, but not in the same place as before, and not as many. I would love to see a quick video of you cleaning your Hasselblad, because its sensor is similar to the one on my P1 digital back.

    1. Hi Apaq,
      1. No I can’t think of that happening as it would take too long to reset everything. I’ve had to reshoot images because the client has changed their mind/direction or once many years ago because I didn’t have a film loaded!
      2. My method of cleaning is not too dissimilar to what you describe, I wipe multiple times with the same wipe, then blow, then wipe again and over until I feel it’s clear and then if necessary to remove streaks a brand new soft lens cloth to wipe any streaks and sometimes even breath and then wipe with the soft cloth and them blow again to remove any fibres from the cloth.

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