Thanks Patrice Lemee (or, the 'power' of good photo editing)

[PIndelicato]

I wanted to post a big thank you to my good friend Patrice Lemee, and also to demonstrate just how effective good photo editing can be. Last week Patrice offered to play around with some of my raw photos to see what he could do with them. I am blown away by the results.

I have long struggled with getting good photos of my knives, and while it has gotten a lot better over time, I'm still not happy with my results. I have always blamed my inexpensive camera along with my lack of photography experience (and I still do to some extent). But now I realize after Patrice's 'magic' demonstrated here that what you do after the photo has been taken can have as much to do with the finished product as the camera used or how the raw images appear. I'm not dismissing the value of a quality camera and setup nor the skill of a talented and experienced photographer, but Patrice has shown me what can be done in editing and now I have something new to learn (does that ever end???)

Here are the raw images I sent to Patrice:

And here is what he sent back to me:

Patrice, thank you for helping me with these photos and for opening my eyes to what can be done with photo editing!

 

[tinwiskers]

looks great Paul! there is always something new to learn. Here are a few photos I took recently of your knife you made me last fall

I had a kydex sheath made for it along side to give me options, I still use the leather one as well

 

[jll346]

Im glad Pat helped you with your photos because that knife is really nice!!

 

[Patrice Lemée]

Thanks Paul, I am glad you like it. It is not perfect and I am not a pro but that's a good thing cause it shows what anybody can do with a little work. Showing your work in the best light possible is even more important when people can't handle your knives in person. In your case Paul, your knives are VERY clean, with a high level of fit and finish. It is even more important to showcase this properly as it can be lost easily in a poor picture compared to more “flashy” knives, that some people we won't name like to make.

The main reason for this post is to make sure that everybody knows that I didn't “hide” anything here. For most, the term “Photoshoped” is now synonymous with “doctored”. NOT in this case. Paul's work is THAT clean. I only extracted the knives, adjusted levels and colors so they look more like they really do in person and sharpened things a little.

PS: This was not done with Photoshop but with GIMP, a photo manipulation program just as powerful (for what 90% of people use it for anyway) and much cheaper as in FREE!

 

[deloid]

Oustanding masking and composition...great knife also!

 

[photonjunkie]

Patrice, would you mind sharing how you "extracted" the knives from the original photo with GIMP?

 

[Patrice Lemée]

Junkie, you can find many tutorials online googling "Gimp Extraction tutorial", like this one for example:

http://www.wikihow.com/Extract-an-Image-in-GIMP

They explain it better than I could do.

 

[photonjunkie]

Thanks for the link Patrice. Will look into it.

 

[PIndelicato]

looks great Paul! there is always something new to learn. Here are a few photos I took recently of your knife you made me last fall

I had a kydex sheath made for it along side to give me options, I still use the leather one as well

Hey Ian, great to hear from you and thanks for posting your 'action' photos! It looks like your knife is getting some good use in the outdoors and I'm really pleased to see that. The kydex sheath looks great too...who made that for you?

Im glad Pat helped you with your photos because that knife is really nice!!

Thanks, I am too!

Thanks Paul, I am glad you like it. It is not perfect and I am not a pro but that's a good thing cause it shows what anybody can do with a little work. Showing your work in the best light possible is even more important when people can't handle your knives in person. In your case Paul, your knives are VERY clean, with a high level of fit and finish. It is even more important to showcase this properly as it can be lost easily in a poor picture compared to more “flashy” knives, that some people we won't name like to make.

The main reason for this post is to make sure that everybody knows that I didn't “hide” anything here. For most, the term “Photoshoped” is now synonymous with “doctored”. NOT in this case. Paul's work is THAT clean. I only extracted the knives, adjusted levels and colors so they look more like they really do in person and sharpened things a little.

PS: This was not done with Photoshop but with GIMP, a photo manipulation program just as powerful (for what 90% of people use it for anyway) and much cheaper as in FREE!

Thanks again for your help Patrice, I really appreciate you sharing your expertise with me!

Oustanding masking and composition...great knife also!

Thanks for your comment. I was really amazed at what Patrice was able to do with my raw images.

 

[Nathan the Machinist]

Just a thought...

When working on photos of knives you intend to sell I think it is important to remember that the primary purpose of the photograph for the potential buyers is to see how the knife looks. The washed light and dull shadows one gets in a light tent tends to flatten the appearance a bit and sometimes you need to punch up the contrast and saturation a bit to get a good representative image. However, one needs to be careful not to overdo it. If the picture shows rich looking high contrast scales and the knife the customer receives doesn't actually look that way, well...

 

[PIndelicato]

Thanks Nathan; I couldn't agree more and didn't mean to imply otherwise with my post. I simply wanted to thank Patrice publicly for his help, and also to show others that might be in the same boat as me that photos that don't look so great in their raw form (and those taken with a less than ideal setup) can be vastly improved through the judicious use of skillful editing.

I think Patrice succeeded in doing just that here, when I previously had thought it would not have been possible.

Just a thought...

When working on photos of knives you intend to sell I think it is important to remember that the primary purpose of the photograph for the potential buyers is to see how the knife looks. The washed light and dull shadows one gets in a light tent tends to flatten the appearance a bit and sometimes you need to punch up the contrast and saturation a bit to get a good representative image. However, one needs to be careful not to overdo it. If the picture shows rich looking high contrast scales and the knife the customer receives doesn't actually look that way, well...

 

[tinwiskers]

Hey Ian, great to hear from you and thanks for posting your 'action' photos! It looks like your knife is getting some good use in the outdoors and I'm really pleased to see that. The kydex sheath looks great too...who made that for you?

"Kiah" here on the forums made it. Perfect fit and finish

 

[Patrice Lemée]

Of course Nathan I am not suggesting misrepresenting knives here. To the contrary, trying to convey what the knife really looks like in person.
Thanks again for the good words Paul.