Joe, I was visiting with a friend, at his dealership, and showing him and his in-house photographer PhotoScape which is free photo editing software. When I was driving home, I thought about this thread.
I was never fortunate enough to have an indoor studio. I have another friend that does have a studio. I would never tell him this but his pictures are marginal due to poor lighting. The room is too small to move vehicles around and that has to be time consuming. All of their cars look washed out and this vehicle seems to fill up the frame where a small car leaves too much empty space.
The second picture was run through the editing software. It has an auto level, sharpness and back lighting adjustment. Looking at it here, It might look better without the back lighting. Like anything else, you have to play with it until it looks better on the website. Given the restrictions of this studio, I think shooting cars outside, in Texas, is a better alternative.
The Jeep is a picture that was taken today and edited with that PhotoScape software. Winter, in Texas, creates some issues with the sun being very low in the sky which creates some bad shadows like you see on the rearview mirror.
This was the first picture of the day so I set up the parameters (in the editing software) using this vehicle and ran the remainder through batch mode which takes a few minutes. It isn't a studio but it looks good compared to most of the competition. One thing you might notice is the way that I like to see vehicles cropped. I like the vehicle to fill the frame. Notice the way that the front tire is almost on the edge. To me, this looks like the Jeep is coming off the page. They all seem to like it this way.
At this store, they use a contract employee (1099). For new cars, they pay $15/unit. That is for enough pictures to cover all of the major options which is usually 20 to 30. These pictures are cropped and edited. I recently built them a vehicle description library for each model. As vehicles are uploaded the descriptions are cut and pasted. The Used Car department uses a service. They pay the same amount for 8 pictures and write their own descriptions. I can't explain this and have never met the Used Car Manager.
This store is in an antiquated facility but is still the market leader. They will be moving to a better location and a new facility in March.
It is supposed to get up to 60 degrees tomorrow and Sunday. My friend from this store will be with me Sunday. That was actually the reason for my visit, today. Monday and Tuesday it is supposed to get up to 70. I will have my boat on the water all four days. Crappie will be spawning in March, so I'll be off like a prom dress.
I was never fortunate enough to have an indoor studio. I have another friend that does have a studio. I would never tell him this but his pictures are marginal due to poor lighting. The room is too small to move vehicles around and that has to be time consuming. All of their cars look washed out and this vehicle seems to fill up the frame where a small car leaves too much empty space.
The second picture was run through the editing software. It has an auto level, sharpness and back lighting adjustment. Looking at it here, It might look better without the back lighting. Like anything else, you have to play with it until it looks better on the website. Given the restrictions of this studio, I think shooting cars outside, in Texas, is a better alternative.
The Jeep is a picture that was taken today and edited with that PhotoScape software. Winter, in Texas, creates some issues with the sun being very low in the sky which creates some bad shadows like you see on the rearview mirror.
This was the first picture of the day so I set up the parameters (in the editing software) using this vehicle and ran the remainder through batch mode which takes a few minutes. It isn't a studio but it looks good compared to most of the competition. One thing you might notice is the way that I like to see vehicles cropped. I like the vehicle to fill the frame. Notice the way that the front tire is almost on the edge. To me, this looks like the Jeep is coming off the page. They all seem to like it this way.
At this store, they use a contract employee (1099). For new cars, they pay $15/unit. That is for enough pictures to cover all of the major options which is usually 20 to 30. These pictures are cropped and edited. I recently built them a vehicle description library for each model. As vehicles are uploaded the descriptions are cut and pasted. The Used Car department uses a service. They pay the same amount for 8 pictures and write their own descriptions. I can't explain this and have never met the Used Car Manager.
This store is in an antiquated facility but is still the market leader. They will be moving to a better location and a new facility in March.
It is supposed to get up to 60 degrees tomorrow and Sunday. My friend from this store will be with me Sunday. That was actually the reason for my visit, today. Monday and Tuesday it is supposed to get up to 70. I will have my boat on the water all four days. Crappie will be spawning in March, so I'll be off like a prom dress.
