Here's the "lightbox". We had a builder in once and asked him if he could knock something up real quick, this is what he made. Honestly I hate it, it casts horrible Orange/Brown light over products and the strip lights just aren't right for this type of photography... Either way I do make it work, but it takes some Photoshopping...
As you can see, I have a few sheets used as makeshift reflectors, I typically shoot much smaller items and they are perfect for that, not so much on cars.
Here's what I do (in the case of the car):
• Take photo
• Get it into Photoshop
• Duplicate the layer
• Create a brightly coloured backdrop layer inbetween the two duplicates
• Select the top layer and enter quick mask mode, I then paint out the outline of the whole car, just the car (not the shadow). Exit mask mode and delete the selection, this will leave you with the car on a bright background.
• Then I change that bright background to White and drag it to the bottom as my background layer.
• Then I select the duplicated layer, this will contain the original photo. I desaturate it as this is purely my shadow layer.
• I delete any parts of that background layer that I don't need, all the edges and borders and basically leave in the shadowed areas.
• Then adjust the levels on the shadow layer, this brightens it up and you'll see it slowly blend into that White background layer as you adjust the levels, once done it'll blend in nicely and you might want to use a soft translucent brush to erase any hard edges of shadow out.
• Next it's onto the top main layer, the car itself.
• As my lightbox casts a horrible Orangey/Brown light, I need this gone, in quick mask mode I select all parts that contain Red or Yellow in their colour, so even things like hard anodised parts need to be selected, once done exit quick mask and adjust the saturation of the Red and Yellow channels on this area, don't fully desaturate, just enough to remove the strong effect.....
• Then I adjust the levels of the whole layer until it blends well with the background and the shadow layer, takes a bit of playing about but you'll get it...
The reasons I need to do all that is 1. The horrible light I get casted on items and 2. Parts such as White on a body or a Clear wing will simply dissappear when you adjust the levels of the photo and ruin it all.
Edit: See here for the original photo.
