Broken Toaster

One slot on my side of the toaster went cold so it was time to get busy...

Good Sunday evening everyone.

Enlarge. There's tons of detail to enjoy.



Caution Tech Stuff:

This should have been pretty easy but had it's tricky moments and do overs.

In bathrobe and slippers this morning I shot the kitchen toaster where it lives. One shot of the toaster dark. One shot of the toaster on and glowing and one shot of a LED flashlight lighting one slot. Now I did some of this twice as I moved the toaster while turning it on. I was pretty high up on the tripod so I did mirror lock shots. I took all my camera gear back to the basement and started up Photoshop.

After getting the shots in I realized I forgot to clean the toaster. Now I have to spend the next 10 minutes cleaning it in Photoshop. It doesn't look to bad now but it did before I started.

Next I added the glowing wires to 3 of the slots and the LED flashlight to the broken one that I'm standing in. After adding some adjustment layers, things are looking pretty good.

After my shower it was my turn and since I was going to be lit from below I shot myself with a low mounted strobe. I adjusted the color so it would match the blueness of the LED flashlight that I used to light that one slot from earlier in the morning.

On my framing bench I shot my tool bag and some tools and a shot of the work light. The first shot of the work light just didn't work out. I bent it, colored it, adjusted it and it still wasn't working so I pitched it and pulled a reshoot on the work light. This looks much better.

I added all the pieces into the scene and then gave them some shadows. My face shield was all white from my background and needed to be fixed. Here's the trick of the day for this. Remember I matte every thing with a mask so I can go back and fix things. What ever is painted white on the mask you will see and everything that is black is transparent or hidden. How do I keep the shield over my face so you can see it but make it transparent enough so you can see through it. Instead of painting full black I paint my shield (mask) in a low opacity black or gray. It makes it look like see through plastic.

Add a few image adjustments, a crop and we're done. More than an hour but less than 2. Enjoy...