Took many, many shots before I was happy ... taken in ambient light on a black card background. This is the first time I have tried to "set up" a shot like this and I am pleased with the results. I initially used coffee beans in the foreground but they were too brown, I tried to grill them to burn them blacker but it just didn't work. I also tried the shot with coffee in the cups but unless the cups were 100% level it didn't quite work. In the end I used some salt crystals to look like sugar!
It is also the first time I've set the white balance manually on my camera and the first time I've used the burn tool to darken the background so lots of firsts for this shot!!!
Set white balance manually.
Shot in aperture priority to get good dof.
Crop
Burn background to darken
Clone a couple of spots of dirt off the background card
Sharpen
Resize
Save for web
What did I learn from this challenge: How to set the white balance manually on my camera
How to use dodge and burn tools in PS
How to set up a shot like this using black card as a background
From comments, less seems to be more! I don't think the sugar in the foreground helped the shot at all.
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I love the cups they work well in this shot. Im not sure if the sugar is nessisary or not. I do like the textute it is a nice added element. But with out it I wonder if the cups may seem to be floating a bit. There is a slight optical illusion going on here.
Definetly meets the challenge, I'm jus tnot too sure about the composition here, but in the sense of seeming a lil too much, I think it would have worked better without the sugar seems unecessary to me. That can be down o personal taste I guess but for me I always think less is more ;] good luck
Very neat setup. Could use some slight extra contrast. Don't particularly like the split piles of sugar, would've liked to see black coffee beans for the concept ;)
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