Rangefinder Magazine
June 2005

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Rf Cookbook: The Classic 1970 Chevelle by David Wendt

One of my favorite cars is the 1970 Chevelle. For this image, I wanted to convey the feel of the old ads from back when these cars were new. I wish you could have heard this thing as it pulled in, and the light was just what we ordered. All we had to do is wait for the sun to go down—pretty simple. I was shooting with the Canon EOS 1Ds, the most liberating piece of equipment I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. Anyway, down went the sun, and I snapped away with just a few adjustments here and there.

Everything looked good to me, so that was that, and we all went home. The shoot took just about an hour in all—with no lights. That’s what I call a good shoot!

I processed the RAW file through Phase One’s Capture One software to get a very good high-resolution base image, but the file just didn’t have the snap that was there in the original scene. So, how do I get that snappy sharp feeling back into the shot? Well, this is where the real fun begins for me, since I’m never sure what I’m going to do to “enhance” a shot later.

In Photoshop I can build layer upon layer of new enhancing colors and contrasts. Using layers I can bring up brightness in the reflections and take down areas of shadow to help make the car pop! This shot, at last count, had 21 separate layers. That’s not really a lot, but the fact that I’m not bringing in new files and these layers are selections from the base image shows there is a lot you can do to bring an image to heights not possible with film or small budgets.

Usually I work on the sky first. It always has room for better, richer color. I make a selection of the whole sky using the “color range” tool under the Select menu. Play with this tool. Check out the dialog box that comes up when you go to “color range.” The eyedropper boxes with the “+” and “–” signs are important to understand, and the “fuzziness” slider bar can do wonders for selecting whole areas of color without having to repeatedly use the magic wand .

I added some color to the sky by making a new layer and then using the gradient tool. There is a lot more to this, but you will see some of those things as you try it yourself. A good rule of thumb to work by is this: Always make a new layer to do your work on. Very rarely should you make any changes to the base image.

I also use the pen tool to make a very accurate and very quick outline of the car itself. This tool has been around for some time now, and most people who use Photoshop probably know what it does and how it works. It is “the way” to get smooth line selections of any organic shapes in the image. I also use the Feather selection to soften the edge of the selected area, since you can see the hard edge more than you might think later on in the finished version. I copy the car and the foreground as a new layer. I also copy the background so as to always have the base image. I can now start creating more contrasts through blurring techniques and using the blending aspects of one layer on top of another. This is where it gets complicated to write about, but when you play with the blending of layers and colors using colors as overlay, screen, multiply, darken modes, you can start to build levels of contrast that bring about the “snap” that makes the shot look so much better than the original RAW file.

INGREDIENTS
• Camera: Canon EOS 1Ds
• Lens: EF 20-35mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
• Exposure: 1⁄40 at f/3.5
• Mode: RAW
• Software: Phase One Capture One and Photoshop