If you’re wondering how to photograph a vehicle for t-shirt printing success, then these tips might help get an eye-catching result.
A Little Background On Photographing A Vehicle For T-Shirt Printing Success
At Altacolor, we see many kinds of vehicles, from motorcycles to tractor-trailers from clients that either love their vehicle and want to memorialise it on a tee or for custom motorcycle or car builders that want to show off their craft. While these folks are usually pretty impressive when it comes to turning wrenches, their photography skills are sometimes not enough to put their custom truck, car or motorcycle work on display.
Fortunately, most people have an excellent tool for taking quality photographs of their vehicle for success in printing a t-shirt, poster or other media right in the palm of their hand (maybe even glued to their palms, for that matter) and that would be their cell phone (or mobile, if you live in more sophisticated places). Cell phone cameras are phenomenally good at delivering image results that shine, but some basic rules of composition will need to be followed to get the best results.
Keep It Clean – Pump It Up: First of all, make sure the subject vehicle is clean, free of bird poo, dead insects on the chrome or other unsightly distractions because those things will show up in print. Have a clean paintbrush or microfiber cloth to dust off surfaces and brush off the tires. Also, you may want to overinflate the tires so that the compression of where the tire meets to plant isn’t as obvious. Just remember to never exceed recommended inflation pressures and to restore the tires to spec before driving away.
Find A Backdrop: If the vehicle is supposed to be separated from the background, the backdrop being used should be as neutral and plain as possible, like a concrete or stucco wall or a cloudless sky, is the vehicle is up on a hill and photographed from below. Busy backgrounds with vegetation, buildings or stray objects make background removal very difficult or impossible, and can lead to graphics studio overtime to do the additional work. Or, find a backdrop that complements the character of the vehicle and plan to include it in the final print – see the image at the top of this article for an example!
Shoot Multiple Angles: If you study car images in advertising, you will notice that the vehicles being photographed are typically displayed from a certain angle. Trucks are often shot from below or at the sightline to the headlight to make them look more aggressive and at a 3/4 angle, bikes are often shown perpendicular to the rider, level with the cylinder head, sportscars, at the line of sight to the mirror and so forth. So, try different angles for your particular vehicle and then review them later.
Golden Hour Is Your Friend: Natural sunlight from above, especially with big, fluffy clouds in the sky, can make for some very distracting reflections. Instead, plan to shoot your vehicle in the early morning or late afternoon to take advantage of the warmer, more “head-on” light at those times. Otherwise, avoid shooting at high noon on a non-overcast day, unless you can do what the pro photographers do, which is to hang a gigantic white diffuser from a boom 30 feet up. Instead, find a lighting situation that will deliver soft light to your subject and avoid jarring reflections.
Fill The Frame & Learn Your Camera: If the vehicle is meant to be removed from the background, fill the frame with the vehicle. After all, that leaves less to be removed. If using a camera app, avoid shooting at low ISOs or low shutter speeds to reduce or eliminate camera shake. Blurry images even at high resolution will still look blurry.
All of these steps will help the photographer-for-a-day deliver decent, ad-worthy shots and the resulting photograph of the vehicle will help in t-shirt printing success. After all, the result of anyone seeing that custom creation represented on a wearable should be “wow – did you do that?”.
If you really want to get further into the weeds, check out this article on Adobe’s site and read about the history of car advertising on Print Magazine‘s site. Then, go out and take some pictures!