I am part of a Product Photography group on Facebook and there was a poster that was trying to justify the use of practical photography for commercial photography with minimal photoshop and using just lights. He posted an image of a new hair dryer he got of Temu which is a replica of the Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer.
I gave my perspective that practical commercial photography with cameras and lights is an archaic method of doing things and there is a reason why commercial photography, especially from a manufacturer’s images for marketing, packaging, production and social media aspect, that it is just more efficient to get it all done in 3D vs. practical photography. I’ve done commercial product photography for 16-years now and I have switched in the last several years to a full 3D workflow because it is just more efficient. A photographer’s knowledge of lighting is better spent setting up 3D files than trying to achieve it with a camera.
From seeing this post, it took me 20-minutes to google a 3D model of a Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer online for free, texture, setup 4 angles, and create the two colorways Dyson makes (as close as I could match without a physical samples and just going off image samples I found online). The major difference is you are getting exact same angles without having to mess around with liquifying, nudging pixels, color adjustments on composites so they perfectly match - and I can create 20 different color ways in probably another 10 minutes and batch render them ready for whatever production/marketing/social asset that is needed. I can also create design concepts for different colorways of a product that has never been manufactured or even been created - basically selling and idea, getting a large check cut from a big box retailer before a single product has even made it off the mass production line.
If anyone doubts your work as a 3D visualizer, there clear proof out there that the ROI on investing in work in Keyshot huge. I found a model, textured and added labels, created 4 camera angles with custom lighting for each angle, and made two colorways, and finished these renders in 20-minutes, if you invested the same amount of time it takes to take a picture perfect photo, you could end up with equal if not better results than from practical photography, while having the ability to create a multitude of different colorway variations without ever needing to create a product sample just to photography.
Nice one! I think a lot of people really try to hold on to those things they know, instead of learning new things.
There are exceptions where normal photography is way more efficient though. Like for brochures with weekly items on sale for a DIY company or supermarket for example. Not the most fun work as a photographer I would say but wouldn’t make sense to render such things.
And I worked for some big Dutch bicycle brands and the average bicycle is not really an easy object to render since most need a a lot of details to look even a bit realistic. To get them on a transparent background the guys from the photo studio shot every bike with a strong back light as well which became the alpha channel.
But I remember I went to London for a meeting with guys from a advertising agency who did the Volvo UK advertising and I think it was somewhere early 2000. They already tried to replace a lot of the photography with 3D while we were still digging in to the Swedish image bank for Volvo Netherlands. But cars are perfectly clean things, that really helps.
So I think there are still product photographers needed but it won’t be all really fun work. Like those product shots for weekly brochures.
I think the best value for practical commercial photography lies in creating assets with models. Lifestyle images still looks best when actual people are being used with the products. I know there is great advancements in that field, as many movies are made with CGI, but the time required to get believable results are still out of reach for most companies without huge budgets, where even then, the cost of a photoshoot would still be less than trying to create CGI 3D person to be posed with products.
Nice you address the movie example as well. Currently I see so much fake fire and explosions in series/movies and I know these days it can be faster and cheaper to do it this CGI way but I really prefer some actual flames. I really wonder how much AI can do for video in like 5-10 years. Think these are interesting times for everyone working with anything graphics related or basically all creative computer users. I can’t do a thing with music but playing with a locally installed AI for music is so funny. Not exactly high end results but the possibilities are really facinating.
A close friend of mine passed on a quote to me regarding AI and it’s impact for 3d artists…from modeling concept’s or rendering visuals and basically went like this-AI won’t take your job but an artist who knows how to use it well will…a little off topic but definitely pause for thought as there’s no doubt it will be in a 3d artist or graphic designers bag of tool’s!
