Petco Park & San Diego Padres Print Ad
This was a lifestyle ad produced for the San Diego Padres to show Petco Park as more than a home to just baseball but also a venue where you can enjoy the local flavors of San Diego and a place to host any event at. A step-by-step process of the photo production is outline below as well as a few hurdles along the way. Enjoy!
STEP 1: Below is the original photo taken by our talented staff photographer, Andy Hayt. As you may have noticed, the photo was taken near dusk, where it was later decided an evening atmosphere would work better. Also of note, the plan was to have the facilities turn on the ballpark lighting until we learned prior to the shoot it would cost the ballpark around $8,000 to $10,000 (we were told).
STEP 2: Adjustment layers were thrown on to give more brightness and contrast to the original photo. Started working in the overall evening tone by changing the sky to a darker palette of blue, yet still vibrant to complement the main female's apparel. Some small fixes, our male counterpart no longer needing shades since it's evening, and the party seated behind our couple finally received their food!
STEP 3: Finally, the lights are on and it didn't cost us thousands of dollars. Only some good old fashion photoshop tinkering!
STEP 4: Having lights and the evening setting was definitely a good start to creating the atmosphere, but I wanted the scene to feel like an actual event was taking place and the overall lighting still fell a little flat for me. I decided to paint in an overlay wash of some vibrant magenta to make this gathering into more of a party.
STEP 5: Having the scene set I started laying in a black fade from the bottom to give some space for copy to be laid in. In doing so, the photo needed to be moved up to compensate for the black fade which ended up moving out the beautiful string lighting that I illuminated.
STEP 6: Not to worry, there was no way I'd put that hard work to waste. Not to mention the string of lights definitely added to the overall atmosphere. Luckily, it was easy enough to move down and blend back into the photo. Having large areas of shadows definitely helped in easing the blending.
STEP 7: Lastly, the step below had a few minor touch ups that don't need any mention here, but one last effect I added was a slight motion blur to the party in the back and even a little to our main subjects. I especially felt the table seated behind our couple was just a little bit too sharp and in focus and wanted to make sure our blind date here was the center of attention. Also, I felt the minor motion made the scene more lively and made it seem less like the staged photo we started out with.
One more look of the original photo and final ad for a side-by-side comparison.
There you have it! Hope you enjoyed the step-by-step and thanks for stopping by.
