WHY 3D OVER PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY?

We see ads every day. Most of these ads are focused on a specific product or service that requires an image or a bunch of images to drive sales. You may not know this, but some of that imagery may not be actual photographs… What??? They may be 3D modeled products that look like the real thing. Why would anyone want a fake image over a real one? It sounds like some crazy deep fake merchandising going on. In fact, you probably see rendered ads all the time and don’t even know it. Lets find out why anyone would think this is a good idea…

Creating imagery for a product has been around for a long time. Before photography was used, people used hand drawn or hand carved wood negatives for a printing press. We’ve come a long way! Once photography came on the scene, everything changed. Ads became more creative and alluring. In this day in age, with computer technology, we can go beyond just a digital photo and some savvy photoshop skills.

So, why don’t we see more of this 3D working for ads? The fact you don’t notice is a good sign you’ve been fooled. However, there is a large amount of work being done with a camera and some touch up software. So, lets get to the point… why 3D? I’ll keep it simple for this article…

Lets say for a moment you’re planning a photoshoot for a new slew of soft drinks. You’ve got all sorts of fancy rigs to capture a can splashing into a cooler full of ice. It looks so refreshing while it splashes water everywhere. You’ve spent a couple days getting every detail you can. You’re ready to send the photos to get touched up and you get the call… the customer wants to change the labeling. “Nooooo!” What can you do? Now, you have to go back and re shoot everything all over again. This is where 3D shines!

So, you get the call that the customer has changed labeling for all the soft drinks you just modeled, Textured, and rendered. In this situation, you already have your shots setup. Just swap out the UV mapped labels and re render. No more days of re shoots or being over budget.  

This is from my Mirabelle des Vosges project
The final render for the Mirabelle des Vosges project

When building your scenes, you still have to setup lighting like you would for a real photoshoot. You’ll use an HDRI (High Dynamic Range Image) to simulate the room, world, and natural lighting. You still use black cards for absorbing light and reflectors to bounce light. All your photography rules still apply. But once you have your scene built, you can reuse it over and over. No more setting up heavy lights and backdrops. It’s all lightweight for you so you can leave the heavy lifting to your computer. The list of positives just keeps coming. But I’ll spare you from that.

So, in review, 3D product rendering really can save the day and save your customer’s pocketbook. There’s always a place for product photography. Not all situations warrant a 3D object instead of a real one. But lets keep 3D in the back of your mind the next time your customer wants to show off their newest product or services, okay?

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Affinity Products V2!

In case if many of you didn’t know about affinity, this article is to bring you up to speed on their products. I’ll only dive in a little bit and let you learn more about their products with the link below. I’ve been using them for over 5 years. Not once have I since thought about needing Adobe Creative Cloud since these guys came into my life!

They currently have three main products available at the moment. Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, and Affinity Publisher. I have purchased all versions and love their ease of use and familiar adobe style user interface. Usability between all three products are simple and seamless, unlike their competitor. They’re very lightweight and quick to open so you can get to work fast. I find Designer’s functionality much more pleasing to use over Illustrator, which is what got me hooked on their products at the beginning.

Saving or exporting file formats is a breeze. See formats below…

  • Publisher template (.aftemplate)
  • Adobe® Photoshop® PSD
  • TIFF (layers preserved)
  • PNG
  • JPG
  • Progressive JPG
  • GIF
  • SVG
  • EPS
  • EXR (Open EXR)
  • HDR (Radiance)
  • PDF (can also be opened in Adobe® Illustrator®)
  • PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3, PDF/X-4
  • Affinity common file format

Also, import formats are…

  • Adobe® Photoshop® PSD
  • Adobe® Photoshop® PSB
  • Extensive RAW import library (including CR3)
  • DNG
  • PNG
  • TIFF
  • JPG
  • GIF
  • TGA
  • SVG
  • EPS
  • PDF
  • PDF/X
  • EXR (Open EXR)
  • HDR (Radiance)
  • Adobe® Illustrator® AI (containing PDF stream)
  • Legacy Adobe® Illustrator® AI files
  • Adobe® FreeHand® (versions 9 to 11)
  • Affinity Designer native file (for desktop only)
  • Affinity Publisher native file (includes page navigation)
  • HEIF with depth map (as separate layer)

What’s the price? Each application is a one time payment of $69.99. But they tend to offer sales often at almost 50% off. Since writing this, they’ve released their version 2 of each application and are offering them at 40% off! So, that’s $40.99. Go buy them all!

Affinity Designer
Affinity Photo
Affinity Publisher