animated gps batmobile icon

Step 4 Taking the photos

for the perspective images, you must start from the rear of the vehicle, taking a snapshot for every 10 degree turn of the platter clockwise. for the overheads, you must start with the vehicle pointing due north.

as you can see from these unretouched photos, my lighting setup was less than ideal. ordinary 60w room lighting, plus a closely positioned artist's lamp, couldn't produce strong enough light, and put an unappealing dull brown cast on everything. i think i initially nixed using the camera's flash as too strong but i must have changed my mind for the overhead session. note how the cast is less intense in the overhead shot.

also note the addition of an second smaller cardboard platter under the vehicle, cut from a somewhat brighter cardboard.

but as long as the light sources themselves were positioned where i wanted them, i could, with the magic of photoshop, "fix it in post", as they say in the film trade. for tips on lighting, which is outside the scope of this instructable, i would recommend googling "studio lighting techniques".

this is where it would have been nice to have one of those slick little pc-controlled lightboxes or turntables. at least they're cheaper than ponies! in any case a device like that would have made the next step much much simpler.