is there any way to automate this kind of shizzle, or is it all done by a monkey in photoshop:
http://www.drivebenfield.com/approved-used-vehicles/YG61LLT/referrer/dmr
(background on vehicle image cropped out and substituted for a classy fade effect as an example)
If you already had the cars cropped and the background as a separate image you could probably do something with ImageMagick
I shall take a look, thanks
They might be using an edge detection product to do this, like scene 7 or something? I have never seen anything like that honestly, which makes me think someone sits there in cs5.5 with a wand tool. Seems like nutty amounts of work though.
That's what juniors are for.
Originally posted by arigato
That's what juniors are for.
.
Nutty amounts of work? It looks like it takes maybe 2 minutes tops each picture. Its not like there's hair or anything and they didn't have to crop the bottom part.
Originally posted by arigato
That's what juniors are for.
thats what I thought!
Can't find anything that would be clever enough to automate it on the fly
Originally posted by Media44
Nutty amounts of work? It looks like it takes maybe 2 minutes tops each picture. Its not like there's hair or anything and they didn't have to crop the bottom part.
For a dealer website provider with a couple dozen dealerships, each with new cars weekly. Even just managing what pics go to what vin number to match the description on the website would be numbing.
are you serious?
Originally posted by persist
Originally posted by Media44
Nutty amounts of work? It looks like it takes maybe 2 minutes tops each picture. Its not like there's hair or anything and they didn't have to crop the bottom part.
For a dealer website provider with a couple dozen dealerships, each with new cars weekly. Even just managing what pics go to what vin number to match the description on the website would be numbing.
are you serious?
I was just about to post the exact same thing.
Maybe Media44 has lots of spare time for production work. 
Originally posted by Stinky
If you already had the cars cropped and the background as a separate image you could probably do something with ImageMagick
Imagemagick is quite powerful but not easy to have a decent command, but once you have it it makes everything much easier.
Go to this page: http://www.rubblewebs.co.uk/imagemagick/operators/part1.php And look for compose, this might get you started.
But i think these cars are done in photoshop, if you look closely you see the pictures are taken on a carlot (look at the windows) and an automated script would be very difficult to get a result like this.
Make a preconfigured action or something in photoshop?
I've heard tell of some folks in the SF Bay Area that have contracts with many CA car dealerships for such work... story was of a fancy studio with turntable controlled reflections and bluescreen-style masking
the work in this particular ad seems like bread & butter Pen Tool / Clipping Path work... personally, I live for that shit though other people hate it. that said however, seems to me most folks are more into the rotating 360 than stills like these which could be easily masked by hand... not so easily for a 360 rotation
here's someone offering something similar link
Originally posted by swampy
Originally posted by arigato
That's what juniors are for.
thats what I thought!
Can't find anything that would be clever enough to automate it on the fly
Well if we want to be clever, we would ask the dealer for a wall inside the shop, preferably where new inventory is assessed already. the wall would be painted high fluorescent green. Snap shots would be taken. If it was super important to get consistent shots, a tripod could be used and dedicated setup for quickly taking pics by rolling the car in. Then load the bitmap into a canvas element, do a quick check for the high chroma green high and low span using javascript to obtain the rgba values. Then go loop through each row of pixels, looking for any value that fits in the span. set the matching pixel to 100% alpha. In the html element holding the image, give it any background you wish to use to show through the 100% alpha pixels, so that a site can easily restyle the effect. And there you'd have a cheap way to throw custom backgrounds on inventory without a production artist.
You'd have to be really careful to have pretty good separation between wall and car - or you are going to end up with reflections in the car being dropped to transparent as well... Getting the initial space set up and lit carefully would be the hardest part.
Given how fast/easy it is to mask simple shapes (cars, even with semi-transparent reflective windows) are simple - either by hand, or via plugins or techniques - I don't see a real reason to create a bespoke automated process. 1st year out of school designers are cheap.
Originally posted by persist
Originally posted by Media44
Nutty amounts of work? It looks like it takes maybe 2 minutes tops each picture. Its not like there's hair or anything and they didn't have to crop the bottom part.
For a dealer website provider with a couple dozen dealerships, each with new cars weekly. Even just managing what pics go to what vin number to match the description on the website would be numbing.
are you serious?
Oh I didnt look at the rest of the site, thought it was a by owner page and that person just did that. Yes if its the whole site then its a full time job.
I got offered a job doing just that for a company in Miami (technically Hialeah). They had a catalog both on their website and printed of tiny little machine parts they fabricate, thousands of them. They were hiring someone to just go in and crop them all as a full time job then tick off their ID in a spreadsheet. I turned the job down.
I would have taken the job and written a script to do it, then asked to work remotely. If they caught on you could just offer to sell it to them for a year's salary.
You'd be surprised how many people don't want you to work remotely.
Originally posted by Media44
Nutty amounts of work? It looks like it takes maybe 2 minutes tops each picture. Its not like there's hair or anything and they didn't have to crop the bottom part.
300+ a week for one dealer alone