Cover Emergency

The FuJIfilm finepix S3 pro Digital SLR is big news: definite cover material. Technology Editor Michael J. McNamara jumped on a flight to Las Vegas when we heard that the world's first working model would be unveiled at a trade show (see his "Hands On," page 52). But it was a race to the presses, with no time to give the camera our full glamour studio treatment.

Editor-in-Chief John Owens called me into his office and pointed to his monitor. Fuji had sent a basic product shot, which, shall we say, made up in detail what it lacked in style.

"Can you make this a cover?" he asked. Ever eager to prove my theory that, with enough skill, Adobe Photoshop can make anything look good, I accepted the assignment. Armed with a stock background and a concept from our Art Director, Jason Beckstead, here's what I did.

1. The diamond-plate backdrop was cool, but its color no good. I switched it by filling a new layer with blue and setting its blending mode to "multiply." The camera needed a floor to sit on, so I cut out a section from the bottom, reversed it, and distorted its perspective to simulate a reflective base. Then I added a soft horizon line for emphasis.

2. The camera had to look like it was springing from its synthetic backdrop, so I wanted to set it apart. I grabbed the Rectangular Marquee tool and set its feather to 50 px. With my foreground color set to white, I hit Edit > Fill. The superfeathered box simulated a heavenly halo.

3. So the S3 would glow more beautifully and sit more firmly, I made two shadow versions of the camera. I gave the first a big Gaussian blur and refilled it with a blue-to-white gradient. Then I blurred the second one a little less and nudged it south to anchor the camera with a subtle shadow.

4. For the camera to look like it was shot on blue, it would need a serious change in color cast. Nik's Cool Ice Photo Styler filter came to the rescue, lending an air of Arctic drama. A burst of color in the lens didn't hurt either; I covered it with a circle of red and a circle of orange and used screen-blending mode to split the difference.

5. Since the floor reflected the backdrop, it had to reflect the camera, too. I flipped the S3 upside down and backward, then dropped its opacity. The mirror image needed some distortion for realism, and I was in the home stretch.

6. The final touch: a little selective blur. The floor required depth. I blurred the whole image and masked it off with a gradient, then did the same thing at the top so the logo wouldn't have to compete with the diamond plate.