Once again my new kid prevented me from doing this as well as I wanted. I had to wait until the last day and then he wouldn't calm down, really cutting down on my shooting and processing time.
If I had more time I would have corrected the main issues:
* First pane has wildly different white balance that I wasn't able to fix
* Second pane feels tilted because apparently my french press is not level
* Third pane would have been better without the ring
[Oct. 21st, 2011 10:22:31 AM]
My setup for this:
Image 1 - I placed a block of styrofoam on a low bench so it was easy to get directly overhead. I then used a hot shoe flash pointed backwards (and bounced off a sheet of styrofoam that I held), and a very long (15 second) exposure to make sure it was lit well. Of note is that this is just the cup part of the grinder with only a couple beans. I wanted symmetry, and the grinder itself would have ruined that.
Image 2 - Moved the block of styrofoam to the kitchen counter and placed a sheet of styrofoam behind the block. I turned the flash to point up, and slightly forward and bounced again. In this case the bounce was enough to light the press with only a 1/60 exposure time. Of note here is that I wanted the foam top, to be visible, so I over filled the press.
Image 3 - Poured some of the coffee into an espresso cup, and grabbed a spoon. Placed this in the same place the press was, and moved the camera to take an angled shot. Turned the flash around, but still pointing mostly up. Bounced the flash off a piece of styrofoam again, but needed a long exposure (8 seconds) to make sure this was lit nice. Of note on this shot is my first photo was focused on the front rim of the cup, but that really didn't feel right. So I moved the focus to where the coffee meets the cup, and that looked much more sharp.
Post Processing:
* Image 1 - Crop and increase exposure
* Image 2 - White balance, straighten, crop, and increase exposure
* Image 3 - White balance, crop, increase exposure, increase black point
* Export all images as 1024x1024 TIFFs (I didn't want them too big for making the triptych
* In Pixelmator I created the coffee color background, placed the three images, and added the text. I also matched the background color of the first image to the third (the second and third were already close)
* Exported as TIFF
* Resize
* Sharpen Edges
* Save as JPEG
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