Before and After
Fun with Photoshop

This photo is from a photo shoot in February 2003 in Palm Springs. We had a single day to get all the photographs we could of our prototype Sienna Rampvan. Ashley, our model, drove out from LA to pose with the van.

The problem is, we often need "studio" shots of our vehicles, or what I call "knockout shots" (because they've been knocked out of their background). Because we couldn't take a van into a studio, I created several studio shots like this one from location shots.

This is from a February 2004 shoot that we did in Arizona. The scenery is spectacular, but we also needed a knockout shot to use in promotional literature.

When our photographer saw that we'd brought a black car, he just about puked. Black is very difficult to shoot -- you can basically only deal with it at sunrise and sunset. Black cars, I later found, pose additional challenges in Photoshop. Note the cleaned-up lines, the brightened-up interior, and the tricky spots in the windows.

This location was perfect -- or about as perfect as a location can be. The van just glows in this early morning light. But of course, no location is as perfect as it can be when you begin to Photoshop an image.

I removed all of the signage, deleted the statue in the background on the left, removed exterior flood lamps, erased bird doo-doo from the timbers, brightened the interior, and simplified reflections in the van windows and body panels. Some of the changes are very subtle, but the overall difference is cumulative.

This is actually a shot I "borrowed" from a Toyota site, to pull an April Fool's Day prank on some people at IMS. It's not actually possible to do a lowered-floor conversion on an SUV. Except with Photoshop, that is.

Here's the modified Toyota Highlander. The door image came from a separate vehicle image. The "suicide door" you see behind the open front door was built entirely from scratch. The ramp came from another IMS vehicle. We received several tongue-in-cheek orders for the IMS "Ramplander" after this was distributed to a few select dealers.

This photo was taken by my buddy Doran Barton, at a music festival in Rockville, Utah. As you can see, people were camping in the field behind this automotive sculpture, and milling around the area.

Here's the image without the people and without the campsites, ready to use as an album cover by the Sons of Nothing. The hardest part was getting the dried brush to look halfway decent after I took out the stuff behind it.

This was one of my most difficult projects. About a year ago, we did some studio shots of Chrysler, Dodge and Ford vans. We used a Ford van to do a series of photos showing deployment of our foldout ramp, and these shots ended up in our brochure. Well, we've since stopped converting Ford vehicles, and we needed something to replace the Ford images in the brochure.

Basically, I had to turn a Ford into a Dodge. It's harder than you think. First, I replaced the door panels (including trim and door handles) and changed the tail light. This wasn't convincing enough, so I replaced the entire back end. Then the wheel. I made extensive interior modifications, lowering the seat, squaring off the seat platform, changing interior panels and trim. Then the door interior was changed. The end result is pretty convincing, though the front seats are a dead giveaway (but they'll be cropped in the final print).

This was a great shot. The only liability was that there was a car parked next to our van. We really would have preferred a couple of empty "buffer spaces" to make the photo work. The shot was taken at a restaurant in Brea, California, just after lunchtime. The joint was still hoppin'.

When you don't get exactly the shot you want, you simply make the shot. This is why I love Photoshop!