rlmccarty2000
Active member
Great answers! Perfect paint first, then product second for a flawless finish.
OK - how do I get my black Audi to look as good as this? HOLY CRAP!
- Thread starter pologuy
- Start date
xtremekustomz
New member
Lighting and image manipulation. This is a little extreme but you get the idea of how photos can be edited to look more glossy
Ronkh
Wax Waster
Lighting and image manipulation. This is a little extreme but you get the idea of how photos can be edited to look more glossy
Mine are right out of a cell phone. NO MANIPULATION
xtremekustomz
New member
That was my point. Yours was the original and the bottom was edited. To me that is what happened in the video on youtube. The pictures were edited. Pictures can be edited to look better. A picture taken with a cell phone compared to a high dollar camera will look a lot different too.
RaysWay
Autopia Specialist
A Reflection On Perfection
1. Lighting - You have to be able to identify imperfections. If the paint, glass, trim, metal, wheels, rubber, plastic, vinyl etc etc are corrected to as close as perfect as possible under high intensity lighting from every angle possible, it will look perfect under natural lighting. Perfect paint = shiniest paint. This to me is one of...if not the absolute most important. If you can`t see it, you can`t correct it.
2. Tools/Chemicals - You need the right tools for the job. A concours level detail can`t be performed with a single tool. Almost every new client always tell me something along the lines of "man you bring a lot of stuff!", and I wish I could bring more. You want the carpets cleaned as good as possible? You need an extractor. You want the paint polished the best way possible? You need a DA, and you might need a rotary, and of course in a range of sizes. Etc etc
3. A perfect canvas - Some paint cannot be saved. Whether it`s a RID here or a wrinkle there, some paint just comes out of the paint booth destined to never reach that 100% mark. Mike Phillips talked about this in a series following a build ("something in the heartland"....I`ll link it when I find it) for a car that wanted perfect black paint. Perfect paint starts at the paint booth and works it`s way up from the guy who cuts the paint all the way to the final detailer. In the real world I think most of the time perfect paint is unreasonable. I imagine if you take a bulb into every nook and crannie on even something like a Riddler award winner, you`d find plenty of minor imperfections. I know some people who have. So the "chase" is to get the paint as perfect as possible, while usually trying our best to ignore the stubborn imperfections and minimizing them as much as possible.
4. Time/Experience - Rome wasn`t built in a day. Even if your body isn`t tired, sometimes you can start to lose focus or your eyes just start getting tired. It takes time to chase perfection. It also takes experience to know how to use everything you have to achieve perfect paint. You can give someone everything they need in the world to succeed, but they still have to be able to make it happen.
I`ve been lucky enough to hang around arguably some of the best detailers in the industry, and I`ve had to pickup my jaw off the floor on more than one occasion. Robert DiTerlizzi`s CQuartz Finest job on a Miranda Built Chevelle comes to mind. A coworker and I inspected the paint while trying not to drool on it and that paint looked ridiculous. I can`t count how many times I`ve seen Mike Phillips get a car to show car top tier level (seriously that guy is a beast lol). I think with these 4 things you can get your paint looking really really really really really good.
1. Lighting - You have to be able to identify imperfections. If the paint, glass, trim, metal, wheels, rubber, plastic, vinyl etc etc are corrected to as close as perfect as possible under high intensity lighting from every angle possible, it will look perfect under natural lighting. Perfect paint = shiniest paint. This to me is one of...if not the absolute most important. If you can`t see it, you can`t correct it.
2. Tools/Chemicals - You need the right tools for the job. A concours level detail can`t be performed with a single tool. Almost every new client always tell me something along the lines of "man you bring a lot of stuff!", and I wish I could bring more. You want the carpets cleaned as good as possible? You need an extractor. You want the paint polished the best way possible? You need a DA, and you might need a rotary, and of course in a range of sizes. Etc etc
3. A perfect canvas - Some paint cannot be saved. Whether it`s a RID here or a wrinkle there, some paint just comes out of the paint booth destined to never reach that 100% mark. Mike Phillips talked about this in a series following a build ("something in the heartland"....I`ll link it when I find it) for a car that wanted perfect black paint. Perfect paint starts at the paint booth and works it`s way up from the guy who cuts the paint all the way to the final detailer. In the real world I think most of the time perfect paint is unreasonable. I imagine if you take a bulb into every nook and crannie on even something like a Riddler award winner, you`d find plenty of minor imperfections. I know some people who have. So the "chase" is to get the paint as perfect as possible, while usually trying our best to ignore the stubborn imperfections and minimizing them as much as possible.
4. Time/Experience - Rome wasn`t built in a day. Even if your body isn`t tired, sometimes you can start to lose focus or your eyes just start getting tired. It takes time to chase perfection. It also takes experience to know how to use everything you have to achieve perfect paint. You can give someone everything they need in the world to succeed, but they still have to be able to make it happen.
I`ve been lucky enough to hang around arguably some of the best detailers in the industry, and I`ve had to pickup my jaw off the floor on more than one occasion. Robert DiTerlizzi`s CQuartz Finest job on a Miranda Built Chevelle comes to mind. A coworker and I inspected the paint while trying not to drool on it and that paint looked ridiculous. I can`t count how many times I`ve seen Mike Phillips get a car to show car top tier level (seriously that guy is a beast lol). I think with these 4 things you can get your paint looking really really really really really good.
+1 on above. IF you want your car to look its best, hire the best. Some of us (including myself) don`t want that level due to practicality - I own two daily drivers that are not garaged and probably never will be. Maintaining that level on a car is even more critical and unless you get the knowledge and have the proper techniques to keep it that way, you are only going to have that level of `perfect` two or maybe three times in its lifetime. The Pros on here can tell you that black is the biggest pain to keep flawless but when it is, WOW!
BudgetPlan1
Active member
Absolutely images can be manipulated but I think also the end result is more likely due to a pretty much unlimited budget in time, materials and skill to reach a finish like that.
When stopping in to get some stuff last summer, I saw the Z06 that rec`d the "100 hour detail" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7Ofm40OnDo ) and it was absolutely stunning in person, representative of the gloss/clarity of the of the Ferrari mentioned above.
That said, pictures do sometimes hide what doesn`t look nearly as magnificent in person; I know some pics I take in my garage with a cellphone look better than what I`m seeing outside the viewfinder.
On another note, given the initial condition of the paint, I wonder if it was a factory fresh car or had some miles on it. I think if I paid that kinda $$ for a Ferrari, I`d be a little miffed if it showed up in the condition of the `before` images.
EXPDetailing
New member
That spinning floor, and with windows all around dramatized the already flawless finish even more so.
zmcgovern45
New member
First, you`re going to need to wash the Audi.
Second, you`re going to need to put a "For Sale" sign on the Audi.
Third, (once sold) you`re going to need to purchase a Ferrari La Ferrari.
... I am pretty sure that is the only way to make your Audi look like that
Second, you`re going to need to put a "For Sale" sign on the Audi.
Third, (once sold) you`re going to need to purchase a Ferrari La Ferrari.
... I am pretty sure that is the only way to make your Audi look like that
Raymoche
New member
according to that video, you just have to put the car on a turn table and buff the same spot for a while. lol
RaskyR1
Rasky's Auto Detailing
To clarify my initial comment...
The lighting in the room has a major impact on the look of photos and videos. A good photographer knows exactly what to do with the lighting to get the result they want. That room was obviously meant to showcase the car so I would be surprised if lighting wasn`t taken into consideration when it was built. Placed in a different environment, one less ideal for photography , and that car would still look great, but definitely not as over the top as it does.
The lighting in the room has a major impact on the look of photos and videos. A good photographer knows exactly what to do with the lighting to get the result they want. That room was obviously meant to showcase the car so I would be surprised if lighting wasn`t taken into consideration when it was built. Placed in a different environment, one less ideal for photography , and that car would still look great, but definitely not as over the top as it does.
Accumulator
Well-known member
Just IMO...
-ya can`t go by how a vehicle looks in pix on the internet. Period
-the (factory) paint on my Audis (A8/S8) was never all that great to begin with. Getting it a lot better would require serious wetsanding which would dramatically shorten its useful life
-getting a car perfect..even "wetsanded and buffed for 1000 hours"-perfect, is easier than *keeping* it that way if it`s used in the Real World
-getting a car perfect if it won`t stay that way is a losing game as you can`t take off very much clear over its lifetime
-Life is Not a Car Show
-ya can`t go by how a vehicle looks in pix on the internet. Period
-the (factory) paint on my Audis (A8/S8) was never all that great to begin with. Getting it a lot better would require serious wetsanding which would dramatically shorten its useful life
-getting a car perfect..even "wetsanded and buffed for 1000 hours"-perfect, is easier than *keeping* it that way if it`s used in the Real World
-getting a car perfect if it won`t stay that way is a losing game as you can`t take off very much clear over its lifetime
-Life is Not a Car Show
JustJesus
New member
agree with all that he said! ESPECIALLY the first one. I`ve wasted plenty of time driving out to see a car (to buy) that looked good in pics online, only to find it looked terrible in person
And to put this point into a visual... oh, and I`m not even a good photographer. And, these pics are straight off a cell phone, with no editing whatsoever.
The same car, same hood. In different conditions and lighting. NO polishing done. NO wax. Nothing. Just moved the car from one place to store at another.
