Pro edition
Build Sheet.
The demo takes one hero apart. This is the instrument behind it — the pass order and why it is that order, what has to arrive before a build can start, and the five things that turn four hours into six.
Pass order
| # | Pass | Before | Why here |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Background, empty | Anything is placed | A sweep with a mark on it is a mark you retouch out of thirty frames instead of one. |
| 2 | Position and lock | Any light is set | Camera, tripod and product do not move again. Every later pass depends on that. |
| 3 | Focus stack | Lighting is refined | Shot flat and even. Slices are about depth, not about how it looks. |
| 4 | Key | Fill and rim | The main decision. Everything after it is relative to this frame. |
| 5 | Fill | Rim | Sets how dark the shadow side falls. Cheap to change now, expensive later. |
| 6 | Rim and edges | Surface passes | Separating the object from the ground. Multiple positions, one survives. |
| 7 | Speculars and chrome | Reflection | Built card by card. This is the pass that takes the longest on anything shiny. |
| 8 | Reflection | Shadow | Its strength should be a decision. Shooting it inline makes it an accident. |
| 9 | Shadow | Wrap | Last, with everything else off. It is what stops the object floating. |
What the client supplies
- The final product
- Not a prototype and not a sample that is "basically the same". A build on a changing product is a build done twice.
- Two of anything reflective
- Fingerprints on chrome are a retouching bill. A second unit costs less than the hour it saves.
- The front face, in writing
- The single most common cause of a reshoot. Decide it before the day, not by consensus during it.
- Any layout it must sit in
- A hero cropped square later was framed for nothing. Send the layout, even a rough one.
- Colour reference, if it matters
- A physical swatch beats a hex value. Screens disagree; ink and plastic do not.
Five things that slow a build
- A product that arrives dirty. Cleaning is twenty minutes that nobody budgeted.
- Deciding the angle on the day. The stack is angle-specific; changing it means starting again.
- Approvals from someone not in the room. Every remote round costs an hour of a four-hour build.
- Wanting "the same but with the label facing more". That is a new stack, not an adjustment.
- Adding a second product halfway. Two builds in a day is the ceiling; three is a story about a bad day.
Packshot days are different
- Fixed camera, fixed light, fixed surface. The whole economy of packshots is that nothing moves.
- SKU codes supplied in shooting order, as a spreadsheet. Naming fifty-five files afterwards from memory is how errors get in.
- One angle is the rate; extra angles are cheap because the set already exists.
- Marketplace specs are matched exactly — pure white where required, and the margin rules. Send the spec name.
Pass counts and timings are working figures for this kind of build. A different subject changes them; glass and chrome cost the most.