Creating alpha product shots

[akm3]

If you wanted to make an Apple-style Keynote presentation, with pictures of the products in the slides but not in a photo rectangle, is the best way to get these shots to shoot them against a green screen or something?

I know Keynote has some auto-alpha channel effects for helping with this, but I want to know the best way to start with a photograph that will yield the best results.

How would you go about getting a photo of an iMac, for example, that in the presentation is JUST an iMac and not a rectangle with an iMac in it?

 

[lucidmedia]

The effect you describe is created by placing a large curved white sheet of muslin behind the object and lighting it so there are no shadows. If you have access to large rolls of white paper you can use that to get the same effect. Very large objects are shot in rooms specially designed for this purpose.

In this instance, the more you can do in camera, the happier you will be doing cleanup in photoshop. You could chromakey it (blue or green-screen) but your edges will be nowhere near as clean.

 

[btbrossard]

The effect you describe is created by placing a large curved white sheet of muslin behind the object and lighting it so there are no shadows. If you have access to large rolls of white paper you can use that to get the same effect. Very large objects are shot in rooms specially designed for this purpose.

Good explanation.

 

[TheGenerous]

build a lightbox!

This post has thousands of examples and different boxes made
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?p=2797151#post2797151