Well, I sat in front of the computer, early one morning.
With coffee in hand, and a brand new pack of "smokes" just opened, I set out to try
and come up with some valentine crap for the stock sites. (Val. Day is Feb 14) just around the corner.

I thought of hearts and crap like that, but as I perused other peoples portfolios for ideas, I settled
on a gift box as my theme. Strangely enough I accidentally came up with a technique for making
brown cardboard boxes also! I think they are believable. I mean they almost look like photographs I think.





I can think of many ways to use these in my stock images. If you know my work, I usually take one image
and make like 10 out of just that one (hehehe).

If anyone wants to know how it's done in photoshop, I'll gladly do a video tutorial if there are enough requests.
It's pretty simple stuff really but I used the vanishing point tool, so If you don't have PS CS2 or CS3 you can't do it
like I did. I can't remember if CS has the  vanishing point tool or not.

Well I'm off to Fed EX to mail my packages,
A hardy Happy New Year to all you "crazy mixed up stock photo people"

The MIZ

I second that motion...

The cardboard has a nice look, but the perspective is off, especially on the lid pieces.  That could be fixed though.

The cardboard has a nice look, but the perspective is off, especially on the lid pieces.  That could be fixed though.

same thing i thought, although perhaps mostly only on the back lid piece.

rimglow,
Your absolutely correct. I will try harder in the future.

Best to you,
The MIZ

OK this was a new attempt at getting the perspective correct.
Now I must say at the outset, I do NOT like the corrected perspective.
Although it is correct, somehow the second image (the one I purposely re-shaped) looks better.






I like this one (above) better.



This is finished with the incorrect perspective
Any opinions?

The best to all you crazy mixed up, emotionally starved, stock photographers
The MIZ

MIZ, dude..   personally,  beyond the critical eye of photogs here... I don't think the average person on the street would even imagine the first set of images was fake....  They looked pretty good... the second batch... really good....   heck,  it's micro stock,  it ain't heading to the Louvre...  LOL
   Nice work!   =tom

Impressive work that I wouldn't eve r consider to do in PS. Still there is some lightning that could be improved, an easy way is to render a cube with the illumination you like in some cheap 3d program (like Milkshape) and then copy the lights and shadows from the resulting scene.
Actually this is a trick I sometimes use before meddling for hours setting up the lights for a photo shooting.