Northeast Lantern - Constraints to Catalog Images
ROLES
Retouching
Northeast Lantern is a family-owned lighting company handcrafting fixtures on demand. With a deep catalog and the ability to make custom pieces from scratch, their product and production model is one-of-a-kind—and it comes with some very real challenges.
Because each fixture is made to order, there are rarely more than a few pieces on hand at any given time. On top of that, installed fixtures are scattered all over the country and usually only accessible for a short window. That makes traditional photoshoots tough to schedule—and financially questionable for one-off designs that they want to showcase but may never exist again.
Unlike the other case studies this one isn't about the newest techniques and delivering pixel perfect images, it's about getting the best out of what you have and how far retouching can take an image alone. Creating a custom solution for the exact problem at hand. Read on and see more before and after images!
Distractions removed, perspective straightened, and the fixture highlighted by making it appear on
Clean up of condensation on fixtures glass globe, with only one image it has to be fully rebuilt and then realistically comped into the scene
To start, we helped them build a simple, flexible photo booth right in the warehouse; something that could capture clean, consistent images as each fixture was finished. It wasn’t meant to replace a full-blown studio setup, that would have been to complicated for them anyway, it just needed to get us close enough for post.
For install shots, we had to work with what we could get: images from contractors, designers, and other non-professional photography sources who were on site at some point. Not ideal, but with the right workflow, we were able to take those everyday snapshots and turn them into polished, catalog-ready assets that truly showcased the craftsmanship behind each piece.
Before/after showing the difference of the photobooth photos straight from NEL and the retouched version
This system has consistently provided years of marketing content and imagery for product catalogs, all on clean white backgrounds and looking like they came straight from on location product shoots. It's a great example of how powerful good post-production can be, turning everyday images into powerful, brand-worthy assets.
Take a look at some more of our favorite before-and-after transformations, below.
