'37 Hupmobile

[Eaglerapids]

I've spent so much time on this I'm lost, I don't know if what I've done is going in the right direction or whether I've ruined it (it was shot in RAW so it's not really ruined but you know what I mean).
I was at Cabela's Sunday and there were a few of these old cars out front. Light poles everywhere, I haven't even tried to get them out of the reflections on the car itself and to me they ruin the picture. As you can see I've had a problem around the roofline.
Does the stuff on the left and the right help kinda "place" the car or is it a distraction? Have I way overprocessed this photo? Or have I somewhat attained my goal of isolating it amongst all the clutter? And there was a lot of clutter.

[Donald]

on first look it seems ok, looking a bit longer it does have problems.

It does appear a bit overworked. You've lost the figure-ground relationship in forground around the tires; it looks a bit fake, the way the background details are blurred. With entire object shot you can't get away with losing figure-ground, it will always look wierd (unless its an ad and this is where the text goes). With close up detail shots, like the cowling vent or front grill, figure-ground is less important and excessive background blurring or coloring can be successful.

What I've learned with similar shots:

Some background details can just be painted out, eg. the blurred building outline at left edge.
Zoom in a lot ( I use 400 - 600%) when masking object from background, smooth and feather masking outlines.
Black and white often improves these images, sometimes de-emphasizing otherwise distracting details
Reflections, especially people, are the bane of car photography, learn to see them in the viewfinder and move around to get good composition with minimal distracting reflections.

[JCSullivan]

I've been to gazillion car shows and have tried to do the same as you. With so much shine and reflection on the cars and, yes, the poles and lawn chairs and people it is a very difficult job.

I think you have done an excellent job. The fact that more often than not, these cars are only 2 feet apart makes it even more difficult. I would venture to bet that the owner would even pay for your results.

[darkmunk]

I agree with the comments above and normally I would hate overworked photos but this has a lot of potential. It has a lot of the quality of the old airbrushed photos from that era.
I would stick at it or have another go paying attention to the tyres and masking as Donald says. I think the reflections are the easy bit and again the shot is worth the time.
If you are using PhotoShop, the pen tool is your friend for geometric things, create as few anchore points as possible, time taken getting the mask just right is time saved. don't forget to soften the edges of the mask a little. try blurring the mask (in the alpha channel or quick mask) before using it in earnest.
(edit) BTW, you apear to know your way round photo editing software, so no lecture intended it's a cracking shot and worth the effort.

[Eaglerapids]

Thank you for your replies and help.
Darkmunk lecture me at will! I'm working hard at editing but still consider myself a beginner. I've had a heck of a time trying to understand the pen tool but I saw a tutorial on a site where the guy was a master and it gave me a glimpse of it's power. I'll go back and give it a try.
Donald, you put into words what was bothering me about my effort but didn't have the vocabulary to express. The car is almost losing it's reality and starting to look like a model or something. In a way I like it but didn't know if this is a valid technique. When I started using the lens blur filter I didn't know when or where to stop and continued till I'd blurred everything but the car itself.

[graphicgr8s]

Way overworked. Try isolating the car then just slightly blurring the background a bit. Also don't be afraid to crop some of the back of the car. Just try a little at a time till you like what you see. Sometimes we try to keep the whole car/subject in the frame but it really pops when it's cropped.