Photo Studio

A Dealermade Photo Studio is a tool that provides consistent lighting, surroundings and equipment to create quality pictures and video.

Staging quality pictures consists of three primary factors.

  1. Lighting The lighting must be right, if outside it must be in the morning or evening on a clear day to get the right light, if inside lights must be positioned properly, specific bulb types and filtering must be installed.
  2. Surroundings Surroundings provide the complimentary reflections and the setting for the vehicle.
  3. Time It takes time to manuever a vehicle into each position to create the pictures and maintain continuity in all of your pictures.

Dealers that achieve this goal are required to make heavy investments in all three categories, especially time. But volume creates can unmanageable process. The Dealermade Photo Studio creates and envionment with proper lighting and filters, white reflective walls, green screen backgrounds that can be replaced with any setting desired, and a carousel to turn your vehicle into each shooting position to speed the process and create the ability to produce full-turn videos.

Invest in a Dealermade Photo Studio to control the quality and speed of the process with this new technology

Start with a 30'x30' area and we do the rest!

What do we install?

A fully functioning photo studio, complete with a carousel for the vehicle which is capable of turning up to 20,000 pounds. We arrive with the tools, construct the studio, paint the walls, hang the lightbank, install the carousel, deliver the camera, computer, monitors, and pre-installed software. When we leave you are trained on the software, taking pictures, video, and uploading the results to the web.

What is needed?

  • A 30'x30' area is preferred, however, we can work with various sizes. The minimum is 24'x24' if you want to turn full-sized trucks. A smaller size can be accomodated, but it will limit the size of vehicle you can turn.
  • Two 115v, 20amp dedicated electrical circuits — one for the motor, and one for the lights.
  • A painted floor. We recommend green.
  • Use of a scissor lift is required during installation

Don't have the space?

We can install a metal building on your parking lot to house the studio. More info

System Includes:

  • (2) Green Screen Walls (28' each)
  • (2) White walls w/ 12' sliding door (28' each)
  • (1) 18' diameter carousel w/ 20,000 lb capacity
  • (1) Fixed ramp
  • (1) 70 bulb T5 lightbank and wall-to-wall diffuser
  • (1) Canon EOS Rebel T3i DSLR
  • (1) Adjustable handled Camera Grip
  • (1) Memory chip, cables and accessories
  • (1) Quad-core i7 Windows 7 computer
  • (1) Flat-screen monitor
  • (1) Photo editing software with batch processing
  • (1) Video editing software

Green Screen Technology

The entire background, carousel and floor can be painted with custom green screen paint that enables our software to replace the green with the background of your choice. Notice that the shadow of the vehicle carries over into the final pictures, but all green areas are replaced with a background, providing a realistic effect.

Our software automates the entire process. All of these pictures were processed in seconds, and every file can be saved and re-published with a new background at any time.

These examples are actual pictures taken by a dealer and processed with our software. These photos have not been altered or touched up by Photoshop© or any other program. Quality may vary based on camera settings, vehicle color, and camera angle.

The Dealermade Photo Studio enables creation of 40+ pictures and a full-turn video in 6 to 10 minutes.

Video

Video is a powerful marketing tool that can be fully utilized with your photo studio.

The result is a template. Build one for new vehicles, one for certified pre-owned, and another for used cars. They are saved on your computer. Now, all that's needed is to drop the vehicle onto the timeline to render the commercial.

The resulting commercials provide a new method to sell your dealership. They keep visitors engaged, and reach new advertising mediums, such as YouTube. The videos may also be embedded into your website, which increases search engine results.

TV Commercials

Midnight commercials can be very inexpensive, starting from $50 per 30-second commercial — so why isn't every spot being taken? The production cost of the commercial makes it prohibitive. No longer is this an issue when you own a photo studio with a green screen and software. Now you can create what you want when you need it!

How It Works

The clock starts tickling when a vehicle arrives, and the race is on to get it to the market. First to detail, then it is is ready for pictures.

  1. Drive the vehicle onto the carousel The ramp is a permanent ramp and does not need to be moved or adjusted. The carousel can accept long-bed, crew cab dually trucks and will turn up to 20,000lbs.
  2. Close sliding wall The interior color of the sliding wall and two reflective walls are white, providing a solid, clean reflection onto the vehicle's paint from the camera angle to deliver consistent results.
  3. Turn vehicle, take pictures and video The operator is outside of the studio, shooting through a camera opening to prevent reflection of the photographer in the vehicle. A foot pedal is pushed to start rotation. Approximately ten pictures are taken during the first turn. During the second turn, the video mode is selected and a full-turn video is created. The rotation is stopped with the vehicle pointing toward the ramp, making drive-off as easy as drive-on.
  4. Take interior pictures While the camera is still in video mode, enter the vehicle and take a ten second video of the dash, switch back to picture mode and take interior shots. Finish with the tire, trunk, motor and accessory pictures.
  5. Drive off vehicle. The vehicle is pointed toward the ramp and can be driven forward off the carousel.
  6. Batch Process Pictures Remove the memory card from the camera and place it in the computer. Select the pictures within the software to import all pictures and "fast set" your pictures (when positioning or resizing the first picture, all pictures are being adjusted). The template chosen already has the settings and backgrounds ready, then select batch and all pictures are processed within seconds. This process should take one to eight minutes to complete per picture set, based on volume.
  7. Process Video Select browse within the software to import all videos. The templates are present with data, so the only requirements are to drag video onto its layer, edit text and select render. This will take approximately 45 seconds per vehicle, and must be completed for each video. The computer will take 4-6 minutes to render the video, but multiple instances of the software may be run to prevent slowing the operator.

The software requires only 40 minutes of training.

Pre-built templates make the process simple.

What's Next?

At the end of the day, you have a folder full of high-quality pictures and video. So how do you get them on your website and to third parties, such as Autotrader, Cars.com, and others?

Export all of your pictures to an FTP folder. From there, your website or other vendors will export to third parties.

Dealermade offers all of the services required, including website, emails, window stickers, automated importing of your videos from YouTube into your website, and exporting pictures to third parties. We believe we're the best, and to prove it, we provide our services free for 60 days with your photo studio purchase.

Process Flowchart

Metal building stats:

Building only. Dealer responsible for slab, electrical, insulation, air conditioning or heat. We recommend a window A/C unit by the entrance door with a barrel fan to circulate air.

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