I've been working on a project (slowly, off and on, for over a year) inspired by that video Joel Grimes made demonstrating this technique. I'm really happy with the results I'm getting. A couple of weeks ago I had to drive from northern Ohio to northern Michigan with my camera, softbox, strobe, light stands and tripod, plywood square painted neutral gray, and assorted clamps, reflectors, etc. so I could get to the objects I was interested in photographing. I got rerouted through downtown Howell because of construction - which made me think of you, so I gave a random wave hello to you wherever you are in that area.

Outstanding! Thank you so much for posting this.  My wife and I watched this together and we each came up with ideas that we would like to try... kitchen tools, outdated tech, the cats favourite toys (framed and mounted just above his food bowl 😂).  Can't wait to get started.  

Loved the quote about unrealised inspiration just being entertainment.

I knew those were Joel's images too- I bought his still life program.  I love his deep blue and definitely think bold, grungy backgrounds look great.  It was nice you showed how to do this too with room light.

superb effect, love this lesson.....thankyou

Very good instruction for me. 🍎

Interesting technique...

Brilliant 👍

bonjour
excellent,  creatif, merci du partage
@+

Thanks Steve, I wasn't going to watch this one. Glad I did as always learn something new and bonus, it's given me a new idea.

Compared to Joel's method, yours suffers because the color and texture in the 2 texture files you used color and texturize the wrench.  Joel's method is to take the original image, select the subject, make a mask of that subject selection and then invert that mask.  Then, that inverted mask selection is moved to the top texture layer--and all the texture layers used are set to overlay.  This allows you to keep a non-colorized or texturized subject (like the examples of Joel's work).  Another issue you have is the texture of your cloth, which you can see in your final image.  I think it works with the tools, but might not work with flowers/plants.  You can buy art paper in medium grey that has a smooth, matte finish.

Nicely done, Steve. If you are going to do a lot of this type of project, you could create a smart object containing the layers for one subject. You can then replace the subject and make modifications to any masks to create each cell of the project. It’s a bit advanced but can help if you were to do this often. Thanks for the inspiration!

Looks like tools with 'handles' was the theme and the clamp lost out

The hammer is a "Ball Pean" model.

Steve - Rather than remembering settings between images, why not save the finished image with all its layers, as a new name then simply replace the image layer with a new cropped image

Also, i think your problem with the C-clamp was that unlike the other 3 tools, a) it didn't have a handle, and, b) the whole thing was visible.  For those reasons, it didn't fit the motif.