Here’s a quiz for you: how many of the items above were shot by yours truly, and how many kindly contributed by the companies that built them? This was a compiled graphic for my feature article in the Magnet 2009 magazine, which was produced in the spring.

Now here’s the answer: two. Can you guess which ones?

If you can’t tell, then I’m glad as that means I did a good job of compiling individual graphics and photos together so that they appear as seamless as possible, as though they were taken altogether in a studio. Of course, after all the source material was gathered, I used Photoshop to put it all together. It didn’t take very long (and I’m not the most efficient user out there), and if you’re curious how I pulled it off, read on.

Firstly, I had to shoot the Acer netbook and Apple iPhone myself, as these items were easily obtainable, while items such as the Plastic Logic and Fujitsu readers didn’t exactly exist yet in the market back then. I took a white projector screen for the backdrop and lined the netbook and iPhone nicely on a white glossy paper which was actually the back of a world map, lying around in the office. All this white makes extracting the images easier in Photoshop.

All that was left is to politely ask the relevant companies for media images of their products. Arrange them around a little bit, with a little more Photoshop, and the end-result is a compact, aesthetically-satisfying compiled graphic for my feature article on the new generation of e-book readers.