I bought a set of genuine handcuffs from Amazon.com and had a guy paint them with the stars and stripes. I then set up a white, tabletop studio-shot. Lighting was one main diffused light on camera right and two small diffused lights, camera rear, pointing back at the cuffs.
The real work began once the photo was shot. Moderate processing, consisting of a slight levels bump. The big deal was lack of contrast. By far the biggest pain was the amount of cloning needed. Small flaws in the paint required a tremendous amount of touch up. The area where the chain links rubbed together were the worst. Red paint was mixed with the blue and vice versa, making that section look muddied and worn. Stars were retouched as well.
The final step was to create a path around the handcuffs to mask the background 100 percent white and lastly add in a drop shadow.
I didn’t log the amount of time this image took, but it was a lot. Needless to say I haven’t even made back the cost of paying the guy to paint the cuffs. However, I do feel it was worth it in processing experience alone. I was able to hone a few techniques on path creation, masking and cloning. And that has made a world of difference in other illustrations.
