This timelapse shows the insane amount of retouching that goes into product photography

Photo retouching is exacting work, regardless if it's a person, a landscape, or in the case of this timelapse, a product. Created by Andreas Jörg, it squeezes two hours of editing, photoshoppery, and retouching down to a frantic nine minutes of high-speed editing in order to get this final image of a Rolex watch.

According to FStoppers, the shoot itself took 1.5 hours (with a Phase One/Mamiya Leaf rig), with two hours of retouching after that to get the image to its final state. Watching the sped-up version, it's an astonishing amount of work that goes from taking an already good shot to its eventual conclusion. Each and every element of the watch is tweaked at least slightly, every link and surface dealt to with a discerning eye.

It's an intense amount of effort for a single image, and because of that, you'll see a lot of people wondering if it isn't worth doing a high quality computer render instead. This is something that's happening with some products, but at the same time I'm willing to bet that the amount of time to correctly replicate a Rolex watch as a 3D render is far beyond the 3.5 hours this shoot and retouch took.

Oh, and in case you fell in love with the Rolex and want one for yourself? A Rolex Daytona Platinum will set you back around the $75,000 mark.