Photo: Mesh warp (I'm guessing) a cone/cylinder mug flat

[Slashee the Cow]

Hey everyone! So this sort of a two parter, and the first one isn't strictly under the purview of this forum, so I guess you don't have to help with that part if you wanted to (but I'd like if you did!)

In case it wasn't obvious (just look at the username) I'm sorta mad about cows. And drinking vessels that can contain milk. So to get to the point, I broke one of my mugs but I love the design on it, I want to have a copy of that (odds it'll be used as a desktop wallpaper: decent). Like most mugs, this one isn't flat, so I'm not really sure how to best photograph it and then how to best warp it. I also have some cylindrical mugs which I'd love to get the designs off (there are a couple of broken ones somewhere around here, but a whole one was a whole lot easier to find.

 

I haven't been trying to work on those particular photos, just a couple of quick snaps with my phone to illustrate the mugs in question. So, with as little further off-topic ado as possible:

Question 1: How to get the glamour shot?
Don't worry, I'm not one of the people so delusional that they think they know everything about photography just because they bought an ILC. The bad part of that is that I don't know everything about photography. I know a tilt/shift lens may or may not be useful here, but it's a moot point since I don't have one. What I do have is an a7 iii with 18mm, 50mm, 24-105mm lenses and a 105mm macro lens (not macro only; actually a great general purpose lens when I need something that long). Also have flashes (both regular and ring) that I'm not afraid to use. And for what it's worth, a Canon G7X and my phone. Any hints on what's the best lens to use and how to shoot it or anything?

Question 2: The one about Affinity Photo (warping, or not, this is why I'm asking for help)
I've taken more front-on shots of them (just took the above ones quickly to better illustrate what I'm working with) and played around with the mesh warp tool, and a little bit with the perspective tool, and all I can make are warped pictures which look like they should be in a modern art exhibition. My excuse is somewhat reasonable (very little spatial reasoning ability due to developmental problems) but I don't need an excuse, it's just something I can't figure out, so if anyone could help me, that'd be great

[firstdefence]

 Shouldn't that be a moo point (see Friends Season 7, Episode 8)

Question one.

Better to have a cylinder than a cone, better to have a not so shiny surface, less post processing work but if that's unavoidable, either buy a cheap light-box or make one if you're handy. I'd use either the 50mm or 105mm, get the object as square on as possible, this should be easy with the viewfinder on the camera, hell you could even tether it to a laptop to get the perfect shot  

Question 2.

The more work you do in question 1 the less you have to do here and warping will be at a minimum but mesh warping will be the better option albeit it a bit clumsy to use.

You might also want to look on such as pixabay: https://pixabay.com/vectors/search/cow/?manual_search=1

You could make your own moo-mug

Moo point.afphoto

[NotMyFault]

do not over engineer.

The shape is so easy to recreate as vector art. Simply make 3-5 images of the broken original, while rotating the mug about 15-30 degrees.

then, combine all images (try panorama stitching, or just adding them manually by placing into a file with large enough size, using rectangles as vector masks to use only the “flat” portion of every image.

to achieve perfection:

1. use mesh warp live filter (separately ob all but center image) to perfectly align.
2. it will help if you create a simple ruler from paper, and glue it on the mug a few mm outside of tyne cow as straight lines, to support stitching.

For numerical perfection, the “equations” filter allows to correct the distortion with a single image, but someone needs to google the formula for inverse cylinder perspective ( probably using atan from (x-w/2)