Staff Headshots - Exposure and Post Processing Feedback Needed

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dh photography

Senior Member
Hey everybody. I'd like to ask you all to take a minute to review a couple of the headshot that I did this week for a local Orthodontics office. I have been having fits with Lightroom color and exposure being completely different when viewed on other systems -vs- how it appears on my Macbook and in LRCC when I export. I really want to get your opinions on how these last edited pics appear to your eyes (and monitors). I plan on printing a few as a final test before submission. Would really appreciate you honest feedback if you can share it.

I shot all with a D7100 and Tamron 90mm f/2.8 indoors at the clients office. I used a Meinke MK910 speed light in a 36x24 softbox and a 43" silver sided reflector. The pics below are imported here as jpeg with height size of 1024, so they aren't the highest of resolution here. I can provide full size file links of you'd like. Thanks in advance.

Dave ~



DHP_1853.jpg


DHP_1833.jpg


DHP_1828-2.jpg
 
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Blacktop

Senior Member
Hey David, I'm no expert on headshots so I can only tell you how it looks on my monitor.
Exposure wise, the first and last shot looks fine, but the second shot looks a little over exposed on the face and the hair.

Colorwise they look ok to me. Although I'm not crazy about the background color at all, but this is probably all you had to work with.
 
LouCioccio

LouCioccio

Senior Member
You did everything right; I had done cycling racing team all head shots at a bicycle shop. I measured the distance for placement of the lights as I knew I would not get the teams members all at the same time. I chose a corner that ambient light should not affect but selected the same time frame of the day for each time a member could eventually make. Now what made everything work I used a Seconik Flash/light meter since I wrote those measurements down everything was consistent. I think it was what Joe Brady said in those numerous videos "Trust your Lightmeter" and the Colorchecker" those are the two things you need to give you consistency. I learned early on using film keep everything the same; lighting and exposure when doing something like your doing so the guy/gal doing the printing would not chase after me!
Don't pixel peep I think they will like the images.
Lou Cioccio
i'll try to dig that print out and resize it I even found a font that look like Campy Logo (cycling).
 
Marcel

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
They look good on my Mac except for the second one which is a bit overexposed. But don't forget that when viewing a print (reflected light instead of transparency), they might look a tad darker. You could have some 4x5 printed just to make sure of the end results before submitting them.
 
D

dh photography

Senior Member
Thanks for all of the feedback and advice! Helps a TON with confirmation of what I'm seeing and what I'm not.

Pulled back up here at the office, and I see how the 2nd shot is still a bit over exposed. The good part is that I can lower it down more in LR and keep it looking natural.
@Blacktop - totally agree on the crappy background color. Funny how the client can end up directing the location of the shots to the worst possible spot for what we envision ahead of time. I'm hoping I can do a little PS background swapping, but being a complete PS rookie isn't helping my effort. I can get the background layer selected; and even replaced, but the edge blending is killing me.

I'll have a few 4x6s printed today just to see how that works out. I doubt any of the shots ever get printed by the client. These are only going on their website; with the exception of the Doc's image, that may go on their brochures.

I'm still not sure why my initial edits that look great in LR on my MacBook then appear darker when opened on other devices. The colors seem to be doing ok, but the exposure is off for sure.



IMG_0688.JPG
 
cwgrizz

cwgrizz

Senior Member
Challenge Team
dh photography said:
I'm still not sure why my initial edits that look great in LR on my MacBook then appear darker when opened on other devices. The colors seem to be doing ok, but the exposure is off for sure.



View attachment 253860
Click to expand...

Could the difference be that you are processing them using Adobe RGB instead of sRGB? Some devices don't do well with Adobe RGB as I understand it.
 
B

Blacktop

Senior Member
cwgrizz said:
Could the difference be that you are processing them using Adobe RGB instead of sRGB? Some devices don't do well with Adobe RGB as I understand it.
Click to expand...

I shoot and process everything in RGB, but when uploading to the web ,I always convert and upload in sRGB.
 
Scott Murray

Scott Murray

Senior Member
dh photography said:
Thanks for all of the feedback and advice! Helps a TON with confirmation of what I'm seeing and what I'm not.

Pulled back up here at the office, and I see how the 2nd shot is still a bit over exposed. The good part is that I can lower it down more in LR and keep it looking natural.
@Blacktop - totally agree on the crappy background color. Funny how the client can end up directing the location of the shots to the worst possible spot for what we envision ahead of time. I'm hoping I can do a little PS background swapping, but being a complete PS rookie isn't helping my effort. I can get the background layer selected; and even replaced, but the edge blending is killing me.

I'll have a few 4x6s printed today just to see how that works out. I doubt any of the shots ever get printed by the client. These are only going on their website; with the exception of the Doc's image, that may go on their brochures.

I'm still not sure why my initial edits that look great in LR on my MacBook then appear darker when opened on other devices. The colors seem to be doing ok, but the exposure is off for sure.



View attachment 253860
Click to expand...

Screen brightness will be different across all monitors if not calibrated the same, also indoor lighting would be different. Best bet is if you want to see their natural colour is to print them out as Marcel has said. But overall I think they look great. Remember if you are good in Photoshop you can adjust the background colours and even add a texture if needed, but if this is what they wanted then so be it.
 
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Blade Canyon

Senior Member
I'm posting this picture to compare how it looks across platforms. Your pictures look good on my Samsung tablet, but on my PC monitor they appear to have a greenish color cast. I tried to remove it in the pic below, so I'm posting both for comparison. I agree with all the other comments on exposure and light balance.

Revised:
DHP_1853a.jpg

Original:
DHP_1853.jpg

My PC monitor is just a Samsung HD TV I took from the guest bedroom nobody ever uses.
 
D

dh photography

Senior Member
Blade Canyon said:
I'm posting this picture to compare how it looks across platforms. Your pictures look good on my Samsung tablet, but on my PC monitor they appear to have a greenish color cast. I tried to remove it in the pic below, so I'm posting both for comparison. I agree with all the other comments on exposure and light balance.

My PC monitor is just a Samsung HD TV I took from the guest bedroom nobody ever uses.
Click to expand...

Good call on the greenish tint. I hadn't really noticed it was more than just the background that had that feel.

How's this one?

DHP_1853-2.jpg
 
D

dh photography

Senior Member
cwgrizz said:
Could the difference be that you are processing them using Adobe RGB instead of sRGB? Some devices don't do well with Adobe RGB as I understand it.
Click to expand...

Just double checked and I had my exports set to Adobe RGB. Just switched it back to sRGB and will be watching to see if that helps any. Thanks, Walt!
 
B

Blade Canyon

Senior Member
Looks great on all of my devices! As others said, however, if this is a print job, then the only way to know is make a print.

Over time, I've realized how much our brains adjust the colors we are seeing to match our perception of how it is supposed to look. That means we don't see the color cast across a supposedly white object because our brain still tells us it's white.

I bought a Color Checker board and Passport for that reason. You shoot the color board at the beginning of your shoot, then edit in post to make the color board look right. Then apply that edit to the other shots from the same shoot.
 
S

STM

Senior Member
Everyone's monitor will look a little different, even if you calibrate them (I recalibrated mine before posting this) but on mine the images look about 1/2 stop overexposed and the color just a bit on the magenta side.

 
D

dh photography

Senior Member
RocketCowboy said:
Great job controlling reflections off the glasses!

Looks like you did well!
Click to expand...

Thank you, Charlie! There were a few light glare spots, but they weren't too hard to remove in post. Presenting them this morning while on site to shoot the office indoor/outdoor pics. Hopefully they approve.

Blade Canyon said:
Because this is for an Orthodontics office, you should feel free to brighten up the smiles.
Click to expand...

I did just a hair, but didn't want to fake it too much. A couple needed a little more help than they should. LOL.

STM said:
Everyone's monitor will look a little different, even if you calibrate them (I recalibrated mine before posting this) but on mine the images look about 1/2 stop overexposed and the color just a bit on the magenta side.
Click to expand...

Thank you! I did some final tweaking and think I found the sweet spot.


Thank you ALL for your help and input. Makes all the difference in the world to have so many helpful people here!!
 
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