First MMA Promo Image

ZiN

New member
Hi Nikonites,

So I'm back with another one for you all to sink your teeth into, this time it's a Promo shot for my fighter friend. So basically the final version/edit of what I figure it should look like done, post shoot/edit.

The idea that he wanted which I wasn't quite sure if I could deliver on was him screaming while causing some kind of soundwave effect. I didn't go in with the intention to do just that but I think it's pretty much what I came out with. :D

Shot with my D90, 35mm f/1.8 w/ flash and soft light coming from frosted window. Edited with lightroom and photoshop cs.


Warbound Warcry by Zins Designs, on Flickr
 

Joseph Bautsch

New member
Zin, you did great. Really nice job. One point is you need to have more room around the fighter. The editors and advertising publicist like to have a little more cropping room to fit photographs in the space they have available. Newspaper editors think in terms of columns, magazine editors think in terms of 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, or full page. Printed banners, and flyers are different as well. All have different cropping needs. We think in terms of a great composition but if the editor or printer can't crop the shot to what he needs then you wasted your time. I also recommend taking a series of photos of different poses with different crop formats and present them all to the publication and let them choose the one that works best for their needs. Your job will become easier as you learn the style of shots the publication or printer is looking for. Hope this helps.
 
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Browncoat

Senior Member
Mr. Bautsch is 100% correct on the printing thing. Just keep a copy of an uncropped PSD handy for resizing. :)

Awesome job on the photo!
 

Joseph Bautsch

New member
Anthony help me out here. I don't use Photoshop so I don't know if the PSD file can be converted to a jpeg or tiff format. The reason I ask is that all the commercial print shops that I have dealt with have asked for a full size jpeg or tiff.
 

Eduard

Super Mod
Staff member
Super Mod
A PSD is a native Adobe file format that contains layer information. You can save a PSD file into a different format (jpeg or tiff for example) from within Photoshop.
 

ZiN

New member
Ok, lets see here.

Eduard: I will attempt to explain but I'm afraid with Photoshop I tend to just do, if that makes any sense. I'm also better at teaching in person but that doesn't help right now, moving on. Basically I made some alternations to the lighting first and then once I was happy with that I made a copy of the image to a new layer. Then went to filters/distort/zoom?, not sure of the exact one but it gives you the option to blur the image in an outward direction. From there once I got what I was looking for I turned on the masking layer and traced out the fighter with the lasso tool, filled the area to mask the effect on the fighter, then tweaked as necessary. Doubled up the masking layer to add another layer filter. Then done.

Joseph:
That is definitely something for me to keep in mind in the future. The original had a little more of the ring in it and the overhead lighting, I just wanted to tidy that up a bit. Bonus is I edited the full version of it in PSD so it can be downsized to hopefully fit whatever the editors needs could be. There are a couple shots but since Todd has not gone full PRO, this is just for his personal promotion until he builds a big enough name for himself which will no doubt come after April and when they get him a couple more fights.

Fotojack:
Thanks, appreciate it. :)
 
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