Portrait day
- Thread starter Moab Man
- Start date
Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
Nicely done! I like your lighting a lot.
I'd really like to sit down some time and talk to you about how you do your processing...
...
On the color? Black and white? Both?
Hi Man , really love these shots , I've tried a few times but never seem to get it
I have a cheap black backdrop, two Yongnuo speeds two stands with shoot through umbellas , it should be enough
Not too big on PP , just using nx , and Faststone pretty basic
Can you give us a brief idea of your PP for these shots , will give it another go thus evening if the wife is willing
thanx
I have a cheap black backdrop, two Yongnuo speeds two stands with shoot through umbellas , it should be enough
Not too big on PP , just using nx , and Faststone pretty basic
Can you give us a brief idea of your PP for these shots , will give it another go thus evening if the wife is willing
thanx
Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
I like both shots a lot, but I'm a fiend for some good B&W and that's some really good B&W right there in my opinion.
Here's my process for the black and white, and I seem to be onto something because of the response I've gotten from this same process with some clients really liking it. Best part, it's really easy.
First, I work the image to where it looks "good" in black and white.
Second, I go back into camera raw and push the white slider out of my comfort zone to where it's starting to fall apart (blow out) and then back up to keep it bright but so that I'm not losing the detail in the highlights.
Third, I do the same with the black slider as I did the white watching for how much of the photo and at what point do I start to black out too much of the image and then back up enough to bring detail back into the whites.
Fourth, I now grab the contrast slider and push it up to where I like it.
I can't give you specific numbers of how much I push each because it depends on the highlights and darks in the photo. At first I wasn't too sure on the look - I liked it, but would clients.
I started doing this because of something that I read by or on Ansel Adams. It discussed, or he said, how whites need to be white and blacks need to be black to really make a BW come alive or otherwise you have just a bunch of shades of gray. Of course we're not getting rid of gray, but you get the idea.
Hope this helps.
First, I work the image to where it looks "good" in black and white.
Second, I go back into camera raw and push the white slider out of my comfort zone to where it's starting to fall apart (blow out) and then back up to keep it bright but so that I'm not losing the detail in the highlights.
Third, I do the same with the black slider as I did the white watching for how much of the photo and at what point do I start to black out too much of the image and then back up enough to bring detail back into the whites.
Fourth, I now grab the contrast slider and push it up to where I like it.
I can't give you specific numbers of how much I push each because it depends on the highlights and darks in the photo. At first I wasn't too sure on the look - I liked it, but would clients.
I started doing this because of something that I read by or on Ansel Adams. It discussed, or he said, how whites need to be white and blacks need to be black to really make a BW come alive or otherwise you have just a bunch of shades of gray. Of course we're not getting rid of gray, but you get the idea.
Hope this helps.
Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
Yes, that helps immensely, thank you... I'm going to play around with that right now just to see where it gets me.
Just to clarify, let me summarize and please correct me if I'm not understanding something.
Step 1. I assume you mean you sort of "wing it" at this stage a little, looking for a neutral starting point from which to start adjusting your Whites and Blacks.
Step 2. Max out the Whites slider then back off until there are no blown out pixels; tweaking by eye as necessary.
Step 3. Same as Step 2, only using the Blacks slider.
Step 4. Adjust the Contrast slider to taste.
Is that pretty much it, in the proverbial nutshell?
Edit: Now that I think about it, this is starting to ring a bell with me. I remember reading somewhere the suggestion to max out both the Hightlights and Blacks sliders in Adobe Camera RAW and then, using the two mid-tone sliders (called Shadows and Whites) and Contrast slider, tweak things to perfection.
.....
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Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
Okay, yeah; that's pretty much how I took it. Thanks for the input; you seem to have really nailed the technique...
The Man made me do it , my first real effort at portraits, I know I know a lot to do yet but a startView attachment 192101
Angle your victim to the camera so she is not square to it. Use your second flash behind her to give some hair light or rim light. I see the right shoulder (her left) is lit up. It looks as thought you have a light on the left (her right). When someone has hair that comes over the front creating a kind of ledge you want to shoot across from the opposite side to get the light up under the ledge so it's not causing a shadow. If you're wanting the light from that side then use a white reflector, can be anything, up close to bounce light up under the ledge to minimize the shadow.
I know you said you have limited software. I'm assuming you have a Nikon, and it came with the disc of basic software. Take a look and see if there is a Clarity slider. If you bring down the clarity it softens the midtones of the picture, specifically it really helps with taking down the sharpness in skin.
I know you said you have limited software. I'm assuming you have a Nikon, and it came with the disc of basic software. Take a look and see if there is a Clarity slider. If you bring down the clarity it softens the midtones of the picture, specifically it really helps with taking down the sharpness in skin.
If you use frequency separation in PS you can erase the wrinkles in the high frequency layer while it preserves the tones in the low frequency. That's usually the trick to smoothen faces.
RocketCowboy
Senior Member
That's the technique I need to get better at!
One is my lighting set up. My fill light I have turned away from my victim so that they are only catching the fall off from the light - it's softer. Two, a diffuser over the light to soften it and even out the light. The larger the light source the softer the lighting. It doesn't mean the flash needs to be bigger, but the diffuser.
For the skin, in this order, Clarity slider to soften the mid range of colors - helps to soften the skin. NikTools Dynamic Skin Softener carefully applied to areas as needed. Frequency separation to smooth out any mottling of the skin. Camera Raw to make any adjustments to exposure.
Here is a better example of all these tools applied, but it's not to be opened at work. No nudity, just suggestive. This one was done with a single light and a shallow depth of field.
http://nikonites.com/portrait/34551-nsfw-boudoir-pose-post518874.html#post518874
For the skin, in this order, Clarity slider to soften the mid range of colors - helps to soften the skin. NikTools Dynamic Skin Softener carefully applied to areas as needed. Frequency separation to smooth out any mottling of the skin. Camera Raw to make any adjustments to exposure.
Here is a better example of all these tools applied, but it's not to be opened at work. No nudity, just suggestive. This one was done with a single light and a shallow depth of field.
http://nikonites.com/portrait/34551-nsfw-boudoir-pose-post518874.html#post518874
Frequency separation will not take out wrinkles, the line of the wrinkle is contained on the upper layer. The lower layer will lesson the visibility of the wrinkle by softening the color transition associated with the wrinkle, but the wrinkle is still there minus the hard transition associated with the wrinkle line.
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