Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 11:23 pm Post subject: First attempts - Part deux
AGHHHHHHH
got my model back, she was down for a couple of days, so had a go.
All seemed to be well until I got the images onto the PC - background not white!!!
Realised after a while, that I had forgotten to put a light onto the background, so the background picked up the colur hue of the walls - senior moments come to often these days, any way, this is what I ended up with.
hoping that I may get time tomorrow to correct these very basic mistakes. _________________ -----------------------------------------------------
Your daughter's personality really comes through in your portraits of her. She seems like such a nice person, from her pictures.
My first thought, when I saw this, was about the background of course- but that's a moot point since you have already mentioned it.
Second thought is eyes and hair- very nice! Perfectly crisp and in focus, but not overly-sharpened. Eyes are lovely and sparkling.
My third thought is the teeth. I have a really good, easy trick for whitening the teeth in photoshop, if your interested. (Sorry if that comes off as rude in any way. It's just that I've been doing a lot of portraits lately, and have been whitening the teeth in all of them, and it makes a world of difference!)
Anyway, altogether a lovely picture. _________________ Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. - Albert Gyorgyi
Many thanks Blue, and although I have "whitened" her teeth, I was frightened over over doing it - so any tips you have will be gratefully received.
Essentially, my whitening was to replace the yellowish colour on some with, with the lighter part of the same tooth. _________________ -----------------------------------------------------
Here's the trick I learned recently... it's really fast and easy, and looks very natural.
1. In Photoshop, zoom into her teeth about 300%.
2. Choose the lasso tool, and feather it 1 or 2 pixels. (I usually do 1 pixel for teeth.)
3. Carefully draw a selection around all of the the teeth- it's important not to include any of the lips or gums.
4. Once your selection is made, go under Image -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation. Change the "Edit" toggle to "Yellows" and move the "Saturation" slider all the way to the left (to -100). Return the "edit" toggle back to "Master" and move the "Lightness" slider to the right, until her teeth look bright, but not unnatural... I usually move it to 10. Click ok, deselect, and that's it.
You can also use this to whiten and brighten the whites of the eyes... but instead of changing the "Edit" toggle to "Yellows" in step 4, you would change it to "Reds."
_________________ Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. - Albert Gyorgyi
No problem- happy to share _________________ Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. - Albert Gyorgyi
Lovely shot Dave, bang on exposure, all senior moments not withstanding. My only suggestion would be to introduce some shadow rather than full face lighting.
Great teeth tip Blue, I shall be trying that. I've tried some teeth and eye whitening in the past and found I needed to save two or three shots because initially they looked unnatural to my eye, and I needed to come back later to review them. _________________
Lovely shot Dave, bang on exposure, all senior moments not withstanding. My only suggestion would be to introduce some shadow rather than full face lighting.
Thanks Keith - not too sure how to introduce the shadow as you suggest
I had two lights at around 45 degrees to either side of my daughter, one with a softbox that had two white diffusers over it, and the other light reflected from a brolly. Both were set at quarter power (only 4 settings on lamps, full, half, quarter and off)
Do you feel one light and a reflector (hmmm - might be cheaper to paint the walls white). _________________ -----------------------------------------------------
Try having your secondary lamp on half the power of your main lamp Dave and you might try raising your main lamp so that the eye highlights are at 11 or 1 o'clock, which should give shadow on her cheek and under her chin. _________________
For what it's worth, because I really haven't 'got it' yet. I have my lamps about 5 feet away from the model for portraits, I think they are 360W flash units, one on full the other on half, and I shoot at f8 - f10 at 1/200, I have a soft box on the main and a shoot through umbrella on the fill. _________________
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