You may have noticed that pictures from my blog are slowly starting to disappear ... I am continuing to shift everything from my Flickr page to my Zenfolio page - and deleting photos from my Flickr page.
Come visit me at my new site as this one will slowly go away!
http://smithscenes.zenfolio.com/
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Monday, January 21, 2013
Revamping and reworking
After having everything photography related hosted on three different sites - Flickr, Blogger, and Zenfolio - I have decided to migrate everything over to Zenfolio, photo hosting, blogging, and business. It was too much of a pain in the neck to try and coordinate everything, wondering if I'd uploaded something to all three locations and what was where. Zenfolio offers everything I need - a decision made even easier by the fact that I was already paying them for the business end!
From my main site you can access my blog - I ported over my posts from this year - as well as my photos. I am slowly working on migrating and getting everything set up, so it's still a work in progress.
In the meantime, please take a look; hope to see you there soon!
http://smithscenes.zenfolio.com/
From my main site you can access my blog - I ported over my posts from this year - as well as my photos. I am slowly working on migrating and getting everything set up, so it's still a work in progress.
In the meantime, please take a look; hope to see you there soon!
http://smithscenes.zenfolio.com/
Photo of Week - Week 4
This week's focus - light modifiers. I've got a few different light modifiers and it's been awhile (maybe even never) since I've gotten them out and gone through them in a systematic manner to compare results.
I tried to keep the camera and lightstand the same for all the photos. There is no post-processing in the photos. Well, I did change the white balance (shot in cloudy and changed to flash), except I did not make the adjustment in the last image ... missed that step.
The flash head is approximately 6 feet from the subject in all pictures - this means that with the larger modifiers (softboxes) the surface of the modifier is significantly closer to the subject than the bare flash, for example.
The lights are all at about a 45 degree angle from the subject (image left), flash head just a bit above eye level of the subject (lightstands didn't go any lower).
All are shot at the same flash power setting and with the same camera setting, as follows:
Shutter speed: 1/125s
Aperture: F8.0
ISO: 100
The lighting setup will depend on how we want to light the subject - harsh light may not work too well for infant portraits, but maybe for an athletic adult. Also - how large/tall is our subject and what do we want to focus on? Is it going to be a full-length family portrait? Do we want to draw attention to a particular part of the subject - hands, eyes?
My next goal will be to try and work using multiple modifiers and see what I can come up with!
I tried to keep the camera and lightstand the same for all the photos. There is no post-processing in the photos. Well, I did change the white balance (shot in cloudy and changed to flash), except I did not make the adjustment in the last image ... missed that step.
The flash head is approximately 6 feet from the subject in all pictures - this means that with the larger modifiers (softboxes) the surface of the modifier is significantly closer to the subject than the bare flash, for example.
The lights are all at about a 45 degree angle from the subject (image left), flash head just a bit above eye level of the subject (lightstands didn't go any lower).
All are shot at the same flash power setting and with the same camera setting, as follows:
Shutter speed: 1/125s
Aperture: F8.0
ISO: 100
Bare flash, 1/2 power, 6ft from subject, flash zoom 24mm
In the above shot we've got pretty harsh shadows and powerful light blasting the subject.
Bare flash, 1/2 power, 6ft from subject, flash zoom 85 mm
Image two, pretty much the same as the first one, but the light is focused higher up on the subject. Not much illumination on the chair
Homemade beauty dish (16"), 1/2 power, 6ft from subject, flash zoom 85mm
First modifier - right off we see a drop in illumination. Shadows from the subject aren't as sharp and there is a significant reduction in light reaching the backdrop.
36" shoot-through umbrella, 1/2 power, 6ft from subject, flash zoom 24mm
Shadows have a softer edge with the umbrella here, light on the facing side is not as harsh and more even. Illumination on the backdrop is a bit more even.
36" shoot-through umbrella, 1/2 power, 6ft from subject, flash zoom 85 mm
Same shoot through umbrella, but the flash is more focused down. The shadows coming off the subject are a bit more defined, but still with a smooth edge (contrast with the bare flash shots above).
60cm X 60cm softbox, inner and outer diffuser, 1/2 power, 6ft from subject
A similar quality of light as the umbrella shots up above, particularly the one with the flash at the widest zoom. Backdrop illumination is pretty even down the right side - very little casting from the chair/subject.
70" octabox softbox, inner and outer diffuser, 1/2 power, 6ft from subject
Now we get to the big modifier. Really soft shadows - just enough to give some definition. Backdrop illumination is a more gradual shift to a bit darker on the side opposite the light.The lighting setup will depend on how we want to light the subject - harsh light may not work too well for infant portraits, but maybe for an athletic adult. Also - how large/tall is our subject and what do we want to focus on? Is it going to be a full-length family portrait? Do we want to draw attention to a particular part of the subject - hands, eyes?
My next goal will be to try and work using multiple modifiers and see what I can come up with!
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Photo of the Week - Week 3
I try to ask the question - What is the story? When I take pictures, if I don't think about this question, then landscapes become blase, portraits are snapshots, and there's nothing compelling about the image. Art, compelling art, is more than just eye candy - it is trying to convey something of a story, it has a message.
So, what's the story?
Our girls have always loved animals; we have some friends here who have raised some pigs and our middle daughter has since become enamored with pigs. She's fed them and been around them, seen them in real life - she knows they are always hungry and that they really, really stink. But she still loves them.
So when the mother pig became "great with piglets," she wanted to adopt one of the piglets. Obviously, this couldn't happen, so she decided to adopt by proxy - the piglet would stay with the friends, but she'd bring him a special treat occasionally. When the piglets got to be two months old, they would be sold and move on to a different existence ...
Pigs, however, are quite intelligent, although not able to anticipate consequences. Our little friend happened to figure out how to escape from his pen. Unfortunately for him, the friends have several dogs and the dogs did what comes natural for them when they found him.
The girls were understandably saddened by what happened and they decided that little Hungry needed to be remembered. Back at our home they made a little memorial for him, in tribute to their little piglet friend. And now it's on the Internet and will be around forever!
So, what's the story?
Our girls have always loved animals; we have some friends here who have raised some pigs and our middle daughter has since become enamored with pigs. She's fed them and been around them, seen them in real life - she knows they are always hungry and that they really, really stink. But she still loves them.
So when the mother pig became "great with piglets," she wanted to adopt one of the piglets. Obviously, this couldn't happen, so she decided to adopt by proxy - the piglet would stay with the friends, but she'd bring him a special treat occasionally. When the piglets got to be two months old, they would be sold and move on to a different existence ...
Pigs, however, are quite intelligent, although not able to anticipate consequences. Our little friend happened to figure out how to escape from his pen. Unfortunately for him, the friends have several dogs and the dogs did what comes natural for them when they found him.
The girls were understandably saddened by what happened and they decided that little Hungry needed to be remembered. Back at our home they made a little memorial for him, in tribute to their little piglet friend. And now it's on the Internet and will be around forever!
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Photo of the Week - Week 2
So far I'm 2 for 2 in posting! It also helps that I got some new photography gear this week, so I have been playing around with it.
One of my Christmas presents was a Fotodiox 70 inch octagon reflector. As I've been doing some studio portraits, I've often wanted a larger softbox. Up until now I've only had a 60cm x 60cm softbox. This is a massive step up.
First of all, it's like a small tent, though of more robust material. I actually need to do something to sandbag it so it doesn't tip over. I've got a small bag hanging off the back that's filled with a bunch of batteries and my other speedlights. As it is, if a butterfly landed on the front of the octa, it would probably tip over.
I love the beautiful, wrapping light this generates. I'm using a LumoPro speedlight at full power and the front of the octa is about 30 inches from the subject in the below photo.
EXIF Info
I'm actually crouched on the floor between the octa and the subject here, which you can't tell unless you zoom way in and look at the highlights in the iris, as below.
In short - I love this modifier and can't wait to use it some more! I'm just imagining what I could do with two more ...
One of my Christmas presents was a Fotodiox 70 inch octagon reflector. As I've been doing some studio portraits, I've often wanted a larger softbox. Up until now I've only had a 60cm x 60cm softbox. This is a massive step up.
First of all, it's like a small tent, though of more robust material. I actually need to do something to sandbag it so it doesn't tip over. I've got a small bag hanging off the back that's filled with a bunch of batteries and my other speedlights. As it is, if a butterfly landed on the front of the octa, it would probably tip over.
I love the beautiful, wrapping light this generates. I'm using a LumoPro speedlight at full power and the front of the octa is about 30 inches from the subject in the below photo.
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/125s
ISO:100
Aperture: F/7.1
Focal Length: 26mm
Lens: Tamron 17-50mm
I'm actually crouched on the floor between the octa and the subject here, which you can't tell unless you zoom way in and look at the highlights in the iris, as below.
In short - I love this modifier and can't wait to use it some more! I'm just imagining what I could do with two more ...
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Photo of the Week - Week 1
Here's to the start of a new year and the goal of a post per week this year. Last year I had the same goal and got to around 40 out of 52 posts.
I have wanted to try to do a composite photo - take several photos and then composite them together into a single image. I decided that I wanted to try this during a recent portrait session with some friends and to keep it relatively simple - everything against a white background.
The first thing I did was sketch out on paper the final setup I wanted to have. This allowed me to plan the lighting and figure out how to try and make it consistent around the subjects (six people in this case), as well as the placement of the subjects. I also wanted each of the individual portrait-pieces to be able to stand on its own as a portrait of each subject.
I began by photographing each of the subjects against a white backdrop, which I digitally edited later to make sure I had a pure white background. The only issue, then, is that everyone looks like they are kind of floating there in white space; I decided to make a faux reflection for each of them. Being the first time trying this, sometimes it worked well, sometimes it didn't do so well. I played with a few different ways of doing this, from just mirroring both legs at the same time to making an individual mirror layer for each leg.
Here are two of the six individual images:
Now that I had the six individual images, the next step was to combine them together into the composite image.
I made one huge blank image in Photoshop and added each of the images as an individual layer. Then it was a matter of positioning each of them and making the layer masks for each layer to put them behind/in front of each other. At the end I just cropped out the final image to the proportions I wanted.
And here is the final composite image:
For me, this was more of an exercise to see what I could do than anything. Having a small studio here, it can be challenging to get a good group shot; usually I end up having to Photoshop out parts of the image where you can see parts beyond the backdrop on either side. Thus far I've gone with a white background because many of the people I have taken portraits of have dark hair - black hair against a black backdrop (without a hair light) is problematic.
I have wanted to try to do a composite photo - take several photos and then composite them together into a single image. I decided that I wanted to try this during a recent portrait session with some friends and to keep it relatively simple - everything against a white background.
The first thing I did was sketch out on paper the final setup I wanted to have. This allowed me to plan the lighting and figure out how to try and make it consistent around the subjects (six people in this case), as well as the placement of the subjects. I also wanted each of the individual portrait-pieces to be able to stand on its own as a portrait of each subject.
I began by photographing each of the subjects against a white backdrop, which I digitally edited later to make sure I had a pure white background. The only issue, then, is that everyone looks like they are kind of floating there in white space; I decided to make a faux reflection for each of them. Being the first time trying this, sometimes it worked well, sometimes it didn't do so well. I played with a few different ways of doing this, from just mirroring both legs at the same time to making an individual mirror layer for each leg.
Here are two of the six individual images:
Now that I had the six individual images, the next step was to combine them together into the composite image.
I made one huge blank image in Photoshop and added each of the images as an individual layer. Then it was a matter of positioning each of them and making the layer masks for each layer to put them behind/in front of each other. At the end I just cropped out the final image to the proportions I wanted.
And here is the final composite image:
For me, this was more of an exercise to see what I could do than anything. Having a small studio here, it can be challenging to get a good group shot; usually I end up having to Photoshop out parts of the image where you can see parts beyond the backdrop on either side. Thus far I've gone with a white background because many of the people I have taken portraits of have dark hair - black hair against a black backdrop (without a hair light) is problematic.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Photo of the Week - Using what you have
While I love to use my regular camera, a Canon 7D, I am not always able or willing to take it everywhere. However, my iPod Touch usually travels with me wherever I go. The iPod has a camera and, while not great, may be the only thing I have to take photos.
Better to make the image with what you've got instead of missing it altogether.
My eldest daughter made the above flower design one day while waiting for my wife and I to finish something up at church. My large camera isn't something I usually have with me at church, but my iPod, yes, since it has my schedule, notes, and scriptures. And a camera!
Another example, a relaxing afternoon riding bikes. My plan was to read a book and enjoy doing as little as possible. Fashion diva Natalie, however, needed to be remembered!
Coming in for a sunset landing in Mexico City, it was an incredibly clear evening - something rare for Mexico City. Even better, our flight path took us right by the two volcanoes of Popcatepetl (right) and Itzaccihuatl (left). There is a legend about the two volcanoes, which you can read here.
I came upon these remnants of construction while in Managua, Nicaragua. While they look like abandoned grave markers, they are not, but the thought they could have been was certainly intriguing.
Another series of photos from Managua. I took a series of pictures and then stitched them together in Photoshop for a panoramic image. As you can tell, not perfect quality, but it captures a memory!
Better to make the image with what you've got instead of missing it altogether.
Coming in for a sunset landing in Mexico City, it was an incredibly clear evening - something rare for Mexico City. Even better, our flight path took us right by the two volcanoes of Popcatepetl (right) and Itzaccihuatl (left). There is a legend about the two volcanoes, which you can read here.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Photo of the Week
Another photo from the area where our friends live ...
While we were there it rained pretty good and I wanted to get out and get some photos of the flowers and plants while they still had rain on them.
Here's one of my favorites from that time:
I particularly liked the colors - the pink flower stands out nicely on the grey background of the rock, which is blurred.
While we were there it rained pretty good and I wanted to get out and get some photos of the flowers and plants while they still had rain on them.
Here's one of my favorites from that time:
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/50s
ISO: 200
Aperture: F/5.6
Focal Length: 200mm
Lens: Canon EF70-200mm f/4L USM
I particularly liked the colors - the pink flower stands out nicely on the grey background of the rock, which is blurred.
Photo of the Week
I've decided to change the title and remove the week counter - another goal for next year, to actually post a photo a week!
Some friends of ours live in a small valley outside of Quito and part of the property is a small farm. I enjoy going there and taking photographs since it's such a picturesque area.
On our last visit there I noticed this bucket sitting abandoned at the base of a small tree and it caught my attention:
Some friends of ours live in a small valley outside of Quito and part of the property is a small farm. I enjoy going there and taking photographs since it's such a picturesque area.
On our last visit there I noticed this bucket sitting abandoned at the base of a small tree and it caught my attention:
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/80s
ISO:800
Aperture: F/7.1
Focal Length: 200mm
Lens: Canon EF70-200mm f/4L USM
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Photo of the Week - Week 37
Yet another couple of weeks have gone by without a post ... I'll have to work on making it actually a photo of the week, but maybe that's a good goal for the new year - next year.
I finally was able to make it back to the Interactive Science Museum and get some pictures of the mill machines there. This time, however, I had my tripod with me, so I didn't have to crank up the ISO and then de-noise the images.
I particularly like the above image because of the composition - I did crop it slightly in LR4. The frame of the machine works well to frame the image, the green of the machine, the blue lights underneath, and the wood in the background.
I also did some toned images there - selenium, a kind of black and white. Take a look at my Flickr page for those.
I finally was able to make it back to the Interactive Science Museum and get some pictures of the mill machines there. This time, however, I had my tripod with me, so I didn't have to crank up the ISO and then de-noise the images.
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed:15s
ISO: 100
Aperture: F/13.0
Focal Length: 25mm
Lens: Tamron 17-50mm
I particularly like the above image because of the composition - I did crop it slightly in LR4. The frame of the machine works well to frame the image, the green of the machine, the blue lights underneath, and the wood in the background.
I also did some toned images there - selenium, a kind of black and white. Take a look at my Flickr page for those.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Photo of the Week - Week 36
It's time of year again - Grandma makes beautiful costumes for the girls for Halloween! My challenge is to try and photograph them well enough to do the incredible work justice. While a took several photos, I'm just going to discuss one this time around.
I had a few goals in mind and some things that I wanted to try, both in-camera and in post-processing.
I had a few goals in mind and some things that I wanted to try, both in-camera and in post-processing.
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/125s
ISO:200
Aperture: F/8.0
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: EF50mm f/1.8 II
First was the lens choice. I really like my 'nifty-fifty' - 50mm prime lens - and have been trying to take more portraiture with that lens. I find that when I use my zoom lens, I usually end up at 50mm, or very close to that, particularly when I take singleton portraits.
I also wanted to try a few post-processing things, most of all a reflection.
The first step in doing this was to create a layer mask that had just the subject. Using this, I placed her on a solid white background, using the Refine Edge function to make sure everything looked good. Her hair in the back looks a little odd because she has a ponytail, which you can't see here.
Next, I made a copy of her on the white background and then flipped it upside down - this will become her reflection. I moved things around until it was positioned how I wanted it.
I then made a new layer, a graduated filter, between Natalie and her reflection. I adjusted the opacity of this layer until we got a bit of the shadow underneath and a dark 'floor.'
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Photo of the Week - Week 35
This week's photos focus primarily on one of the new features in Photoshop CS6 - the blur tool.
Here is the final photo:
And here is the image I began with:
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/80s
ISO:100
Aperture: F/8.0
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: EF50mm f/1.8 II
The blur effect is most noticeable if you look at her hair and also at the collar of her shirt.
In this case, I used the iris blur, modified the shape and turned it a little bit. I liked it for this image because it helps bring more attention to the eyes and face.
I also used the content-aware tool to touch up a few other minor things in the image.
Here is the final photo:
And here is the image I began with:
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/80s
ISO:100
Aperture: F/8.0
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: EF50mm f/1.8 II
The blur effect is most noticeable if you look at her hair and also at the collar of her shirt.
In this case, I used the iris blur, modified the shape and turned it a little bit. I liked it for this image because it helps bring more attention to the eyes and face.
I also used the content-aware tool to touch up a few other minor things in the image.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Photo of the Week - Week 34
This image is from a recent trip to Mindo, Ecuador.
As I took the girls for a hike, I noticed these blossoms on a tree - the very fine blossoms and the colors really caught my eye:
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/125s
ISO:100
Aperture: F/8.0
Focal Length: 163mm
Lens: EF70-200mm f/4L USM
I cropped this down to a square because I felt that aspect ratio worked well for this particular image. This is also one of those instances where bright direct light happened to work well.
As I took the girls for a hike, I noticed these blossoms on a tree - the very fine blossoms and the colors really caught my eye:
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/125s
ISO:100
Aperture: F/8.0
Focal Length: 163mm
Lens: EF70-200mm f/4L USM
I cropped this down to a square because I felt that aspect ratio worked well for this particular image. This is also one of those instances where bright direct light happened to work well.
Photo of the Week - Week 33
I recently took the girls back to Cotopaxi National Park and got a chance to take a few pictures.
We got to hike around a bit and try to find some birds, which is a bit difficult for three small children who have been cooped up in a van for the past hour and a half ... a lot of contained energy there.
We finally did see a bird:
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/50s
ISO:100
Aperture: F/9.0
Focal Length: 200mm
Lens: EF70-200mm f/4L USM
I kind of like the composition of this image, with the green sage in the bottom right kind of providing some balance to the bird and the other plants on the left of the image.
It's not a colorful image - nothing in your face, just mellow earth tones, kind of like the whole National Park there. I also like the level of detail with the depth of field - the brush in the background provide some texture, but it's not distracting.
The only thing I go back and forth on is if I should have cropped it a bit tighter, putting the bird closer to the top left corner. I left it like this because I wasn't too keen on having that much weight so high in the corner. The sage is in the corner, but at the bottom - I guess I feel that if something is in the corner at the top of the image, the image feels like it's going to tip over!
We got to hike around a bit and try to find some birds, which is a bit difficult for three small children who have been cooped up in a van for the past hour and a half ... a lot of contained energy there.
We finally did see a bird:
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/50s
ISO:100
Aperture: F/9.0
Focal Length: 200mm
Lens: EF70-200mm f/4L USM
I kind of like the composition of this image, with the green sage in the bottom right kind of providing some balance to the bird and the other plants on the left of the image.
It's not a colorful image - nothing in your face, just mellow earth tones, kind of like the whole National Park there. I also like the level of detail with the depth of field - the brush in the background provide some texture, but it's not distracting.
The only thing I go back and forth on is if I should have cropped it a bit tighter, putting the bird closer to the top left corner. I left it like this because I wasn't too keen on having that much weight so high in the corner. The sage is in the corner, but at the bottom - I guess I feel that if something is in the corner at the top of the image, the image feels like it's going to tip over!
Monday, September 3, 2012
Photo of the Week - Week 32
This week's post highlights one of the fun tools in Photoshop - Puppet Warp. Just the name sounds cool, doesn't it? It's one of those amazing tools that lets you manipulate the image and do some pretty incredible things. My example from today is a subtle one that I used in a recent portrait, well, portrait by accident.
I had been asked to take some portraits of the Young Women's group at Church and while I was setting up for that, another family asked me to shoot a couple of photos for them.
Anyway, here's one of the pictures; since I was firing off quickly (and wasn't thinking about doing portraits for them) I got one image of this brother and sister, but her expression is less than ideal. In fact, she looks like she's about ready to say something really nasty to me. Not really the case - a super nice family, but just bad timing on my part:
Of course, I only had one image of these two together. In the other images, she is facing the wrong way, so I couldn't just swap faces. Enter Puppet Warp!
Puppet Warp analyzes the image and sets a mesh grid over the whole thing. You set pins to "hold in place" portions of the image and then essentially click and drag it around to move parts of the image selectively. In this case, I just wanted a subtle smile as opposed to the grimace above. Here's what I ended up with:
The final image also has a few other things done to it - cropping, removed some blemishes, etc. This is the first time I've used Puppet Warp, other than goofing around and making some wacky pictures. Again, not a perfect expression above - best would have been to notice the grimace and retake the photos - but in this case that wasn't possible and this helped salvage a photo.
I had been asked to take some portraits of the Young Women's group at Church and while I was setting up for that, another family asked me to shoot a couple of photos for them.
Anyway, here's one of the pictures; since I was firing off quickly (and wasn't thinking about doing portraits for them) I got one image of this brother and sister, but her expression is less than ideal. In fact, she looks like she's about ready to say something really nasty to me. Not really the case - a super nice family, but just bad timing on my part:
Of course, I only had one image of these two together. In the other images, she is facing the wrong way, so I couldn't just swap faces. Enter Puppet Warp!
Puppet Warp analyzes the image and sets a mesh grid over the whole thing. You set pins to "hold in place" portions of the image and then essentially click and drag it around to move parts of the image selectively. In this case, I just wanted a subtle smile as opposed to the grimace above. Here's what I ended up with:
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Photo of the Week - Week 31
I'm still working my way through the photos I took on our recent trip to Mindo. I took some photos of orchids and, after working on a few of them, I particularly like the symmetry of the below flower.
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/40s
ISO: 200
Aperture: F/9.0
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm
The above image began with a larger one (take a look on my Flickr site to see it) but I rotated it and cropped it to get the above composition.
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/40s
ISO: 200
Aperture: F/9.0
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm
The above image began with a larger one (take a look on my Flickr site to see it) but I rotated it and cropped it to get the above composition.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Photo of the Week - Week 30
I'm continuing to play catch-up so I can get 52 posts in the year ... But here is another photo from Mindo. We really enjoy hiking around the trails that surround the place that we stay at in Mindo. I took an original image, but did so with some specific post-processing in mind to tweak it a bit.
Here is the final image:
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 3.2s
ISO: 200
Aperture: F/22.0
Focal Length: 17mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm
One of the things I wanted to do for this image is to create something of a starburst effect coming from the light area near the center. Just something subtle, not too much. After some hunting around YouTube, I found a video that did a quick walk-through of how to do that. I came up with the following:
I added this as a layer above the original area, moving it around until is was centered, then I played with the opacity and the layer effect until I had what I wanted.
I put the flattened image back into Lightroom where I added a brush effect in a few places to lighten and darken to try and match the starburst a bit.
Here is the final image:
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 3.2s
ISO: 200
Aperture: F/22.0
Focal Length: 17mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm
One of the things I wanted to do for this image is to create something of a starburst effect coming from the light area near the center. Just something subtle, not too much. After some hunting around YouTube, I found a video that did a quick walk-through of how to do that. I came up with the following:
I added this as a layer above the original area, moving it around until is was centered, then I played with the opacity and the layer effect until I had what I wanted.
I put the flattened image back into Lightroom where I added a brush effect in a few places to lighten and darken to try and match the starburst a bit.
Photo of the Week - Week 29
We recently had the opportunity to return to Mindo, one of our favorite places to visit here in Ecuador. That said, there is still a lot to see! We stayed at our usual spot - Casa Divina Lodge, a great, family-run lodge that is well-removed from everything.
On the road into Casa Divina there is a pasture area and there was a beautiful horse there. Clara, being enamored with horses, just had to go and see her. As we were taking a daddy-daughters hike around, we went to where the horse is. She was very social and trotted right over to us and loved all of the attention Clara was lavishing on her. She did see a bit camera shy, but I was able to get the below shot:
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/30s
ISO: 100
Aperture: F/8,0
Focal Length: 104mm
Lens: Canon/L 70-200mm
Just a little post-processing - the cream-tone conversion, added an iris blur to blur the scene surrounding the horse's head, and a vignette to finish things off.
On the road into Casa Divina there is a pasture area and there was a beautiful horse there. Clara, being enamored with horses, just had to go and see her. As we were taking a daddy-daughters hike around, we went to where the horse is. She was very social and trotted right over to us and loved all of the attention Clara was lavishing on her. She did see a bit camera shy, but I was able to get the below shot:
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/30s
ISO: 100
Aperture: F/8,0
Focal Length: 104mm
Lens: Canon/L 70-200mm
Just a little post-processing - the cream-tone conversion, added an iris blur to blur the scene surrounding the horse's head, and a vignette to finish things off.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Photo of the Week - Week 28
I had the opportunity to do another set of family portraits recently and have been learning some things in Photoshop and Lightroom.
Here's on of the photos, which I will use to walk through my process:
EXIF Data
Shutter speed: 1/100s
Aperture: F9.0
Focal length: 19mm
ISO:200
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm
This is lit with three lights - one in a 24x24 softbox, just over the camera, and two shoot-through umbrellas on either side. Lights are at 1/4 power, if I remember correctly.
The first problem I ran into was the size of my backdrop - just not big enough - so I knew that I would have to do some post-processing to fix that. A formal family portrait just doesn't work with kids toys (mine, not theirs) strewn around in the background.
I tweaked a couple of things in Lightroom (exposure) and then sent it over to Photoshop. In there I duplicated the layer so it was two duplicates on top of one another. In the lower layer I used a large paintbrush to paint a white background, overlapping the subjects in the image. Back in the top layer, I used the quick select to outline the subjects, zooming in to refine it, and set that as the layer mask.
One of the great things about Photoshop is the "refine edge" mask - you can "paint" certain areas (like hair) and it will refine the mask in those areas to pick up stray hairs and make the mask look very nice; you end up with very natural-looking edges.
With that done, I finally had a white backdrop for my subjects. While I had a fair-looking edge around my subjects, there were some parts that were not that great. I decided to use a very fuzzy brush to paint around some of those areas; since I had overlapped my big white brush to make the backdrop, I would be partially revealing a white background - essentially making that edge look somewhat blow out. As I did this, it found that it looked like I had lit my subjects with harsh, bright light. When I sent the image back to Lightroom, I bumped the clarity up quite a bit to really bring out the details. The end product is almost like I ran it through a high-pass filter.
Here's on of the photos, which I will use to walk through my process:
EXIF Data
Shutter speed: 1/100s
Aperture: F9.0
Focal length: 19mm
ISO:200
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm
This is lit with three lights - one in a 24x24 softbox, just over the camera, and two shoot-through umbrellas on either side. Lights are at 1/4 power, if I remember correctly.
The first problem I ran into was the size of my backdrop - just not big enough - so I knew that I would have to do some post-processing to fix that. A formal family portrait just doesn't work with kids toys (mine, not theirs) strewn around in the background.
I tweaked a couple of things in Lightroom (exposure) and then sent it over to Photoshop. In there I duplicated the layer so it was two duplicates on top of one another. In the lower layer I used a large paintbrush to paint a white background, overlapping the subjects in the image. Back in the top layer, I used the quick select to outline the subjects, zooming in to refine it, and set that as the layer mask.
One of the great things about Photoshop is the "refine edge" mask - you can "paint" certain areas (like hair) and it will refine the mask in those areas to pick up stray hairs and make the mask look very nice; you end up with very natural-looking edges.
With that done, I finally had a white backdrop for my subjects. While I had a fair-looking edge around my subjects, there were some parts that were not that great. I decided to use a very fuzzy brush to paint around some of those areas; since I had overlapped my big white brush to make the backdrop, I would be partially revealing a white background - essentially making that edge look somewhat blow out. As I did this, it found that it looked like I had lit my subjects with harsh, bright light. When I sent the image back to Lightroom, I bumped the clarity up quite a bit to really bring out the details. The end product is almost like I ran it through a high-pass filter.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Photo of the Week - Week 27
One of the additional features of living overseas - that is often either in the very fine print or not there at all - is occasionally having uninvited guests show up in the house. In some places these can be monkeys or large rodents, but here we get large spiders and the occasional scorpion. With the cats we now just find pieces of large spiders, but they tend to be a bit wary of the scorpions.
I was on the phone with someone when the girls came upstairs to inform me of our latest visitor. Christy put a plastic container over it while the girls came to get me - and to tell me to bring my camera.
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/100s
Aperture: F9.0
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm
I lit our friend here with an off-camera flash, 1/4 power with diffuser, from camera left. The flash is down on the ground about a foot or so away from the scorpion. It's triggered by my on-camera flash, which is powered way down, just enough to trigger the off-camera.
I cropped this in Lightroom and bumped the mid-tones contrast up (clarity).
I was on the phone with someone when the girls came upstairs to inform me of our latest visitor. Christy put a plastic container over it while the girls came to get me - and to tell me to bring my camera.
EXIF Info
Shutter Speed: 1/100s
Aperture: F9.0
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm
I lit our friend here with an off-camera flash, 1/4 power with diffuser, from camera left. The flash is down on the ground about a foot or so away from the scorpion. It's triggered by my on-camera flash, which is powered way down, just enough to trigger the off-camera.
I cropped this in Lightroom and bumped the mid-tones contrast up (clarity).
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