Scott

[Evertking]

6d
50mm
32 in octabox

[mugge]

Mike, I like it well enough. How about lightening hair and beard a tad and just the eyes only, not touching the face at all. I have seen that done before to great effect. Just a thought.
Cheers Ole

[Evertking]

How would you do that? Dodge?

[mugge]

How would you do that? Dodge?

You can use Dodge tool if you like. I prefer using curves and overshoot a tad because You can always reduce the opacity to the desired effect.

[Shadowman]

Nicely captured.

[Manfred M]

You have a very good eye for posing your subjects and how to light them. You are ever so close to creating outstanding images but don't have quite the finesse to get there just yet; in both your set up, your lighting approach and in your PP work. In a studio shot one can get very close to where you need to be with very little PP work needed at all.

Ole is right regarding dodging and burning. A few other touches would help too.

Let me show you how I might approach this image and correct some of the "issues" I have with it.





This is where Photoshop shines and the edits are simply not possible in Lightroom. 15 adjustment layers, mostly involving selections, curves and layer masks. A few global adjustments, an area adjustment and a lot of small local adjustments. Probably 15 minutes of work here.


If you like the direction I tool, let me know and I can explain what I did and why I did so. I suggest opening the image in Lightbox and clicking on the foreward and back arrows to see the difference between the two versions.

[mugge]

I am looking at this picture again. I think this is one, if not the best, you have done. Certainly one to work on.

Cheers Ole

[Evertking]

You have a very good eye for posing your subjects and how to light them. You are ever so close to creating outstanding images but don't have quite the finesse to get there just yet; in both your set up, your lighting approach and in your PP work. In a studio shot one can get very close to where you need to be with very little PP work needed at all.

Ole is right regarding dodging and burning. A few other touches would help too.

Let me show you how I might approach this image and correct some of the "issues" I have with it.





This is where Photoshop shines and the edits are simply not possible in Lightroom. 15 adjustment layers, mostly involving selections, curves and layer masks. A few global adjustments, an area adjustment and a lot of small local adjustments. Probably 15 minutes of work here.


If you like the direction I tool, let me know and I can explain what I did and why I did so. I suggest opening the image in Lightbox and clicking on the foreward and back arrows to see the difference between the two versions.

I would LOVE for you to help me and tell me what you have done.
I don't know of anyone around my area that has even the smallest interest in photography. So, I have the fourms and YouTube. My family tells "yeah, it looks good" but.. lol well
But honestly I appreciate the help and the honesty
Let me tell you a little about my process to get the shot that I posted.

I set my camera to the sync speed at iso 100 and took shots and adjusted my apreture till I got a black frame and then I turned on my strobe and shot till I liked the image. Now I have a handheld meter but didn't have it with me at the time. I should have had the meter and metered the light till it matched the apreture of my camera, right???

Then in post, well I will show you the original file. But I tried bringing the bright spots down with the highlight slider and I really really like the work of Glyn Dewis and followed coloring workflow a little. I desaturated and then colored it with a few luts... Foggy night, Edgy Amber and Tension green
Anyway, I hope this helps

[DanK]

I second that. Manfred, I know he general principles, but I would find it very helpful to see a screen shot of the layers/edits.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Manfred M]

I second that. Manfred, I know he general principles, but I would find it very helpful to see a screen shot of the layers/edits.

Let me start with your request and post the layers that I used to edit this image. I got rid of a couple of layers so there are a total of 14 layers in this image. Virtually all the work I do uses a curves adjustment layer plus a layer mask. I also had one saturation adjustment layer and one colour balance adjustment layer.



It's going to take some explaining, so I'm going to break things into a number of threads as I go through each of the adjustment layers I used and explain why, so please bear with me if it takes a couple of days for me to post everything.

Dan - I have learned a new burn and dodge technique that is a lot faster than the one I showed you some time ago. The same principles apply, but it takes a lot less time.

[Evertking]

Let me start with your request and post the layers that I used to edit this image. I got rid of a couple of layers so there are a total of 14 layers in this image. Virtually all the work I do uses a curves adjustment layer plus a layer mask. I also had one saturation adjustment layer and one colour balance adjustment layer.



It's going to take some explaining, so I'm going to break things into a number of threads as I go through each of the adjustment layers I used and explain why, so please bear with me if it takes a couple of days for me to post everything.

Dan - I have learned a new burn and dodge technique that is a lot faster than the one I showed you some time ago. The same principles apply, but it takes a lot less time.

If your willing to take the time to help me than I am more than willing to be patient and willing to wait as long as it takes.
Can you explain the D&B technique you use?
Honestly, I'm very grateful for your help. Thank you so much.

I can see how my processing is different than yours. I rely on global adjustments and should be taking the time to do local adjustments.
Really want to know about the first two adjustments.. mid point exposure and contrast

[DanK]

Manfred,

thanks very much. This is very clear.

You wrote:

I have learned a new burn and dodge technique that is a lot faster than the one I showed you some time ago. The same principles apply, but it takes a lot less time.

In this, it looks like you used the old method: dodge or burn by creating a curves adjustment layer with a mask and then paint in the areas you want adjusted. I've been using this most of the time since you posted about it some months ago. One thing I have been playing with is changing the curve--that is, changing the location on the luminance scale that gets the most brightening or darkening. What's the new method?

Dan

[Manfred M]

In this, it looks like you used the old method: dodge or burn by creating a curves adjustment layer with a mask and then paint in the areas you want adjusted. I've been using this most of the time since you posted about it some months ago. One thing I have been playing with is changing the curve--that is, changing the location on the luminance scale that gets the most brightening or darkening. What's the new method?

Not quite Dan, as I rarely paint.

In the new technique I will make a selection. Any selection tool will do, although in practice I tend to stick with four or five selection tools; mostly the Quick Selection Tool, and if that is not working for me, I will generally try the free hand tools like the Lasso Tool or the Polygonal Lasso Tool, the Magic Wand Tool and the Pen Tool. Sometimes the Color Range selection gets used tool.

Once the selection is made I will add a Curves Adjustment Layer that applies to the selected area only (selected area is white while the rest of the mask is black). I will move the mid-point up and down and side to side a bit to get the selected area to look the way I want it.

I then <Alt> Windows / <Option> Mac click on the mask and that brings shows the mask in edit mode. Here I go to Filters and select a Gaussian Blur to give me a soft edge to the mask. Generally the least amount of blur to blend the mask works best. Once you get some experience with this method you will get the mask right in one go. If the selection tool has selected too much, I will edit the mask with a solid black brush to remove any unwanted areas. Brush softness is set based on what I need the edge of the mask to look like. The Gaussian blur often takes care of small areas that I don't want affected, so editing the mask is not done all that often unless I use the Magic Wand Tool or the Color Selection.

Click on the Adjustment and the mask turns off. I generally turn the layer off and on a few times to verify that it does what I want it too and then move on.

I still use the dodge / burn technique to fine tune some of the areas, if needed. In this image I used it around the eyes.

I will walk through this technique with some screen captures...

[Manfred M]

Mike: The first thing I do before I touch an image is to assess what I have and what is working well and what needs some help.

When I do this with my own work, I generally work with a raw file, so I will do my initial adjustments in the raw convertor, but do as little as possible with it because in general, I find the tools in Photoshop itself more precise and superior to those found in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) or in Lightroom's Develop Module. The Develop Module and ACR use an identical "engine" so the outputs will be the same when transferring over to Photoshop. I use something called a "non-desructive workflow" in Photoshop, so that I do not lock in any changes until I export an image file. The primary tools using this technique are the use of SmartObjects and Adjustment Layers. This way the original pixels in the image are never changed.

In the image you originally posted, which can be seen even more clearly in #8. As I was working from the image in #1 I will use it as the basis of my comments.

1. The image is slightly underexposed. The image you originally posted is flat with a compressed contrast range and has a noticeable colour cast. This gives the image a rather 2-dimensional look.

2. The lighting is quite dramatic starting at quite bright on the camera right side to very dark on the camera left side. Dramatic lighting generally works well for males of your subject's age. It shows all of the "badges of honour" that men get as they get older; wrinkles, scars, moles, etc. Your lighting accentuates that, but in my view the shadows, could use to open up just a little bit.

3. The positioning of the light has spilled onto your subject's hands which so bright that they compete with your subject's face.

4. The background is wrinkled and distracting.

I based my edits on refining those areas of the image.

In general my workflow does global adjustments first, area adjustments second and local adjustments last. I more of less followed this except for the global colour adjustments and darkening the background. In this case, I wanted to apply these adjustments to suit the edits of the subject.

[DanK]

Not quite Dan, as I rarely paint.

In the new technique I will make a selection. Any selection tool will do, although in practice I tend to stick with four or five selection tools; mostly the Quick Selection Tool, and if that is not working for me, I will generally try the free hand tools like the Lasso Tool or the Polygonal Lasso Tool, the Magic Wand Tool and the Pen Tool. Sometimes the Color Range selection gets used tool.

Once the selection is made I will add a Curves Adjustment Layer that applies to the selected area only (selected area is white while the rest of the mask is black). I will move the mid-point up and down and side to side a bit to get the selected area to look the way I want it.

I then <Alt> Windows / <Option> Mac click on the mask and that brings shows the mask in edit mode. Here I go to Filters and select a Gaussian Blur to give me a soft edge to the mask. Generally the least amount of blur to blend the mask works best. Once you get some experience with this method you will get the mask right in one go. If the selection tool has selected too much, I will edit the mask with a solid black brush to remove any unwanted areas. Brush softness is set based on what I need the edge of the mask to look like. The Gaussian blur often takes care of small areas that I don't want affected, so editing the mask is not done all that often unless I use the Magic Wand Tool or the Color Selection.

Click on the Adjustment and the mask turns off. I generally turn the layer off and on a few times to verify that it does what I want it too and then move on.

I still use the dodge / burn technique to fine tune some of the areas, if needed. In this image I used it around the eyes.

I will walk through this technique with some screen captures...

Thanks for posting this.

I think that for many cases, I will end up preferring the old method. Where there are many small areas needing dodging or burning, and where the amount of change one wants within each one is constant, I can see that this approach has advantages. However, in other circumstances, the other approach seems advantageous. For example, you can vary the amount of burning or dodging within an area.

[Manfred M]

Thanks for posting this.

I think that for many cases, I will end up preferring the old method. Where there are many small areas needing dodging or burning, and where the amount of change one wants within each one is constant, I can see that this approach has advantages. However, in other circumstances, the other approach seems advantageous. For example, you can vary the amount of burning or dodging within an area.

That's what I thought at first too, but once I got good at it, the technique is much faster than the old method.

This is a technique I picked up from a couple of well regarded fine art photographers in town. The comment from one of them was that the difference between a good image and a great image is all in the local adjustments. In his work, he told me that he will often do 50 of these small area adjustments in an image.

To complicate things even more, he is very much a medium format film shooter and does this work on scanned negatives. Does he know what he is talking about? Yes, he was Karsh's printer this was very much the type of work he did in the wet darkroom when printing for him.

[Manfred M]

Let me start at the bottom of the layers and explain the first two curves adjustment layers. As a general rule I like simple curves and will make separate adjustment curves adjustment layers just to keep things simple. When it comes to storing data, adjustment layers do not increase file size a lot, so they are easy on file storage requirements.

The line along the bottom are the input values and the vertical line on the left represents the output values. When the default 45° line is examined, the input value maps to exactly the same value at output.




If we change the shape of the curve, the mapping changes. When I pull up the mid-point of the curve, the mapping for all points changes. The mid-point maps to lighter areas, but the dark areas map slightly darker and the highlights map lighter, The other change is that when the slope of the curve is greater than 45°, contrast increases and when the slope of the curve is less than 45°, contrast decreases.




1. This is your original image.





2. This is the image where I have raised the mid-point to brighten the overall image. This is the same curve shown earlier in this posting. When looking at the mask in the curves adjustment layer, remember that "White reveals and Black conceals", so with a white layer mask, the full value of the adjustment is seen in the edit.





3. Applying an "S-curve" result in an increase in mid-tone contrast.




If you click on the first image to open it in Lightbox and use the forward (and back) arrows, you can see the impact of each of the edits.

[DanK]

This is a technique I picked up from a couple of well regarded fine art photographers in town. The comment from one of them was that the difference between a good image and a great image is all in the local adjustments. In his work, he told me that he will often do 50 of these small area adjustments in an image.

interesting. I'll certainly try it. However, I think there are two separate issues: how many small local edits one does, and which of these techniques one uses to do them. One can do multiple local adjustments with either method.

With respect to the first issue: increasing the number of smaller local edits is high on my list of skills to work on this spring.

[Manfred M]

Okay - now for a quick overview of making the small adjustments to critical areas of the image with the technique described in #13. While I have dodged a number of areas on the face and head, I thought I would show an example of burning down and some of the related issues that show up when burning in an RGB colour space.

Dodging is done the same way, except that the centre point on the curves adjustment layer is pulled up and there is generally no issue with saturation.

1. Select the area that needs to be adjusted using one of the selection tools. I happen to have used the Quick Selection tool here and have tweeked it using the tool controls.






2. With the selection active (i.e. the "Marching Ants" are visible), create a new curves adjustment layer and the selected area will be used to create the layer mask. The hands are darker, but quite saturated. Before we do something about that, we need to refine the mask itself.





3. Click on the mask while holding down the <Alt> key in Windows or the <Option> key on a Mac. This puts the mask into Edit Mode.





4. With the layer mask in Edit mode, under the Filter Menu, select Gaussian blur and adjust the edges of the mask until they are soft enough to take away the hard edge without causing too much ghosting.





5. Now click on the the curves icon on the adjustment layer (not on the layer mask) and you will get out of the layer mask edit mode. You can see that the hands are darker, but also very saturated.





6. Create a Hue / Saturation Adjustment Layer. It will be right on top of the Curves Adjustment Layer that was just being worked on. Go back to the Curves Adjustment Layer and hold down the <Alt> Windows / <Opt> Mac key while clicking and holding the mouse button while on the layer mask. While continuing to hold down the <Alt> / <Opt> key drag the mask on top of the layer mask on the Hue / Saturation Adjustment Layer. This will overwrite the existing mask with the one that was used with the Curves Adjustment Layer.

Click on the Hue / Saturation icon on the layer and the properties window will pop up. Drag the saturation icon to the left until you find a value where the skin tone looks right; I find that values of -20 to -30 are usually effective.




Depending on the amount of burning that has to be done, the saturation adjustment may or may not be necessary. Follow a similar process for any areas that have to be dodged.



The problem with RGB colour spaces is that the brightness and saturation are not separate values, so when something gets darkened up, saturation also increases and looks wrong.

[Evertking]

Wow, thank you so much for this. You have no idea how much this helps me. Lots of things I will be using and can't wait to shoot and edit. I'm going to open old images that I have rushed through and just used global adjustments. Thanks you.