Hang About

[Colin Southern]

Yesterday I had a lovely young lass in the studio by the name of Melissa. Melissa was modeling for an associate, and I thought you all might appreciate a sneak peak at one of the shots.

So here we have it - Photography & posing by Graeme Skinner, lighting & equipment by me

Hope you all enjoy!

[rpcrowe]

Colin, I like the curve of her body and the rope. Of course, I am generally very fond of curves (no pun intended). They seem to draw me into the image. I especially like what you did with the rope at her feet. An end of the rope dangling loose on the floor could have been very distracting to me. The rope circle seems to complete or start the curve...

[Colin Southern]

Colin, I like the curve of her body and the rope. Of course, I am generally very fond of curves (no pun intended). They seem to draw me into the image. I especially like what you did with the rope at her feet. An end of the rope dangling loose on the floor could have been very distracting to me. The rope circle seems to complete or start the curve...

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the kind words

I need to point out though that it was Graeme Skinner who did the posing

[ilovelucydog]

It's a really interesting photo - looks like a fun photo shoot. The thing that stands out to me is the lighting.

[Rasbury]

I do like this photo and the way she is posed but,what is that hanging down in the top middle of the photo?

[Donald]

Photography & posing by Graeme Skinner, lighting & equipment by me

.... Arms reinserted in sockets by ...........!

Brilliant.

To what extent had your associate designed the image ever before the model got invovled. It feels like one of those that didn't 'just happen' but was the product of careful design and planning, including the lighting, which is excellent? I love the rope. The lighting on that is magnificent.

[Colin Southern]

It's a really interesting photo - looks like a fun photo shoot. The thing that stands out to me is the lighting.

Thanks Mary

[Colin Southern]

I do like this photo and the way she is posed but,what is that hanging down in the top middle of the photo?

Hi Ron,

The rope?

Edit: Hi again Ron, I just popped the photo back into post-processing for a sec on a hunch ... I see what you mean - it's just something in the studio (probably an alarm sensor). Seriously though, if you're able to see that then the black clipping point on your monitor is set way way way way too low - and that will do horrible things to how low tones are displayed in every image you look at (I imagine it'll make everything look flat with a gray "wash").

[Colin Southern]

.... Arms reinserted in sockets by ...........!

Brilliant.

To what extent had your associate designed the image ever before the model got involved. It feels like one of those that didn't 'just happen' but was the product of careful design and planning, including the lighting, which is excellent? I love the rope. The lighting on that is magnificent.

Hi Donald,

Thanks for the kind words - I'll be sure to pass them on to Graeme. It was something Graeme had seen, and wanted to have a go at for his first studio shoot - so I think he got the basic concept from an image or two that he'd seen, but wanted to apply his own style to it, so we spent a lot of time with different variations (might post some more if Graeme so desires).

In terms of "reinserting arms" - yeah - it was a bit like that at times!

I spend about 1.25 hours setting up the lighting - although it looks like simple rim lighting, I was actually working no less than 6 zones of light - and - flagging like crazy to stop it contaminating the black paper seamless (which isn't actually all that black!).

[Colin Southern]

Another frame from the shoot ... (Straight from the camera) (Shot by Graeme, lighting by me)

[revi]

Hi Ron,

The rope?

Edit: Hi again Ron, I just popped the photo back into post-processing for a sec on a hunch ... I see what you mean - it's just something in the studio (probably an alarm sensor). Seriously though, if you're able to see that then the black clipping point on your monitor is set way way way way too low - and that will do horrible things to how low tones are displayed in every image you look at (I imagine it'll make everything look flat with a gray "wash").

Just to make sure I understand what you are saying, Colin:
Do you mean that we should not be able to distinguish the lowest levels (0 and ??, I didn't check the actual level in the image) on a properly set-up monitor ?

Remco

[Colin Southern]

Just to make sure I understand what you are saying, Colin:
Do you mean that we should not be able to distinguish the lowest levels (0 and ??, I didn't check the actual level in the image) on a properly set-up monitor ?

Remco

Yes - but - I want to be careful to qualify that a bit. A JPEG file can display up to 256 levels, but we can only differentiate around 200 levels (on a good day) - so it's not as simple to answer as it might first seem. In theory we often adjust images by bringing the clipping points in so that they touch the edges of the histogram - this forces the darkest part of the image to black, and the brightest part to white - thus ensuring that the image uses the full tonal range; you'll note that I said "in theory", because in practice, just having the darkest pixels black and (to a lesser degree) brightest pixels white, DOESN'T ensure that the image won't look flat. In practice, other things come into it, with one of the "biggies" being that it's not just enough to have "some pixels" so dark that they get clipped to zero - it has to be an AREA of pixels that's big enough for the eye to see for the correction to look visually correct - so in reality we usually end up moving the clipping points a distance INSIDE the histogram. And in the real world it gets even more complicated - I won't go into it too deep, but in essence we also use the brightness / midtone sliders to adjust how the midtones are pushed around (and if that doesn't get things looking right then we start to use curves layers to fine-tune things even more) - and even after that, if some areas then look right - but not others - we then get into the realm of local contrast enhancement which may be something as simple as using dodge/burn tools, or all the way up to full on masking/selections etc, but I digress, again

Again, in practice, there are other variables - in some images where there is subtle shadow detail, these clipping points become hyper-critical, and it also makes a difference as to whether the image is to be displayed online or in printed form. I remember pulling a canvas print of mine from a shop because I wasn't happy with the level of shadow detail - I put a knife through it - removed if from the frame - adjusted the image - reprinted it - resprayed it - reframed it - and returned it to the store. The total amount of the adjustment to the black clipping point was exactly ONE level.

So - why am I saying all this? Really to illustrate the point that not every level above 0 should be visible. Looking back at my image above, I perhaps did use a couple too many "ways" - I can actually see what Ron means without forcing the level in Photoshop, but only just - it actually looks more like just a mark on my monitor - very hard to see, but it is just there. I might add also, that's it's totally my fault - I cloned out an alarm sensor and didn't quite get everything in the same area - so it definitely shouldn't be there - but having said that, on both of my profiled screens it's only just visible if you look for it - and it just concerned me that if Ron could see it easily, then it probably meant his clipping point was set too low, which would affect all images that he looked at. Or put another way, it's probably more of an indication that he wasn't working from a profiled screen, which means that all image adjustments thus become a lottery (with poor odds!).

Hope this answers the question