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[purplehaze]

Hi all,

Couldn't keep up the momentum on my Project 52, but am finally on a three-week holiday and took advantage of it to shoot my volunteer model this week. I was woefully unprepared, but got a few shots that we both liked. The session served mostly to refamiliarize me with my equipment and get me in gear again to explore portrait lighting properly in a later shoot. Luckily, my volunteer is willing to come back again.

The image below does not represent the lighting I think would best suit my subject, but it ticked a few boxes for us both and so I am submitting it for your feedback, mostly as regards the processing, though your comments about framing etc. are welcome as well.

A few notes about procedure:
1) It was a very humid evening and my model's face got quite shiny and I had to get her to wipe it repeatedly. I think some of the shininess may be in evidence here.
2) I eventually brought out a fan that helped relax her and did some nice things with her hair, which I had again neglected and hard-to-remove strands of which spoiled some otherwise nice images.
3) I totally overlooked little clumps of mascara that were dotting her face under her eyes, not all of which could be easily removed in PP. I should have looked more closely at her face and had her run a Q-tip under eyes before we started.
4) This was shot with a single flash triple diffused through a honeycomb softbox. There was ambient light that I brought down in PP with a vignette.
5) The image was lightly processed in ColorEfex using the skin smoothing and vignette filters. I picked up some of the brown of her hair to make the vignette softer. The eyes and lips were selectively saturated and sharpened in Aperture.

_DSC4994 - Version 2 by Janis Hughes, on Flickr

Fire away.

[Shadowman]

One quick suggestion for humid days, remove all makeup and go for a natural glistening skin shot. Use water from a spray bottle.

I like ColorEfex but it seems to reduce detail which I have to recover through contrast/sharpening.

Use of the fan was a good decision.

Was there more shadow on the face based on lighting setup and controlled later through editing?

Nice effort.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Janis I'm not a portrait shooter but IMO the vignette is a bit heavy for the image. May be a lighter one would be more suitable.The grayish haired part between her hand and her ear looks a bit distracting to me. Very nice lady and I like the way she posed.

[purplehaze]

Thanks, John.

One quick suggestion for humid days, remove all makeup and go for a natural glistening skin shot. Use water from a spray bottle.

I'm having difficulty visualizing what that looks like. Do you have any examples handy?

I like ColorEfex but it seems to reduce detail which I have to recover through contrast/sharpening.

Are you speaking of ColorEfex generally? I hadn't noticed, but I will keep an eye out for that. I was seeking to reduce detail here and thought the skin softener did a pretty good job of limiting its effect to elements within the skin color palette, but maybe I am not observant enough.

Use of the fan was a good decision.

Yes, I will henceforth consider it part of the kit.

Was there more shadow on the face based on lighting setup and controlled later through editing?

No, she was looking squarely in the direction of the softbox, so the whole of her face was lit. The shadow on the forehead is mainly from the vignette, but I am not sure I like it. I later shot a few frames with her face angled away from the softbox and it definitely made for more dramatic and interesting lighting. Next time, I want to experiment with the classic forms of portrait lighting--short, broad, Rembrandt, etc.

[purplehaze]

Hi Janis I'm not a portrait shooter but IMO the vignette is a bit heavy for the image. May be a lighter one would be more suitable.The grayish haired part between her hand and her ear looks a bit distracting to me. Very nice lady and I like the way she posed.

Thanks, Binnur. I struggled with the vignette. I probably need to get more selective with it. The background was not nice and the hair on the left was a bit of a bird's nest, so it needed to be zapped, but I don't like what has happened to the color of the hand and I find the shadow a bit harsh on the forehead. As for the grey skin below the ear, I have seen that on my portraits before and don't know why it occurs and how to deal with it. Explanations and suggestions for correction would be most welcome.

[IzzieK]

Janis...I am viewing this on my large monitor which is calibrated by the way...I see several purplish/reddish areas on her forehead, around the left side of her face (hair area) and around the bottom of her hand and lower edge of her neck.

She is a pretty lady but I think the reddish smudges is the result of over processing? Manfred is good at portraiture. I hope he sees this one and explains that one...I am still an accidental photographer when it comes to portraiture so don't count on any useful advice from me ... yet.

I am glad you have to time for fun photography...three weeks vacation? -- lucky you!!! Hope to see more images from you ... again.

[Manfred M]

Janis - I'm on the road right now and have very limited internet access. I'll try to get back to you when I get back on line in a few days. The first thing that strikes me is the direction and quality of the light.

How large is your soft box and how far from the subject did you shoot. You definitely have a hot spot and the light is not spreading out.

The other comment that you make is to do with the background. When shooting a model, the photographer controls the background, so try to position your model against a background that works.

[purplehaze]

Izzy, thanks for commenting. I am not sure I see what you do, but my calibration may need refreshing. I do find the WB too warm for my taste; once again I neglected to shoot a grey card.

Oy, oy, oy, Manfred. While pondering the answer to your question, I realized that this frame was not lit through my big softbox at all! My model had laid down on the floor to interact with Stella and I had put an SB700 on the camera, with a Rogue Flashbender on it, but now that I think about it, I am not even sure I had it on properly. I could and should have obliterated the background by upping my shutter speed, but I had forgotten that. Demonstration once again of the importance of regular practice. When I made the date with my model, I was thinking I would have ample time to prepare, but week 1 of my holiday got eaten up with chores. and a couple of leisurely meals with friends. My model and I had already cancelled a date months ago, and I didn't want to do it again.

Your commentary would be much appreciated when you have the opportunity. Meanwhile, I will try to enlist some other subjects to practice on while I'm at the lake.

[IzzieK]

Janis, on my laptop downstairs I have an uncalibrated monitor. I cannot see most of the faults that I see in my big monitor here upstairs, which is calibrated. But what I see here right now is that same as what I saw yesterday...all the shadows around her face has a reddish tinge. I suspect that either my monitor need re-calibrating again or you've overdone using the filter on Nik...maybe I should calibrate my monitor as soon as I can...to see if it still give the same result...

[purplehaze]

Izzie, don't be recalibrating your monitor on my account. I agree that there is a color problem, I think it is in the WB, which I allowed Aperture to correct automatically.

[IzzieK]

Izzie, don't be recalibrating your monitor on my account. I agree that there is a color problem, I think it is in the WB, which I allowed Aperture to correct automatically.

It is time to do it tomorrow after I wake up anyway...thanks...

[Manfred M]

Janis - I'm not on my normal computer, so I don't totally trust the colours I'm seeing, event though my laptop screen has been profiled. You could be right about the Flashbender, the hot spots on your model look all to familiar and is one reason I don't use that modifier too often any more. The lighting is too uneven and it just does not do a good job as a key light. I tend to like shooting a model like this one with a nice, even and diffuse light source. You might still get some sheen from the skin, but it might be a bit more subdued. I would also want to fix some of the skin issues she has in this image. Ideally you would have had makeup covering this up, to minimize any work in post.

Your model appears to have a fairly round face, and the broad lighting you are using in this shot tends to accentuate this. Having the key light on the opposite side of the face and having the side you are shooting from (short lighting) will tend to downplay this feature and generally results in an more attractive looking image.

I don't particularly love the way she has her hand in front of her face. It really breaks up her face and almost gives one the impression that she is throwing a punch at herself; it just isn't working for me. I'm also not really all that thrilled with what you are doing with her hair. The vignette is a bit heavy handed and is leaving some rather heavy-handed artifacts; rather than trying to blend it into the background, you need to separate it from the background to give your model's head a more balanced look and feel to it.

I'm also not a fan of the way she is looking hard camera left and the whites of her eyes are so very prominent and unbalanced. I tend to prefer the eyes being more centred with the what part being seen on both sides of her irises.

[purplehaze]

Points all taken, Manfred; thanks. I agree that her face would be best suited to short lighting and will focus on that next time. As far as the blemishes go, I am inclined to err on the side of too little "correction" as opposed to too much as I think she is beautiful just the way she is and want her to think so too.

[Manfred M]

I find that Color Efex can sometimes bring extenuate redness in the skin, so I rarely use it on people.

A bit of desatuartion and a touch of the healing tool reduces but does not eliminate that skin blemishes. It's all a matter of the degree to which you apply these tools.



Unfortunately, I'm not on my regular computer, so I'm not totally sure as to how the colours should look.

[purplehaze]

Nice demonstration, Manfred; thanks.

[rpcrowe]

I missed Manfred's version and would not have tried this one if I had seen his. I removed a couple of blemished on her cheek as well as one just image right of her eyebrow using the spot healing brush tool I then desaturated her cheeks a bit to reduce the redness.



I usually try to have a pack of tissues ready and ask the subject to blot her cheeks which will diminish some of the shine from natural skin oil, especially across the cheekbones...

[purplehaze]

Thanks, Richard. I like that a lot. I did have her use a towel on her face a couple of times, but clearly it wasn't enough.

We on the Canadian prairies are not used to the kind of constant humidity we have been having this summer and are having to learn new ways of being. I can't help being nostalgic for the dry hot summers of my youth.