Lexi

[Evertking]

Done a few today but I couldn't wait.
This is a edit from my phone. Can't wait to get these in Lightroom.

[Digital]

Mike, overall I like this photo. Do find the car on the right (camera right) side of her face to be a bit distractive.


Bruce

[Evertking]

Learning Dodge and burn

[Evertking]

Mike, overall I like this photo. Do find the car on the right (camera right) side of her face to be a bit distractive.


Bruce

Yeah, it was a busy street I will see what I can do here in a min. But.. I got home and tried Dodge and burn and it really does give an image a extra something.

[Stagecoach]

Good ones Mike.

Next lesson, after dodge and burn, correcting the verticals (if wanted)

[Evertking]

Lol.. yeah that may help. I have a problem getting my colors right from image to image. I have a grey card but it's a small one and has to be held in the picture and we'll... My kids have it somewhere is there anything I can do now to get it consistent. I see about 6 more pictures I would like to edit.

[Stagecoach]

Lol.. yeah that may help. I have a problem getting my colors right from image to image. I have a grey card but it's a small one and has to be held in the picture and we'll... My kids have it somewhere is there anything I can do now to get it consistent. I see about 6 more pictures I would like to edit.

If it were me I would open all pics in the software I use, ACR, and use the WB picker tool on an area such as the lamp post as a start.

[Manfred M]

A couple of posing issues to watch out for:

1. "Amputations" - places where hands, arms, legs, etc. are cut off. In the first image, the hand in the pocket and the hand hidden by the lamp post are not working. In the second image the arm and hand hidden by the lamp post are not working.

2. Having the model stand at an angle to the camera is slimming. Straight on tends to be less flattering.

3. Hands look more attractive when shot on edge rather than flat on, as in the second image.

[rpcrowe]

Lol.. yeah that may help. I have a problem getting my colors right from image to image. I have a grey card but it's a small one and has to be held in the picture and we'll... My kids have it somewhere is there anything I can do now to get it consistent. I see about 6 more pictures I would like to edit.

If you have shot in RAW and opened the series in Adobe Camera RAW, and have a white balance target in your series. Choose the image that has the target, select all images and then use the white balance eyedropper (first from the left - circled in red) and click on the white target.



I have an advantage in shooting Maltese rescue dogs because I can use their coats as a white balance target.

If you don't have a white balance target in any of the images select an image that has the area which should be a neutral gray, then chose "select all images". Use the neutral gray eyedropper (second eyedropper from the left - circled in blue) and click on the area which is the neutral gray.

All the images will sync to that white balance.

I like to set a "Custom White Balance" with my Canon DSLR cameras. I believe that the Canon DSLR cameras can achieve a Custom White Balance with a target that is a bit smaller in the frame than can the Nikon cameras with which I believe (but, don't know) the white balance card needs to almost fill the frame...

This gives me a fairly accurate white balance on all the shots in the series. This is fine as long as I don't forget to readjust the white balance for shots taken in other light conditions. However if I do forget, all is not lost. The advantage of RAW is that you can always adjust the white balance as an afterthought. However, if you are adjusting the WB with the "eyeball" method. Ensure that your monitor is accurately calibrated.

Always remember, the "accurate or correct" white balance is not always the most pleasing. As an example, I tend to like my face shots a TAD warmer that an "accurate" rendition...

In order to get my white balance fairly correct, I use a WhiBal Studio Kit and keep the card hanging from my neck on the lanyard.

https://www.adorama.com/wbwb7sk.html?RRref=productPage

That way I always have it with me. Even shooting with my 70-200mm f/4L IS lens on my crop sensor camera, I can fill the frame enough to use custom white balance with my Canon DSLR cameras and still retain auto focus.

This card is quite expensive and I almost balked at purchasing it. However, Donald recommended it and that was enough for me. I have been using the same card for many years now and it has survived everything, including the sharp teeth of a puppy. I am sure that less expensive targets will also do the job. But, it it ain't broke, why fix it, so I remain using the WhiBal Card.

[Manfred M]

Carefully said; while Richard is correct in using a neutral target to get a white balance quickly (I use that technique in all of my studio work), it is much less reliable when combining multiple colour temperature light sources, like in the work that you are doing.

Flash runs at around 5500K, sunset can be down below 3000K and artificial light are all over the place, depending on the type that they are. Using a gray card in these cases will give you really strange results, unless the flash is so powerful that it overwhelms all the other light sources, in which case a neutral card will work.

[Stagecoach]

Carefully said; while Richard is correct in using a neutral target to get a white balance quickly (I use that technique in all of my studio work), it is much less reliable when combining multiple colour temperature light sources, like in the work that you are doing.

Manfred,

If you are in the position such as this and have shot a number of images which are all slightly different due to lighting is there a way in which in these examples you could adjust so all the reds are near enough the same if there was not a reasonable neutral area to WB off?

[Manfred M]

Manfred,

If you are in the position such as this and have shot a number of images which are all slightly different due to lighting is there a way in which in these examples you could adjust so all the reds are near enough the same if there was not a reasonable neutral area to WB off?

So long as the shots are done with more or less the same lighting, I will take one of the images and manually adjust the white balance during the raw conversion. I will note the positions of the white balance (yellow / blue) sliders and the tint (green / magenta) and just duplicate that setting for the whole series. In portraiture work, getting the skin to look good is critical.

This will often be close enough.

Another scenario is where I overpower the ambient light on the subject and effectively use the 5500K / flash setting. That way the skin tones are correct and any funky background colours are fine. I will definitely do this if the exterior lighting is not going to be easy to correct, for instance high pressure sodium lighting will have a yellow spectral spike.

[Evertking]

[Manfred M]

Mike - this latest posting (#13) nicely shows what I was writing about in post #12, regarding how hands need to be carefully positioned by the subject.

The camera left hand looks sleek and svelte while the camera right hand looks pudgy and paw-like.

Your crop is a bit tight along the bottom of the frame. The hand should clear the edge of the frame, not touch it.


It also looks like you have applied a Gaussian blur just in front of and behind the subject; the drop-off in sharpness is so immediate it causes some distraction. The brickwork on the left and in front of the subject is sharp, so what you have here looks wrong. You don't get a sharp area, a soft area, then a sharp in focus area and then a sharp drop off.

[Stagecoach]

So long as the shots are done with more or less the same lighting, I will take one of the images and manually adjust the white balance during the raw conversion. I will note the positions of the white balance (yellow / blue) sliders and the tint (green / magenta) and just duplicate that setting for the whole series. In portraiture work, getting the skin to look good is critical.

This will often be close enough.

Agree with this and it's how I tackle it when the lighting is similar for all shots.

I was thinking more of a scenario where lighting is unavoidably quite different.

As an example I recently shot a race, runners were in the dark and lit by flash at the start, then sunrise and fill flash, then bright sun and in between some deep shadow areas. Whilst individually all images are fine when wanting to put a set together consisting of runners wearing the same corporate colour tops that colour difference is quite noticeable (to me).

In this case, for the images to be used for commercial purposes, their 'corporate colour branding' may be more important to them than different individuals skin tone.

[Shadowman]

Nice shots.

[Manfred M]

Agree with this and it's how I tackle it when the lighting is similar for all shots.

I was thinking more of a scenario where lighting is unavoidably quite different.

As an example I recently shot a race, runners were in the dark and lit by flash at the start, then sunrise and fill flash, then bright sun and in between some deep shadow areas. Whilst individually all images are fine when wanting to put a set together consisting of runners wearing the same corporate colour tops that colour difference is quite noticeable (to me).

In this case, for the images to be used for commercial purposes, their 'corporate colour branding' may be more important to them than different individuals skin tone.

Product oriented photography is a totally different genre than what us mere mortals attempt. One of my photography instructors who taught the lighting course spent much of his career primarily doing advertising and catalogue work, so this was something we covered in some detail during the course.

1. Any of this type of photography for medium to large sized companies is done in a studio or studio like setting. The photographer is working side-by-side with the art director who calls the shots. Your race images are highly unlikely to make it into an ad campaign. A staged race with professional models would.

2. Even outdoor scenes are fully lit with studio lights. Lights are gelled to give the right colour temperature and in some extreme cases, gels are applied to the windows in a building to ensure that the colour temperatures are correct and that ambient light and the studio lights give the right look.

3. It's all about the product and the corporate logo, so these are either individually lit or are photographed with a "dummy" product and the logo is added or enhanced in post. The appropriate colour adjustments are made so that the label colours are correct. Some companies have the Pantone, RGB and CMYK colours on their corporate websites so that contractors have access to the logo specs.

4. "Dressers" are used to ensure that the set is properly set up, finger prints are wiped clean, no dust or smudges on the set etc. Sometimes props are used; plastic ice cubes rather than real ones. Lard is substituted for ice cream, etc.

5. Hours and even days can be spent taking the shot to ensure it is 100% right.

[xpatUSA]

Lol.. yeah that may help. I have a problem getting my colors right from image to image. I have a grey card but it's a small one and has to be held in the picture and we'll... My kids have it somewhere is there anything I can do now to get it consistent. I see about 6 more pictures I would like to edit.

Without a neutral reference such as a card, the conventional wisdom is to know of a neutral object in the scene and color-balance off that in post. By coincidence, the lamp-post has several such spots that are perfectly neutral!




Another way is to find a colored object such as a particular brick in the wall and make it the same color in all the shots that have it. Hopefully your editor has a global (affects the whole image, not just a selection) hue/saturation/brightness adjustment - most do.

HTH

[Manfred M]

Without a neutral reference such as a card, the conventional wisdom is to know of a neutral object in the scene and color-balance off that in post. By coincidence, the lamp-post has several such spots that are perfectly neutral!

Two thoughts on your "conventional wisdom" comments.

1. The neutral source in the image has to be illuminated by the same light source as your subject. In this case, the lamp post will work. The other proviso that I was taught was that the object should ideally be a "substantive" element in the image. In this case, it passes the test too.

One could also argue that the whites of the subject's eyes are a neutral colour, as are the irises, so we could in theory white balance off those, but neither are substantive elements (they are too small).

2. Your analysis of the lamp post is a bit flawed. The reason it shows as neutral is that is simply the outcome of the white balance used in this image. If a different white balance were set, this would not be the case. Also, it depends where on the lamp post you sample, because there is a wide range of tones that are not neutral. In fact I would argue that this image has a green / yellow colour cast; which may or may not be the desired outcome. I tend to prefer portraits slightly on the warm side.

[xpatUSA]

Your analysis of the lamp post is a bit flawed.

Yes, my screenshot was intended as an illustration, not a rigorous analysis. Perhaps I should remove it so as to avoid confusion?

The reason it shows as neutral is that is simply the outcome of the white balance used in this image. If a different white balance were set, this would not be the case.

Obviously.

Also, it depends where on the lamp post you sample, because there is a wide range of tones that are not neutral.

Of course. Said lamp-post appears to be coated with black paint. Unfortunately, it appears to be gloss paint - so many areas on it are reflecting scenery.