Lexi

[Evertking]

Whaddaya' doin? Saving up the best images for last?

Yeah, I wish
The last image I posted is my favorite of the bunch and maybe someone with more experience can tell me why this image looks different, the colors.. something. Is it exposure, WB or lighting? Cause if I could have, they would have all been like that but I'm so green I don't know what I did. Lol

 

[Evertking]

 

[DanOstergren]

Bring a broom to your photo shoots and groom your set. All of that debris below the bottom step is doing nothing to help this photo.

 

[Evertking]

Bring a broom to your photo shoots and groom your set. All of that debris below the bottom step is doing nothing to help this photo.

Thank you, I will do that.

 

[smoke665]

@Evertking great pose on this last one! You've got a good eye for composition. Couple of comments, I think you might suffer from the same thing that plagued me early on "the red plague". Red is a color that is so easy to over saturate. It requires a combination of exposure and post to get it right. I took the liberty of adjusting this last photo, by dropping the saturation overall and selectively on the red top. It also appears to be a little lacking in contrast, so bumped it to a medium contrast, then selectively adjusted. When I had it on screen and enlarged it seems that you might have missed focus slightly on the face. I always seek to get pin point sharp on the eyes, and adjust my DOF for the rest. I sharpened the eyes as much as I could, softened the skin, and used a 50% gray layer to burn and dodge the highlights and shadow.

 

[Gary A.]

These are all nice to my eyes. A lot of nits, but overall very nice. Attention to detail separates the men from the boys.

 

[Evertking]

When the sun is setting and I have a dark background I sometimes have to move them around to find a light colored spot for the subjects head. So, here is my question. In times like this can I take a speedlight with the small foot stand it comes with or another light stand and place behind them, to back light them. That would work wouldn't it? I don't have another modifier at this time so it would have to be just a speedlight. The speedlight would have to be in slave and work in HSS. I have never tried that. I know they have HSS but does it work in optical slave mode like that?

 

[smoke665]

Yes, depending on the area you are trying to light. You can also use one to light the back of your subject which separate them from the background

 

[Evertking]

Ok.. I have a godox strobe and trigger and I know it will fire it(the speedlight) in slave mode but it has always be within sync speed. I have never tried it outside when I use HSS. But you say it will? That's good. I will try tomorrow.

 

[smoke665]

within sync speed. I have never tried it outside when I use HSS

Sorry I missed HSS part, I'm not sure of that. If it's dark enough to need flash you should be able to keep shutter in synch speed anyhow.

 

[Evertking]

@Evertking great pose on this last one! You've got a good eye for composition. Couple of comments, I think you might suffer from the same thing that plagued me early on "the red plague". Red is a color that is so easy to over saturate. It requires a combination of exposure and post to get it right. I took the liberty of adjusting this last photo, by dropping the saturation overall and selectively on the red top. It also appears to be a little lacking in contrast, so bumped it to a medium contrast, then selectively adjusted. When I had it on screen and enlarged it seems that you might have missed focus slightly on the face. I always seek to get pin point sharp on the eyes, and adjust my DOF for the rest. I sharpened the eyes as much as I could, softened the skin, and used a 50% gray layer to burn and dodge the highlights and shadow.
View attachment 148241

Also, I have not attempted the 50% grey layer to D&B I learned a way off of YouTube that uses 2 curve layers, one blown out and the other way underexposed and the a brush to highlight and the other for Shadows. I hope that makes sense. But the video also goes on to say "many will not agree with this method" so.. I just want to learn everything the right way while I'm learning.
I appreciate your help very much.

Here, in case I didn't make the technique clear. Dodge and burn seems like something that I need to learn the right way.

within sync speed. I have never tried it outside when I use HSS

Sorry I missed HSS part, I'm not sure of that. If it's dark enough to need flash you should be able to keep shutter in synch speed anyhow.

Yeah, I got to thinking about that.. I'm sorry if I confused you.

 

[smoke665]

Dodge and burn seems like something that I need to learn the right way.

Easy. In PS go to Layers>New>mode soft light>check fill with 50% gray. Now go to tools burn or dodge, drop the brush hardness down to 25-30, and opacity down to about 15%. Then make sure the gray layer is active and dodge or burn away

I've used other methods but I find this the most flexible

 

[DGMPhotography]

Invest in a steamer, or make sure the model puts her clothes in the dryer, or irons it first.

 

[DanOstergren]

@Evertking great pose on this last one! You've got a good eye for composition. Couple of comments, I think you might suffer from the same thing that plagued me early on "the red plague". Red is a color that is so easy to over saturate. It requires a combination of exposure and post to get it right. I took the liberty of adjusting this last photo, by dropping the saturation overall and selectively on the red top. It also appears to be a little lacking in contrast, so bumped it to a medium contrast, then selectively adjusted. When I had it on screen and enlarged it seems that you might have missed focus slightly on the face. I always seek to get pin point sharp on the eyes, and adjust my DOF for the rest. I sharpened the eyes as much as I could, softened the skin, and used a 50% gray layer to burn and dodge the highlights and shadow.
View attachment 148241

Also, I have not attempted the 50% grey layer to D&B I learned a way off of YouTube that uses 2 curve layers, one blown out and the other way underexposed and the a brush to highlight and the other for Shadows. I hope that makes sense. But the video also goes on to say "many will not agree with this method" so.. I just want to learn everything the right way while I'm learning.
I appreciate your help very much.

Here, in case I didn't make the technique clear. Dodge and burn seems like something that I need to learn the right way.

I started using a similar method recently, and I think the results are better than the 50% gray layer method. In my experience the 50% gray layer method has a tendency to desaturate areas that you dodge and saturate areas that you burn.

Also, using the curves adjustment layer with a mask method is still considered dodging and burning, even if you're not using the actual dodge and burn tools. The application and desired end result of either method are still the same, I just think the curves method works better.