Paul Michell Hair Contest Headshots

[Restomage]

These girls who attend the Paul Michell cosmetology school in Costa Mesa asked me to take some head shots of them for their entries. They wanted a pure white background so all I did was put a SB-600 on a light stand directly in back of the subject and had two lights on either side at 45/45 angels. If I had a 4th light I probaby would have used a hairlight but let me know what you guys think and if you have any suggestions. If I had to do it again I'd probably move the subjects further away from the background as I think some of that light spilled onto their face a bit.

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4

5

 

[iAstonish]

I like #4 the best, its a great shot.

#1 is good
#2 the lipstick is distracting
#3 her pose isn't great
#4 well framed, good colors.
#5 don't like the angle of the picture

 

[iAstonish]

The lighting looks good, but its a little reflective/bright on the first model.

 

[JimmyO]

Seem a bit hazy due to the intense backlighting

 

[Restomage]

Seem a bit hazy due to the intense backlighting

Yea like I said I need to move them further away next time since some of that light spilled onto their face.

 

[transformed]

I think you can fix up that haze in post- here is a quick edit.

 

[transformed]

another edit to remove some haze-

 

[transformed]

last but not least...

 

[SpeedTrap]

One of my major markets is shooting hair for salons so here are some ways to improve.
Even when shooting on white you need to have ratio of light on your models. Your lighting is very flat and does not show texture of depth of the hair. As well you have alot of spill making the image hazy.

You also neet to go in and fill any gaps in the hair and remove some of the fly aways.

If you want to send me a high res file I can show you what can be done with these.

 

[JenLavazza]

Wow...Transformed, your edits look GREAT!

What did you do?

 

[Restomage]

Wow...Transformed, your edits look GREAT!

What did you do?

x2

 

[transformed]

Thanks Jen and Sean for the kudos! As far as what I did- I am horrible! I photoshop the same way I cook- a little of this, a little of that. I don't have specific workflow, I just kind of play around until I like what I see. I always edit first in Adobe camera raw for WB, blacks, saturation, etc. Then I usually do skin smoothing, curves, noise reduction,flters, etc. in Photoshop.

 

[Jacki]

Normally, I would think the edits were good, but since these pictures are for a hair contest, the most important part of the photo is the hair. In the edits, especially the first one, the hair color is changed too drastically imo.

 

[SrBiscuit]

the edits DO look fantastic.
they also incorporated the skin cleanup i was going to suggest. :thumbup: