tips? Freedom of Hair!

[Wyjid]

c&c on editing? tips for directing shoots?

 

[noob873]

Thought I would try the background completely white instead of grey. Anyways, I think I would've liked to see her shoulders in the shot as well, to me her neck looks a little awkward. Maybe just me?

 

[LaFoto]

White background looks good, I think, but what strikes me most are two other things: the expression in her eyes looks --- erm --- not fully "here", if I can put it like that, so that wasn't the best of moments to shoot, so it seems (that fraction of a second, I mean, for this is what can happen to the eyes in the fraction of the second you exposed). And I feel she should have thoroughly brushed her hair before this to make it look less "strand-y" (if that is a word at all???).

And I guess I have to agree with that her head looks kind of "severed" without the shoulders in the frame...

 

[Wyjid]

yes i agree. unfortunately she was not wearing something nice on her sohoulders, it looked ugly with the starps she had. (i didn't set this up i just snapped it). also how do you keep someones expression nice when they are whipping their head around as hard as they can? i guess just take more shots until one works. also i like the white background, what did you do it photoshopp to adjust it? did it take long to do the bits IN her hair?

 

[noob873]

Nah it was litterally a 30 second edit. I probably could've been neater. Create a duplicate layer, go to curves or levels and make the highlights brighter, then go to your erase tool and erase the subject. Then to make sure the background is pure white go to your dodge tool and put it on highlights, 100%, and do that on the background.
Also I forgot to say something about the expression. Try to get her laughing or something, because like La Foto said that expression is kind of strange.

 

[Wyjid]

create a duplicate layer of what? just the background, the subject or the whole thing? yes i agree about the expression. i'm going to try to set up the shot properly with a white background and back lighting. also try to get the shoulders. question, are the shadows behinde the hair a distraction or do they work alright? thanks for the help.

 

[noob873]

Duplicate layer of the whole pic. And generally shadows on the studio type backgrounds arent good.