Contemplation of a 3 year old (little pic heavy)

GDHLEWIS · Oct 16, 2017

So managed to get the my kid in a cooperative mood and was allowed to set up two speedlights, one with a rogue one soft box and one with the rogue one honey comb snoot. C&C is always welcomed but feel like I'm defiantly turned a corner with using flash with the shots coming out exactly how I intended them to.

smoke665 · Oct 16, 2017

Kids are always fun to shoot. Handsome young lad! Unfortunately all of your images to some degree are underexposed and lacking contrast. I did a quick edit of the last one because it was the darkest of the bunch, bumped exposure almost 2 stops, adjusted the WB, contrast, clarity, highlights, shadows...

GDHLEWIS · Oct 16, 2017

Thanks, tbh I seem mean towards the under exposed look for some reason, I do prefer your edit on the last shot and nearly didn't put it in the post but glad I did now as your version has given me inspiration to go back to the edit. Cheers

May the journey continue

smoke665 · Oct 16, 2017

This was the histogram from the original. I'm not sure what you mean by leaning toward under exposing. Are you saying you do it intentionally or unintentionally????

GDHLEWIS · Oct 16, 2017

Intentionally, it is what seems right to me, especially on this set due to the darker background. I do edit in a relatively dark room but my screen is calibrated for the existing lighting levels. Plus the little one is still under the weather with croup so maybe that's why I went under exposed...suited his mood at the time, not to worry soon parked up after some chocolate

May the journey continue

GDHLEWIS · Oct 16, 2017

Either way I'll try changing the lighting in the room and recalibrating the monitor to see if that changes my point of view...could be an interesting experiment.

May the journey continue

smoke665 · Oct 16, 2017

I'm still confused, are you saving your images to card as Raw or JPEG and was that image out of camera underexposed??? I'm wondering if you're confusing underexposed with dark and moody processing. Even with dark background, you should still have a fully exposed image to start with. IE
Here's an example of a dark background, did this one on the 4th of granddaughter.

Note the contrast, note the detail in the shadows. Here's the histogram on this one.

If you're underexposing in camera you're leaving detail (data). If you're saving to Raw, and you have a fully exposed image, you can then manipulated that data.

GDHLEWIS · Oct 16, 2017

My bad, I under expose during processing. Data is all there in the raw file

May the journey continue

smoke665 · Oct 16, 2017

Okay I think I'm on the same page. To get the moody, dark look I think you're after. Leave your exposure alone. Set your WB, then try taking your highlights way down. Boost the shadows, and the whites, and bring the blacks down some. Set a medium s curve on contrast. Slight bump to clarity, and decrease saturation. Use adjustment brushes to dodge the face. IE: