Hat Girl

[lizheaemma]

C&C appreciated


1.

2.

 

[JMP09FG2]

What did you do for lighting?

 

[lizheaemma]

hand held SB-600 with soft box attachment

 

[Abby Rose]

Well I do like her hat.

The background is annoying me, though. And I think that this makes the dark on her face annoying. If the background was all dark colored, I think I'd be ok with the dark shadows on the right side of her face. If it was all light colored background, I think I'd want softer shadows. But since the background is both, I get confused.

Anyway, in general I like the second one better. I remember this girl from when you did another shoot of her with this face. I wish her ear werent oof, though. And does she have green in her hair? Or is that a rogue bit of yarn from the hat? :scratch:

 

[lizheaemma]

The second is also my favorite, and I do need to be more aware of my backgrounds, with our long winters, I'm going to have to come up with something that isn't cluttered.

Her hair has blue in it that is fading.
I will work on not getting carried away with big apertures:blushing:... but they are so much fun!

I remember this girl from when you did another shoot of her with this face.

Yes, this is one of my daughters, cheating I know, but they are convenient...
and LOL, she always has this face...

 

[Derrel]

First off, congratulations, you have a lovely daughter, who managed to look only slightly peeved off at you for making her sit for pictures! Anyway, I notice that these were made with a softbox attachment, but that the light is functioning very much like a "hard" light, or one that throws sharp-edged, deep, black shadows. Looking at the pictures, and the small catchlights in her eyes, and the sharp shadows, I was thinking that these had been made using an incandescent household lamp as the main lighting source, especially since the color balance looks a little bit warm, like incandescent bulbs often do. Overall, this type and style of lighting effect is typically a little bit more "masculine" than it is feminine, and the light from the softbox attachment, at the distance it was from the light to her face, creates deep under-chin shaows and strong shadowing under the nose that looks more like overhead room lighting than what we'd typically expect when somebody mentions the word "softbox".

I think you might like the look of bounced flash, fired off of a wall or ceiling, using a small bounce "scoop", like a white, plastic spoon rubber-banded to the flash and overhanging the lip of the flash about 1.5 inches, more so than this small softbox attachment, because this softbox attachment, at its current distance from her, is really too physically small of a light source to be making anything "soft"; the light source's size is what really helps to soften the light, and I think these types of shots of a young girl would usually look better with a bigger, softer, source of light.

 

[reznap]

Just mask and darken the background.. takes some practice but it's a technique worth learning.

 

[misstwinklytoes]

Do you make these hats??

 

[Sisco]

Lovely daughter, and totally agree with Derrel about the lighting.

 

[PerfectlyFlawed]

Just mask and darken the background.. takes some practice but it's a technique worth learning.

Great Edit Rez!

 

[lizheaemma]

Derrel- thanks for all the great advise and time taken in rendering it!
You are appreciated! I will attempt a retake later and take your wisdom
into consideration! I was really way too close when I took this pic!

Rez- I also really like your edit and will figure out how to do it in gimp as I'm solute that it's a skill that will serve me well!

Misstwinklytoes- no I did not make this hat, I used to but working full time barely leaves me enough time for photography!

Thank you all for your feedback and comments, they are all appreciated!

 

[Derrel]

2. Photographer's own original file

I took the original, opend it in PS, and did a quickie Magic Wand selection of the light area on the left hand side of the frame, which selected most all of the left hand side of the frame. Then, I took the eyedropper tool, and used COlor Sampler to take a 10x10 pixel sample of the dark tones in the right hand side of the background, and a 95 pixel-wide, round, soft-edged brush and just free-hand painted in the areas on the left hand side. I did not really worry too much about the areas around her hair....just did this close enough for web work...10 seconds on that.

Then, I darkened the image as bit. With the small catchlights in her eyes and the sharp shadows, I think the original image is in the wrong key...it was too bright...I tried some color adjustments, but the original's white balance seemed a bit off, and to color adjusting using selective color was tough. As you can see in Reznap's edit above, his image shows some very slight green tinging on the sides of her nose...I trided adding magenta to the yellows and the reds, and still saw that there was that faint greenishness, so I reverted to this image as my "darker" look.

On this shot, I just used a Gradient Map to B&W, and did a minor bit of adjusting with the Curves tool. In monochrome, I think this image shows the proper "look". The lighting is hard, the catchlights small, and her attire makes this look like some Flemish girl from the 1500's, lighted by dim, indoor natural-type lighting (the pre-lightbulb kind!), or by candle light perhaps.