How does he do it?!?

DGMPhotography · Aug 30, 2016

This is a photographer I've been following for awhile now and I absolutely adore his work. I've talked to him a time or two but he's never shared any specifics about he he gets his shots. They all have a similar aesthetic... super smooth lighting and shadows, beautiful subjects, great colors. I have some ideas of my own, but I'd be curious to see if you have any thoughts on how he creates photos like these.

Mark Horowitz (@mh_photography_ny) • Instagram photos and videos

And for the record, yes, I am jealous of his work. I'm not trying to steal it, just want to figure out how it's done.

Vtec44 · Aug 30, 2016

It looks like he does a lot of post process work, a lot of skin smoothing, matte black, and some fake background blur. His lighting is good but nothing out of the ordinary, one key light most of the time and occasionally rim light and background light. He's for sure consistent in post process.

DGMPhotography · Aug 30, 2016

Vtec44 said:
It looks like he does a lot of post process work, a lot of skin smoothing, matte black, and some fake background blur. His lighting is good but nothing out of the ordinary, one key light most of the time and occasionally rim light and background light. He's for sure consistent in post process.

Yeah he told me that it's a lot of photoshop. He does dodging and burning and frequency separation. And does some split toning. I'm curious what kind of skin smoothing techniques he does though, and the matte black, as you describe it.

tecboy · Aug 30, 2016

Use beauty disk or very large soft box. Extremely high shutter speed or f-stop. Dodge and burning in the foreground and background. Not that special and anyone can do that with a powerful strobe.

OGsPhotography · Aug 30, 2016

Frequency separation is great for skin smoothing. I have created an action in PS but it seems to have broken or needs to be tweaked for each photo( probably the Blur radius). Its about ten steps. A little bit of magic, but it works! With FS you can use the clone or healing brush to work on colour OR texture, its really great.

Braineack · Aug 30, 2016

He goes way beyond freq. separation: https://scontent-ams3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/14066420_852632261537164_3636630151296993971_o.jpg

tecboy · Aug 30, 2016

Braineack said:
He goes way beyond freq. separation: https://scontent-ams3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/14066420_852632261537164_3636630151296993971_o.jpg

She looks like a doll.

DGMPhotography · Aug 30, 2016

Yeah, he does much more than frequency separation. I already know how to to FS. And even though it's very obvious that he's doing a lot of smoothing, like a "doll," I think it's okay. I already have a suspension of belief since it's cosplay, so the skin isn't really an issue for me. And whatever he's doing, it still looks well-done, in my opinion.