Shinny face syndrome...

[crimbfighter]

I encountered a frustrating problem recently, and that's shinny faces... When I was trying to shoot portraits, especially with a flash, I get shinny spots on their faces that reflect too much light.

I know the obvious answer is, "they were sweaty, or their skin was oily." Of course my first option is to have them wipe themselves off with a towel or something before the shot, but that's not always practical, especially if they are wearing makeup...

Has anyone found any tricks to help minimize this problem with adjustments to lighting or something? Does using an OCF help with this? Or are there good tricks in PP to adjust this? I tried the blur tool in PS, but that only made minimal improvement and didn't look natural...

Thanks in advance.

 

[Big Mike]

Flat powder make-up can help. (even on men). I know a few wedding photographers who carry it with them and put it on people, rather than try to take it out in post processing. It's usually good for a good laugh when you put it on a bald guy's head.

It can help a lot, if you can get your light source away from the camera. Remember that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection. Basically, if you aim the light directly at a flat surface, it will bounce right back at you.
Of course, people aren't flat, and you'll get a highlight on a round surface anyway...but moving the light off-camera still helps a lot.

Another thing you can do, is increase the size of the light source, thus making it softer. This is where umbrellas & softboxes come in...or bouncing the flash off a wall or ceiling etc.

When dealing with them in post processing, I'd first try the healing brush and/or the clone stamp.

 

[oldmacman]

I encountered a frustrating problem recently, and that's shinny faces... When I was trying to shoot portraits, especially with a flash, I get shinny spots on their faces that reflect too much light.

I know the obvious answer is, "they were sweaty, or their skin was oily." Of course my first option is to have them wipe themselves off with a towel or something before the shot, but that's not always practical, especially if they are wearing makeup...

Has anyone found any tricks to help minimize this problem with adjustments to lighting or something? Does using an OCF help with this? Or are there good tricks in PP to adjust this? I tried the blur tool in PS, but that only made minimal improvement and didn't look natural...

Thanks in advance.

Lighting at an angle and with diffusers to soften the light will help to reduce the glare. There are lots of light diagrams online for different lighting effects.

When I do a multiple light shot, I use a light meter and set my camera manually. I also shoot raw which helps to recover mistakes when they happen. Using "Recover" on a raw file works much better than on a jpeg.

 

[LCARSx32]

Much of it can be fixed in post processing also. I used the "healing brush" the other day to fix a sweaty forehead on a wedding pic. It works quite well.

 

[misstwinklytoes]

You can get good translucent powders that will match almost any skintone for very cheap, too. Make sure to get a decent brush though, or it could get cakey which could make for even harder PP.

 

[crimbfighter]

Thanks for all the suggestions! I'll give them a try the next time out.

misstwinklytoes - What kind of store would I look in if I were looking for translucent powders? Is that something related to makeup?

 

[UUilliam]

*cough* talcum powder / baby powder *Cough*

 

[Petraio Prime]

Why do you think women are always powdering their noses?

 

[Sw1tchFX]

it's easy to take out the shiny areas in faces in photoshop. You can do it two ways that IMO work really well:

Patch Tool, than fade patch selection.

Clone stamp at 40-50% opacity.

both take them right out without looking fake at all.