UW Garage Shoot with Valerie, Kat, & Michaela

[mkmo]

I met up with local group of photographers this past Saturday at the UW underground garage for a "free-for-all photoshoot" (i.e., 60 photographers + a small handful of models). This was my first shoot with a model. Here are a few photos I've had time to do some processing on. Please let me know what you think.

#1 Valerie
EXIF: ISO 100, 1/125 sec, f/5.6, 115mm


#2 Kat
EXIF: ISO 100, 1/125 sec, f/4, 45mm


#3 Michaela
EXIF: ISO 100, 1/100 sec, f/2.8, 17mm


The next two photos are my first attempt at a new style of processing. In the past, I've preferred a more natural look. But this photoshoot prompted me to try something new...

#4 Michaela
EXIF: ISO 100, 1/125 sec, f/3.5, 70mm


#5 Michaela
EXIF: ISO 100, 1/125 sec, f/2.8, 100mm

 

[Shibby!]

Might just be me, but the last two seem a lot more professional. The light is great, even if it is highly edited.

All great pictures though

 

[JCleveland]

Might just be me, but the last two seem a lot more professional.

I definitely agree with that comment.. If I may ask, what kind of PP techniques did you use for the last two?

 

[mkmo]

Thanks! I'm glad you liked them.

If I may ask, what kind of PP techniques did you use for the last two?

If you click on #5, it will take you to the original image. In the comments (3 posts down) I give a brief description of my post processing. If you would like more details, I can probably write up a short "step-by-step" walkthrough. I'm sure I'd benefit from that as well.

 

[Scurra]

I like the last 2 the most as well, but the pose in image 4 troubles me. It looks as if the poor girl is having back problems.

 

[milavidal]

I can't see your explanation..maybe you could paste it here. Thank you =]

 

[mkmo]

I can't see your explanation..maybe you could paste it here. Thank you =]

That's because I referenced the wrong photo! Oops... But here's what I did:

Lightroom: Boost blacks, contrast, saturation, and light tones. Bring down vibrance and shadows. Then hit it with a generous amount of vignetting and crop.

CS3: Minor skin touchup. Dodge the eyes a tiny bit (not really necessary though). Then some skin smoothing. For this style, I chose to go a little overboard (for my usual taste) on the skin smoothing. Skin smoothing was done using a high pass filter to retain details and a color range selection to create a skin mask. Then applied gaussian blur to the skin mask layer.

I'm currently experimenting with different skin smoothing techniques, so I'll let you know if I find something that works better. I'm not completely satisfied with the results on #4 and #5 and part of that is due to the fact that the photos were overexposed to begin with.

 

[Senor Hound]

There's only one thing I'm not digging, and that's how in #4, it looks like she disappears (at least on my computer). I see her shirt, but for me it looks like there's nothing below that point. Perhaps just the slightest bit more brightness here so I can detect a slight bit of contrast between her pants and the background...