Hi, well I am taking a few modeling shots for a friend and I need some advice. The theme is fashion so any ideas will be appreciated and another thing that I need advice is, is the photographs by any means edited in post processing to hide the model flaws? and how do many model pictures, the eyes look so perfect? How did they do it? I heard something about sharpening but I did a few times and failed miserably, anyone got tips that can help me?
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Advice needed relating to model shots and editing
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first piece of advice: use your own lighting. beyond that, i dunno. post-processing is your choice. a good make-up artist is also a help.
sharpening. there're other threads in there somewhere as well. for portraits, it's better to use a radius of around 2-3 pixels with unsharp mask, since you don't want to sharpen pores and such.
Try and get the image in camera, don't rely too much on post processing.
Get them to sign a contract, no matter how unimportant you think it could be, make sure you protect yourself. I recently did a shoot for a girl as a favour to her, and myself because I wanted the studio practice. This girl was already part of my photography documentary about youth culture.
Long story short, she sent the images off to a modelling agency and got picked up, now they have a 3 year exclusive on her when it comes to taking pictures and I'm left with nothing, because I didn't value my own work and didn't write out a contract, even though what the girl submitted to the agency were low res jpegs.
It is a lesson learned and next week I'm photographing a band for practice, now I'm going to create contracts to protect myself incase they do something with the images.
Get them to sign a contract, no matter how unimportant you think it could be, make sure you protect yourself. I recently did a shoot for a girl as a favour to her, and myself because I wanted the studio practice. This girl was already part of my photography documentary about youth culture.
Long story short, she sent the images off to a modelling agency and got picked up, now they have a 3 year exclusive on her when it comes to taking pictures and I'm left with nothing, because I didn't value my own work and didn't write out a contract, even though what the girl submitted to the agency were low res jpegs.
It is a lesson learned and next week I'm photographing a band for practice, now I'm going to create contracts to protect myself incase they do something with the images.
A model release form would have made no difference in that case. It only relates to how you as a photographer can use the images you took of her and unless she signed a contract saying she would not show the images to anyone else, a contract would have had no effect on this situation. She didn't sell your images [which she cannot do anyway] she only used them for what was effectively portfolio work.
What you could do is approach the agency looking for work, saying some shots of yours got a model signed up.
As I said in another thread, you need learn the basics of photography, which includes post work these days.
As once you do that the rest becomes easier to work out.
Plus lots + lots of practice [and inherent talent] also makes a big difference.
Modeling basics - a good makeup artist is the essential foundation on which you build your photos. The camera does not hide flaws and so can be unforgiving at times, but thankfully it does not show make up as obviously as in real life.
To get sharp eyes, make sure they are in focus and sharp - sounds stupidly obvious but do not rely on AF to focus accurately enough for you. Also there is only one rule in photography that cannot be broken and look acceptable in some way - make sure that hte nearest eye/pupil is sharp. If it is only the farthest eye awat that is sharp, then the image simply looks awful. It doesn't matter what else is out of focus if nearest pupil is sharp.
I know some one who does this kind of photography for a living. He says he spends a LOT of time fixing skin blemishes in Photoshop. In photo journalism there are "standards" that say not to fake a photo. But in advertizing work (and that is what "fashion is) "anything goes". All that matters is the end result.
When you shoot, focus on the eyes, not the end of the nose or whatever. You should be able to nail this. After all you have a cooperative subject and can get near instant feed back now with digital cameras. No need for sharpening. OK if you must fix it. Use the sharpening tool on a 400% blow up and paint it only where it is needed. But all sharpening always adds noise. Best to do this one in-camera. I'll admit to actually resorting to painting little parts of the pupil and iris.
Same for teeth. I'll make a mask and desaturate a little in an adjustment layer. Turns the yellow to white. But don't over do it or it looks faked. That is why I do it in an adjustment layer, so I can turn the effect down later if need be. I'll do the skin blemish in a layer as well for the same reason.
Portrait Professional - photo editing & airbrushing software
http://www.portraitprofessional.com/
I haven't tried it myself, but it gets good reviews. Seems to be quick and easy to use, much simpler than trying to do the same thing in Photoshop and it's cheap.
http://www.portraitprofessional.com/
I haven't tried it myself, but it gets good reviews. Seems to be quick and easy to use, much simpler than trying to do the same thing in Photoshop and it's cheap.
Model looks nice and relaxed, which is good, but what really weakens these shots is the lack of makeup. Persoanlly I don't like heavily made up girls, but when doing photos, particularly model work, make up is essential, even if it's 'natural' makeup.
And the last one isn't sharp. Always get the nearest eye or both eyes sharp.
And the last one isn't sharp. Always get the nearest eye or both eyes sharp.
I'd also say you haven't got the lighting quite right, the background is over exposed by a lot. Don't use a white background.
There are many many entire books devoted just to this topic.
Just one example: http://www.amazon.com/Fashion-Photography-Course-Principles-Techniques/dp/0764139479/ref=pd_sim_b_2
It's my sense that in the world of fashion photography, even more work goes into post-processing than the actual shoot ...
Just one example: http://www.amazon.com/Fashion-Photography-Course-Principles-Techniques/dp/0764139479/ref=pd_sim_b_2
It's my sense that in the world of fashion photography, even more work goes into post-processing than the actual shoot ...