Photo of the day: November 2012

[shigzeo]

Originally Posted by Phrasikleia

Amazing shot snipped.

Fantastisk! Really, your photographs are an inspiration.

[Phrasikleia]

^^^Thank you, shigzeo.


My photo for today is from a location that had been frustrating me for a long time. Its appearance changes drastically throughout the year, with differences in the foliage, water level, and light making it seem like an entirely different place depending on when you go. I made four visits in three years, and this was the first time I came away with something close to what I had in mind.

[Doylem]

Originally Posted by ijohn.8.80

Howdy Paolo, I intentionally wanted this room to look slightly exaggeratedly warm, it has a very special place in my heart and the thing that has always stood out to me about it is the light and the wood (which is what I mean by warm for this room). Comparing yours to mine, I guess to be realistic it should be somewhere between the two and closer to yours as the lights are slightly yellow/orange glowing, not white.

I am a beginning student of photography, using programs like photoshop and photomatix at the most basic operations only. I have no idea how to even view the red channel black portion levels at a % for example. After a quick search of photoshop, is this in selective colour? That's the only place I can find that. When I open the exported Tif from photomatix, all colours are sitting at 0% in selective colour, but it has got the definite red cast to it as you mention. Taking that back by -20% does make all the difference though.

So for my future reference, does the term "warm" refer to red? Or is it red, yellow and orange, or something else altogether? This is so that when Doylem says to me it's too warm, I'll understand what he's actually saying next time!

Colour ‘temperature’ is something that’s been familiar to me since I used film (we never talked about ‘white balance’). It was difficult to balance the colour temperature of ambient light (sunlight/moonlight) with artificial lighting (tungsten, fluorescent, etc) and whatever a photographer might add (flashgun, portable studio lights or photofloods), and photographers who knew how to photograph building interiors could make a good living. Some photographers would light a room by using only their own lighting, to give them more control.

It’s only since I’ve gone digital that I’ve even tried to shoot interiors, and I enjoy the challenge of trying to balance all the various light sources. I’m not very ‘scientific’ about it, and I don’t have my own lights, so, as with the landscape, it’s a matter of making the best from what’s already there. ‘Warm’ lighting is towards the red end of the spectrum, ‘cold’ lighting towards the blue end (Wikipedia has an interesting page on the subject). We don’t always realise that light is warm or cool, because the eye acclimatises itself, in a fraction of a second, to our surroundings. But if you fall asleep on a beach on a sunny day in summer, and wake up suddenly, everything will look blue.

I shoot with auto white balance and make adjustments in Aperture. As with film, it’s often a matter of compromise. But, unlike film, I can do it after I’ve pressed the shutter, which makes the job so much easier. I used to like warm pictures, as a rule, but these days I prefer something more neutral or realistic, unless I’m going for a particular ‘look’.

As Phrasikleia says, it’s a creative decision. ‘Correct’ is not when the needle on a dial reads a particular number... it’s when you look at your picture and think “that’s fine”. And the best defense against anybody suggesting changes is just to say “That’s the way I wanted it”... :-)

More mixed lighting: a local pub, last night...

[oblomow]

Originally Posted by ijohn.8.80

Thanks Phrasikleia. Libraries have a special place in my heart, a place of sanctuary, solitude and safety. I did a lot of my high school research and studies in this very room!

I was there at opening time and waited for the first student to be visible to fire off my series of shots. I was lucky that she remained in one position, typing furiously for the duration! In the shot, it looks like she is reading and I like that.

Here is another I took yesterday in the local Church of England cathedral. It's compiled from a series of nine graduated shots. The OCD in me wanted to remove the kids art works, the open sign and the flags on the back left, but I held back.

Image

Nice subject and colour. However I have the feeling it's tilted.

[ijohn.8.80]

Originally Posted by oblomow

Nice subject and colour. However I have the feeling it's tilted.

Oblomow, tilted in what way? The converging lines of the pillars? The pews on the right not being in line with the ones on the left? The horizon being tilted? The childrens artworks are not hung straight?

The pews on the right are angled slightly to the left, so they face to the left by about 15 degrees. The pews on the left are square with the building.

[ijohn.8.80]

Originally Posted by Doylem

As Phrasikleia says, it’s a creative decision. ‘Correct’ is not when the needle on a dial reads a particular number... it’s when you look at your picture and think “that’s fine”. And the best defense against anybody suggesting changes is just to say “That’s the way I wanted it”... :-)

Doylem, I thank you for the generosity of your reply to me. I guess I got too caught up in the technical aspect of it all, trying to make sure I had the same frequency of light at home as I did when there. When it comes down to it, it was slightly too red for me, but I wouldn't take it as far back as what Paolo did, it seems cold to me there. It doesn't marry with my memory of spending hundreds and hundreds of hours in that place and the warmth of light that bathes you.

Originally Posted by Doylem

More mixed lighting: a local pub, last night...

Very nice indeed! Eight different sources of light and all nicely balanced. It's exactly this shot and your previous shot inside the arts and crafts home as to why you are known within my home as the Master of Light! Phrasikleia is known as the Mistress of Light for patently obvious reasons also!

[oblomow]

Originally Posted by ijohn.8.80

Oblomow, tilted in what way? The converging lines of the pillars? The pews on the right not being in line with the ones on the left? The horizon being tilted? The childrens artworks are not hung straight?

The pews on the right are angled slightly to the left, so they face to the left by about 15 degrees. The pews on the left are square with the building.

It looks like the image is rotated clockwise. But it must be my mind playing tricks with me.

[Cheese&Apple]

Bluffer's Park by Cheese&Apple on Flickr

Just the way I wanted it.

[acearchie]

Originally Posted by TH3D4RKKN1GH7

Is this a single soft box directly above the model?

Originally Posted by ocabj

I'm pretty sure a one-piece is SFW...

Can you share some of the post processing tips and tricks you do? Also do you set up all the kit yourself or do you have someone to help you with minor adjustments?

Mine for today:

As always, comments and critique welcomed!


The Girls by acearchie, on Flickr

[ocabj]

Originally Posted by acearchie

Can you share some of the post processing tips and tricks you do? Also do you set up all the kit yourself or do you have someone to help you with minor adjustments?

I import to Lightroom and for the given set, I will do batch adjustments and sync in LR. That usually means:

• Setting white balance
• Setting lens correction
• Applying metadata (e.g. extra EXIF+IPTC)

When I pick one that I want to use, I do an "Edit in Photoshop" from within Lightroom which kicks the photo to PS.

From there I duplicate the initial layer and do the first round of basic touchups (e.g. hair issues, wrinkles or lint on clothing, objects in scene, liquify).

After that, I will do frequency separation editing so I can edit skin detail blemishes and color blemishes in two separate layers. You'll want to google this if you don't know what it is, but it basically involves duplicating your working layer twice, running a Gaussian Blur on the lower layer (low freq) and then doing a layer blend of the higher duplicated layer with the low freq layer to create the high frequency layer.

After I do the frequency separation edits I save the photo in Photoshop as a PSD into another dir. But this gets recognized by LR and shows up back in the working LR library. After I'm done in PS, I'll go back to LR and create a virtual copy of that PSD. I then do some final touchups with LR on the virtual copy such as using the Skin Softening tool and Iris Enhance tool. The Skin Softening brush is actually pretty good in LR. I'll usually use it's defaults for legs and arms, but when it comes to the face, I usually bump the clarity slider (less negative) so the face doesn't look extremely airbrushed.

Note: The reason why I do a virtual copy of the PSD in LR is because if I do LR modifications to the PSD in LR, but decide I want to do more frequency separation editing on that same PSD file in PS, when I save that file again, LR drops all LR based edits made on the PSD from within LR.

Anyway, after that, when I'm satisfied, I export that virtual copy from LR to JPG with my export template(s).

As far as frequency separation, I just do very basic frequency separation. A friend of mine is a great photographer and retoucher and his workflow is insane. He's retired so he doesn't care about taking 4-5 actual man hours working on a shot, and he will. His frequency separation and dodging/burning for beauty shots is incredible.

[ijohn.8.80]

Originally Posted by Cheese&Apple

Bluffer's Park by Cheese&Apple on Flickr

Just the way I wanted it.

I think it's a little too cold, I took it into pixel masher and separated out the red, green and blue channels. It looks much better now.

This was a joke, no offence was meant by it. I know that Cheese&Apple has a sense of humour.

[avro707]

Originally Posted by ocabj

One of the few truly SFW photos you're going to find of Brett Rossi on the Internet. Taken back in April of this year, but I never got around to post-processing this set until last week.

Nice one! Went and did some very interesting reading after seeing this.

Meanwhile, a little less impressive:



However, it's mine! I just photographed that in a hurry before going out for a quick ride before the afternoon thunderstorms rolled in. I ended up stopping after about 15km, it was boiling hot and thunder and lighting was starting to set in.

It's running happily with new wheels, new chain and new saddle after the accident on Sunday caused by dodgy road surface and me having to move over to avoid tangling with another rider.

[Phrasikleia]

Originally Posted by ijohn.8.80

Phrasikleia is known as the Mistress of Light for patently obvious reasons also!

Yes, I'll admit that I am Light's secret lover. It sometimes loves me and sometimes leaves me, but either way, I always come back for more...

[sim667]

Not exactly 'Digital Photography', but if you dont like it, gutted.


Watergram by simbojono, on Flickr

[Cheese&Apple]

Creativity, humour, learned a few things and awesome shots...good stuff and a great month. Looking forward to see what December brings.

Cheers!



Centennial Park Greenhouse by Cheese&Apple on Flickr

[Doylem]

Blackwelll... More mixed lighting (including some window light). It's going to be a fun project...

[chriscl]

Originally Posted by Doylem

More mixed lighting: a local pub, last night...

Image

I've been to that pub! ;-)

A very nice pint of beer, as I recall.

[ijohn.8.80]

Originally Posted by Cheese&Apple

Centennial Park Greenhouse by Cheese&Apple on Flickr

Nice delicate detail Cheese&Apple, I really like the shallow DOF for this one.

[spitfirejd]

Originally Posted by Doylem

Blackwelll... More mixed lighting (including some window light). It's going to be a fun project...

What an amazing room. I can't decide which is more impressive, the carving, tiles or ceiling. I envy you on that project. I hope you have fun with it.

[BarryJ]

-15C on the trail this am in Sudbury, ON.

[Cheese&Apple]

Originally Posted by ijohn.8.80

I think it's a little too cold, I took it into pixel masher and separated out the red, green and blue channels. It looks much better now.

This was a joke, no offence was meant by it. I know that Cheese&Apple has a sense of humour.

I thought this was quite clever and very funny.

[TH3D4RKKN1GH7]

Originally Posted by acearchie

Is this a single soft box directly above the model?

Mine for today:

As always, comments and critique welcomed!

Image
The Girls by acearchie, on Flickr

Yep. Didn't have two other gridded sources or flags to edge light him on the sides. Little more separation would have made it really pop.