Little Gems 1: A How I lit The Shot And Photoshop for fashion Step by Step guide showing the techniques that I used to finish the image.
I use photoshop as little as I can, I would much prefer to get an image right in camera so I am not spending hours on every image. Most of my images you will see have taken on average 30 minutes.
The shot bellow was taken at mid day, harsh and high sun light. AAARRRRGGGGGG.
To get over this I placed my model in the shadows created by the branches of a large palm tree. I set up a large California Sunbounce Gold and Silver Zebra reflector out in the direct sun light reflecting soft warm light onto the front of my model.
I took a light reading from my models face and shot at shutter speed of 1250s aperture of f2.8 at 400 iso. White balance set to daylight.
This image was shot on my D2H with a 24mm to 70mm f2,8 Nikon lens, focal length set at 42mm, 1.4 mtrs away from my model to emphasize her limbs also so we had a good connection for creating good energy and directing.
Notice my lens/eye level is in the middle of her torso, this is important when shooting wide angle and close to your subject to avoid distortion, ie if you shoot to high up your models head will be big and her legs will look like they are short like a chicken and visa versa so its important to get your eye/camera lens level at the right just the hight to avoid distortion,
I will often shoot from a lower angle, especially if I am trying to emphasize the length of a models legs for hosiery images.
To keep the sky as blue as possible I shot with a polarizing filter on my lens, looking towards the west of the midday sun. This is how you keep the sea and the sky blue as well as making my models skin/tan look nice an silky by removing some of the specular reflections on her skin.
If I had been shooting facing more to the east the sky and the sea would have been much more burned out..
When I first started shooting digital I had a lot of problems because I tried to shoot digital the same way that I shot film. Now when I am shooting, I will always under expose from the meter reading, this is done for a couple of reasons, to saturate colour as well as to make sure I am not loosing my high lights. Obviously my images are going to be a little on the dark side but I can easily correct for this by using a little s curve in photoshop to start the retouching process.
I always shoot raw files and a small jpg, why I will explain in another Little Gem.
I process my raw file as shot in camera raw from Bridge and open them in photoshop. (Raw files have a great deal more latitude re image data and will result in much better quality images).
Step 1: Creating copies of image to work on.
First i made 2 duplicates of the image by selecting image, duplicate. I do this twice. On the first dupe I darken the sky and sea using curves, selecting image, adjust, then curves. Pull down the centre of the curve a little to increase the density of the sky, which would have been burned out if I had brightened up the image over all to make my models skin lighter.
I now have an image with the sky and the sea darker and more how I want it be in my finished image.
Step 2: Lightening my models skin.
On the second dupe of the original image file, I brighten the image by selecting image, adjust, curves, lifting the centre of the curve at small amount and pulling the bottom of the curve down just a little making a soft s curve to increase the contrast, see image to the right.
This action lightened up my models skin just enough but I have lost my sky density which is why i created a dupe image and adjusted its density so the sky is just right.
My models face is still a little dark and using curves this way has increased the saturation but Ill not worry about this right now.
Step 3: Lighten up just my models face.
With the round select tool I selected the area of my models face, selecting more than I actually wish to lighten. In the select drop own menu you will find modify, in modify, select feather, you can alter the amount of feathering in the option box, for this action I typed in 240, if your selected area is smaller than half of the amount of feathering it will not let you continue, so pick a smaller feather amount. In this case, because the image file is 49mb, 240 pixels is ok. This softens the edge of your selected area. In curves I brightened my models face by lifting the centre of the curve just a little.
See result on the image to the left.
Step 4: Creating 2 layers to work on.
Click on the move tool, top right tool in the tool box (usually on left on your PS interface.) click on the light image and drag it over onto the window of the darker image, this creates a double layered image with the lighter image on top. see image on the right.. You will see the moving of the image before positioning. The images need to be lined up, registered together exactly.
Step 5: Now I want to create a mask to protect the areas of the images that i want to keep as they are.
With the magnetic select tool I traced around my model, across the top of the rocks and around the upper edges of the image to select the sky and the sea, see the black line around selected area on the screen grab image above. The sky showing between her arms and head and body also need to be masked off see next step..
Step 6: Adding to the selected areas.
The area of sky between my models arms and head and shoulder also need to be selected, this can be done by clicking the caps key as you select these areas with out loosing the areas already selected. The magnetic select tool can be a little unpredictable and may leave some areas that are un protected and visa versa, these can be edited more accurately in the next step. Click select, inverse to change/inverse the selected area to the areas that I want to mask off, i,e the model, rocks and the sandy beach.
When the image is open, I assess what is needed to be done apart from the initial exposure and contrast, i,e with an image such as the image above right which is the un retouched processed raw file. As you can see, the image lacks contrast as well as being not quite as saturated as I would like. Bellow are the various steps that I did in Photoshop to make the image as I envisaged when I shot it.
Step 7: Clean up the edges of the selected areas.
To make adjustments to the edges of the masked areas, click the little box with a circle in at the bottom of the tools bar, this will change the selected area into a red mask showing the areas that are protected (as per the screen grab above), that don’t want to be altered in the next stage.
With the eraser tool I erased the red mask where it has over lapped the areas i don’t want protected. I add more red mask to areas I do want to protect with the paint brush. All of the tools can be increased in size as well as made to give softener or harder edges. Some areas around the edge of the mask needed to be feathered and some don’t, for the edges that I do want feathered, I change the softness of either the eraser or the paint brush and soften or harden as required. Practice is the way to become proficient at selecting areas to mask off.
Now, I am happy that I have accurately selected masked off areas, I am ready to switch off the red mask so I can begin to erase the areas of the lighter layer. To do this I click the little box with the circle in side.
Step 8: Erasing the areas of the lighter layer.
Click the erase tool, set the size quite large and the opacity to 100% and click and move the eraser tool over the areas to be deleted, you will see the image layer underneath being revealed as you go. It would be a good idea to enlarge your image before you go to far so you can check that the edges of the protected areas are not being damaged.
Step 9: Cropping the image and stretching image.
The industry standard size of a photographers portfolio is 11in x 14 in. as are Stylists and Hair and Make Up Artists portfolios. I wanted this image for my portfolio but the proportions wont crop to this size with out loosing either the top or the bottom of the image, cutting off either the top of her head or her knees. To get over this I stretched the sides of the image.
This is how.
First set the crop tool to 11in x 14 in at 300 dpi, then drag the crop tool on the image as per the image above, don’t crop it yet, drag the bottom left corner so the cropped area goes outside the original image so the bottom of the cropped area is in line with the bottom edge of the image then re position the cropped area centrally over the image, click ok and crop the image, it will look like the screen grab image bellow.
Step 10: Stretching the image to fit the print size.
We need to stretch the sides of the image out to cover the over cropped image edges. To do this, select the rectangular select tool and select the image from the top left hand corner and drag your selection down to the bottom and across to just before the models knee, do not select over the models leg, see screen grab above. Now click apple T (or left click, select free transform on PC) There will be little squares on the corners and centre of the selected area. click on the centre square on the left side of your selected area and drag it until the image area has stretched to the edge of the image. Repeat these steps for the right hand side of the image. Now select layers, then merge visible layers, then save as a TIFF file . If your on a mac tick for IBM PC box. If you save for Mackintosh, people not using mac will not be able to open the image. There are more options re saving but these are for a more the advanced user than this article is for.
Image finished as per the image bellow.
