Please Save Me!!

goldilocksandmy3bears

Hey all i had a photoshoot a week ago and although every person posed correctly (11 people) the family shoots came out horriable in regards to the lighting (i've also been trying to clone in the rest of the stupid backdrop) can someone correct these or give me an idea of how to correct them? please save me!!
Thanks a bunch:bow

goldilocksandmy3bears

anyone???

Wil Davis

I don't know what resources you have access to, or how familiar you are with the ones you have, but if all else fails I'd use PhotoShop to isolate the group from the background, which I'd then fade to white (or whatever). If I get some time, I'll try it with one of those you posted here!



- Wil

goldilocksandmy3bears

Wil Davis wrote:

I don't know what resources you have access to, or how familiar you are with the ones you have, but if all else fails I'd use PhotoShop to isolate the group from the background, which I'd then fade to white (or whatever). If I get some time, I'll try it with one of those you posted here!



- Wil

Awesome ! yes I use CS4
thank you
Court

Agnieszka

Hi there.

I'm not going to be too much of a help, but 2 questions:

1. Are those paying clients?
2. Could you do an outdoor reshoot with them?

I'm sure finding a good date for 11 people, or 6 adults would not be easy and I'm also sure it would not be your first choice if they were actually paying clients, ... and not your family ...

I'd say saving your pics will be a tough one! There is a lot that would need to be done :cry and I would just ask them if they would mind to pose again.

IF they would be ok with a reshoot, I'd take them outside. After years of shooting, I do not accept to shoot any clients at my home, mostly because it requires a big backdrop, some light and other mobiliar that I just don't have. Shooting outside will cut your problems into half, then you just need to worry about the posing & lighting. But def. don't book any clients for a "studio" shoot if you don't have all the required necessities ... my 2 cents

nightpixels

Agnieszka wrote:

Hi there.

I'm not going to be too much of a help, but 2 questions:

1. Are those paying clients?
2. Could you do an outdoor reshoot with them?

I'm sure finding a good date for 11 people, or 6 adults would not be easy and I'm also sure it would not be your first choice if they were actually paying clients, ... and not your family ...

I'd say saving your pics will be a tough one! There is a lot that would need to be done :cry and I would just ask them if they would mind to pose again.

IF they would be ok with a reshoot, I'd take them outside. After years of shooting, I do not accept to shoot any clients at my home, mostly because it requires a big backdrop, some light and other mobiliar that I just don't have. Shooting outside will cut your problems into half, then you just need to worry about the posing & lighting. But def. don't book any clients for a "studio" shoot if you don't have all the required necessities ... my 2 cents

I completely agree with this. I believe reshoot, if possible is pretty much the only way to go, that is if your intention is to deliver them a great product (assuming clients?). Your problem is not only in the backdrop, the lighting needs a major fix and I am not sure how much Photoshop can help you here. PS will certainly improve the pictures but by how much remains to be seen until after some experimentation.

goldilocksandmy3bears

A reshoot is completly out of the question. One of the husband/wife couple lives in another country and was just here for Thanksgiving.. I'm doing my best working w/ PS... I'll post what I come up with..
I totally agree w/ you about only doing outdoor photos however the only time the whole family could get together was after 5..after 5 here its dark.

rainbow

I played with them briefly: increased saturation, sharpness and brightness; decreased highlights; shifted white balance. I am not experienced at PP: I use trial and error as my main technique.

Nikonic1

I guess, with A LOT of work you might be able to somewhat salvage #1. I didn't try to touch #2 but did a little messing around on #1 trying to retouch and clone out a lot of the background and soften it up and it somewhat worked. Keeping any sharpness around their heads and hair while processing this much is going to be tricky though.

Good luck. Here's me just messing around....this is by no means a final edit or something I'm proud of....just shows what kind of transformation is possible with some work. THe light coming from the left is almost impossible to deal with. I suppose you could try to take some yellow out of it. This edit took me about 4 minutes.

Nikonic1

dunnodunno

Nikonic1

Nikonic1

scratchscratch

Nikonic1

I hope no one bashes these 3 minute attempts/edits.....I know there are a ton of flaws, just seeing what might be possible. GOod luck in trying to save these goldilocks.....

nightpixels

Here they are. Spent half and hour to improve the backdrop and the lighting for you. Obviously still not perfect:

kidzmom

Those 2 look a lot better! If they are paying customers----since you can't resched....I'd definately refund them. I'd print what was proposed in those last 2 posts...see how they print up and then see if they like them. This is just me but I'd just offer a free shoot the next time they are home for Thanksgiving.

BriShay

i think nikonic did a great job with the background and the last post did great on the lighting fixes!!! ...

THe black and whites look pretty good.....

Nikonic1

BriShay wrote:

i think nikonic did a great job with the background and the last post did great on the lighting fixes!!! ...

THe black and whites look pretty good.....

The lighting in nightpixels' attempts is much nicer. Take those and do a bit more fudging with the background and you're sort of getting somewhere. I tried to soften out the whole background to remove the crazy/too random wrinkles in it.

Swartzy

Sorry but all the Photoshopping in the world won't save these. They're not even in focus and that's just the beginning. This requires a reshoot. If they paid you money, give it back.

jeffreaux2

Swartzy wrote:

Sorry but all the Photoshopping in the world won't save these. They're not even in focus and that's just the beginning. This requires a reshoot. If they paid you money, give it back.

I have to agree with this sentiment and the other similar ones.....


If it were me......I'd offer a reshoot AND a refund for the sitting fee.

You have to ask youself even IF it could be somehow salvaged......is THIS the image I want passed around to prospective future clients? All of my work comes by word of mouth and reputation, and this would never see the light of day.

goldilocksandmy3bears

Thank you all for your input and to those who helped PS them thanks a bunch!!
here is my PS work on them..

davev

Yeah, these are pretty tough.

I think the only chance to get anything out of them is B&W, and even then....
I gave it shot, but I'm not happy with what I came up with.

I'll give you my one tip for portraits that I use: Leave room for cropping.
The pros used to use a 4 megapixel camera and come up with great 8X10's.
I have a 21 megapixel camera, I can throw away a few pixels if I need to.
If there was a little more room around the group, it would have helped.
And instead of the curtain, the plain wall would have served as a better back drop.

Just to get it this far took a ton of work.
1) Straighten the shot.
2) add onto the right side and top for cropping purpose.
3) use gradient map to convert to B&W, merge visible.
4) Duplicate layer
5) run Topaz adjust on top layer
6) add a layer mask on top layer and remove the faces, letting lower layer come though
7) adjust layer slider to where I like blend.
8) add the vignetting.

This doesn't include the little changes in sharpening, dodging and burning, etc.

Good luck.

Anyway.

goldilocksandmy3bears

davev wrote:

Yeah, these are pretty tough.

I think the only chance to get anything out of them is B&W, and even then....
I gave it shot, but I'm not happy with what I came up with.

I'll give you my one tip for portraits that I use: Leave room for cropping.
The pros used to use a 4 megapixel camera and come up with great 8X10's.
I have a 21 megapixel camera, I can throw away a few pixels if I need to.
If there was a little more room around the group, it would have helped.
And instead of the curtain, the plain wall would have served as a better back drop.

Just to get it this far took a ton of work.
1) Straighten the shot.
2) add onto the right side and top for cropping purpose.
3) use gradient map to convert to B&W, merge visible.
4) Duplicate layer
5) run Topaz adjust on top layer
6) add a layer mask on top layer and remove the faces, letting lower layer come though
7) adjust layer slider to where I like blend.
8) add the vignetting.

This doesn't include the little changes in sharpening, dodging and burning, etc.

Good luck.

Anyway.

thank you dave!

BriShay

Nikonic1 wrote:

The lighting in nightpixels' attempts is much nicer. Take those and do a bit more fudging with the background and you're sort of getting somewhere. I tried to soften out the whole background to remove the crazy/too random wrinkles in it.

The background job is very well done IMO!!!

Luke1971

I have been lurking on here, and came across your post. I thought i would register, and see if maybe I could help. As someone mentioned before, the lighting is very uneven. I used a contrast mask in Gimp to see if I could even it out a little. Then i used a gaussian blur over the whole image and added a layer mask. I painted the group back in, and left the blurred background. I turned the group in to a selection, and feathered it at about 7 pix. A little bit of sharpening, and it was done. I spent about 20 minutes on this, so it could have been a lot better.
Regards, Luke

cdonovan

goldilocksandmy3bears wrote:

Thank you all for your input and to those who helped PS them thanks a bunch!!
here is my PS work on them..

Even before seeing the "before photoshop" pictures, these just don't' seem right. My eye goes right past the people to the totally distracting background, there is actually a line at the top going through a few of their heads. I'd say, personally, since you have to work with what you've got, is use a layer mask and get rid of the background completely, fill the background with a solid color, render it with "clouds" and put some mean and might blur on top of the clouds, that will mimic a backdrop. The render lighting to try and compliment the way the people are lit. Applying the mask is what will take the most time to make sure they don't look like they've been cut out with scissors, to do this correctly you'll need to taper around each line, and make the transition gradual, and look natural to give them a 3d look.

BriShay

love what you did with the BG luke!

kidzmom

REALLY nice b/g Luke! I agree 100% that the bg is very distracting. Especially so in the photo of the adults where the horozontal line is very distracting and dominant. Luke's (or Davev's) solution is the best that can be hoped for!

Luke1971

Here is the second of the set. It looks like you had some mixed lighting going on in these pics. To me, the color will be the hardest thing to fix.
I won't go in to all I did with this image, as it took quite a bit of work, and I am still not happy with it. Just wanted to show you that if you have no other option for a reshoot, these can be salvaged.

goldilocksandmy3bears

Luke1971 wrote:

I have been lurking on here, and came across your post. I thought i would register, and see if maybe I could help. As someone mentioned before, the lighting is very uneven. I used a contrast mask in Gimp to see if I could even it out a little. Then i used a gaussian blur over the whole image and added a layer mask. I painted the group back in, and left the blurred background. I turned the group in to a selection, and feathered it at about 7 pix. A little bit of sharpening, and it was done. I spent about 20 minutes on this, so it could have been a lot better.
Regards, Luke

Thank you Luke for taking the time to work on it.I like what you did w/ the background!! I'm glad to see my horriable pictures finally made you join digitalgrin

woytek

goldilocksandmy3bears wrote:

Hey all i had a photoshoot a week ago and although every person posed correctly (11 people) the family shoots came out horriable in regards to the lighting (i've also been trying to clone in the rest of the stupid backdrop) can someone correct these or give me an idea of how to correct them? please save me!!
Thanks a bunch

A background fix idea: If you are somewhat committed to the background (it seems as you are, as several people have suggested getting rid of it entirely in favor of a possibly-desaturated solid background), take another shot with just the background filling the frame and oriented in a way that you avoid the strange-looking pleats. In Photoshop, cut-out the people and replace the background behind them. You could even take this time to do something creative with the background lighting.

Several other people already came up with some good fixes for the lighting color balance problems. Personally, I think the only reasonable ways to go would be with the creative desaturation or going to B&W.

jonathan

Luke1971

goldilocksandmy3bears wrote:

Thank you Luke for taking the time to work on it.I like what you did w/ the background!! I'm glad to see my horriable pictures finally made you join digitalgrin

You are very welcome. I didn't think they were horrible! You should see some of mine! They are usually badly underexposed. lol! This seems like a nice place, with some friendly folks!