Family studio portraits C&C please

tropico · October 15, 2010

I am still working on my studio skills, and last weekend I actually had five families in my studio. (Not at the same time, lol)

With these kids, posing was hard, so it was more playing and having fun and just try to catch the right moments. The little one just wanted to crawl around instead of sitting still.

Here are a few from one of the families.
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

jiro · October 15, 2010

I like the 5th shot best. Great use of a white background to accentuate the focus on the subject. I'd probably add some contrast and saturation on the clothes to put some more "punch" on it.

Great shots and great family btw!

tropico · October 15, 2010

jiro wrote: »

I like the 5th shot best. Great use of a white background to accentuate the focus on the subject. I'd probably add some contrast and saturation on the clothes to put some more "punch" on it. Great shots and great family btw!

Thank you!

I did add quite a bit of contrast all ready, and some temperature. I am still pretty new getting used to shooting high-key and also processing it.
It is so different from what I am used to.

reyvee61 · October 15, 2010

I'm on a "darker" display here and they look fabulous...
Great job keeping their white shirts from being washed against the white background!
Skin tones appear a wee bit on the cool side but they are all pretty consitent in this shoot.
Bravo!
I'll also take a look on my display when I get home.

tropico · October 15, 2010

reyvee61 wrote: »

I'm on a "darker" display here and they look fabulous...
Great job keeping their white shirts from being washed against the white background!
Skin tones appear a wee bit on the cool side but they are all pretty consitent in this shoot.
Bravo!
I'll also take a look on my display when I get home.

Thank you!
Please check it on your display at home, would like to know how it looks on a calibrated monitor. Having trouble calibrating my own.

Scott_Quier · October 15, 2010

Your models are wonderful and I REALLY love the expressions in the second photo. I think this is a great start. But, it appears you are having some problems with both exposure and bleed from your background.

The lack of contrast, I think, is caused by the images being a bit over-exposed and they don't quite recover when you bring it back down. But, I could be wrong.

If you don't have one, it might be a good idea to get a decent incident light/flash meter. Don't need to spend the mortgage for one - you can get a excellent one for about $250. Definitely not required, but a flash meter does tend to make life a bit easier.

Taking a look at all but your #3 image, I see a lot of light bleed from your background. If you have the room, one way to control this is to move your models further from the background and, maybe, reduce the amount of light on the background.

If you haven't see it before, you might find Zack Arias' White Seamless Tutorial :: Part 1 :: Gear & Space a good read. It really helped me get my stuff all in one sock for my session with one of my friends some time ago (see this and this)

tropico · October 15, 2010

Scott_Quier wrote: »

Your models are wonderful and I REALLY love the expressions in the second photo. I think this is a great start. But, it appears you are having some problems with both exposure and bleed from your background.

The lack of contrast, I think, is caused by the images being a bit over-exposed and they don't quite recover when you bring it back down. But, I could be wrong. If you don't have one, it might be a good idea to get a decent incident light/flash meter. Don't need to spend the mortgage for one - you can get a excellent one for about $250. Definitely not required, but a flash meter does tend to make life a bit easier.

Taking a look at all but your #3 image, I see a lot of light bleed from your background. If you have the room, one way to control this is to move your models further from the background and, maybe, reduce the amount of light on the background.

If you haven't see it before, you might find Zack Arias' White Seamless Tutorial :: Part 1 :: Gear & Space a good read. It really helped me get my stuff all in one sock for my session with one of my friends some time ago (see this and this)

Thanks a lot for your opinions. Yeah, I am actually saving up to buy a flash meter, but I do not have one at the moment.
I do not have a lot of space, but I want to buy some kind of doors (like the one zack use) to not get the light spill on the models from my background lights.

I will keep on working, hopefully I will get it right soon! lol...

I actually took Zack Arias online course about lightning and I loved it! That man is awesome!!!!

Dmanning · October 15, 2010

Great photos! Really nice job with the family. On my calibrated monitor it looks a little overexposed and a little too blue. On my uncalibrated monitor they look perfect.

Go figure.

tropico · October 15, 2010

Dmanning wrote: »

Great photos! Really nice job with the family. On my calibrated monitor it looks a little overexposed and a little too blue. On my uncalibrated monitor they look perfect. Go figure.

Thanks!!!

I guess I need to work a little bit more with them. Really want to get them right.
I got the raw files so I might be able to fix it.

reyvee61 · October 15, 2010

Dmanning wrote: »

Great photos! Really nice job with the family. On my calibrated monitor it looks a little overexposed and a little too blue. On my uncalibrated monitor they look perfect. Go figure.

Indeed, on my home display they do appear much brighter and definitely on the cool side.
The skin tones also appear to be a wee heavy on the magenta as well

tropico · October 15, 2010

reyvee61 wrote: »

Indeed, on my home display they do appear much brighter and definitely on the cool side.
The skin tones also appear to be a wee heavy on the magenta as well

Thanks for the feedback.

Back to Photoshop!

tropico · October 15, 2010

Ok. I am back to my Photoshop now, and I got the original photo in front of me.
It looks terrible, it is underexposed, and I now realize there is maybe no way I can fix this photo....

I really lost my spirit now.... and I feels kind of hopeless.

:cry

Ok... I am a drama-queen. lol.

reyvee61 · October 15, 2010

tropico wrote: »

Ok. I am back to my Photoshop now, and I got the original photo in front of me.
It looks terrible, it is underexposed, and I now realize there is maybe no way I can fix this photo....

I really lost my spirit now.... and I feels kind of hopeless.

:cry

Ok... I am a drama-queen. lol.

I just did a small test on one of your images and I was able to warm up the skin-tones a tad.
I don't feel they are beyond fixing especially if they are underexposed.
Do you shoot RAW?

jiro · October 15, 2010

I hope you don't mind...
I decided to play around with your #5 image (the one i really like best) on photoshop and here is what I did and the result:

1. Copied the base background layer and run NikSoftware's ColorEfex 'white neutralizer' feature to get rid of the magenta cast a little bit.

2. Using this new layer I invoke the same software and used the 'pro contrast' feature and jacked up the contrast by 50% but kept the color cast correction to zero since the white neutralizer already handled that.

2. Using this new adjusted layer I used NikSoftware's Viveza light control software and added one control point on the short area of the baby (the white portion of the short) and bump up the brightness level a little bit to reduce the shadows on this area.

The end result is on the attached image. My monitor is not calibrated so I don't know if I got it correct (though it looks OK to me.

)

I hope I did not offend you by using and adjusting your image, tropico.

tropico · October 15, 2010

reyvee61 wrote: »

I just did a small test on one of your images and I was able to warm up the skin-tones a tad.
I don't feel they are beyond fixing especially if they are underexposed.
Do you shoot RAW?

Yes, I shoot raw.
I am trying to fix them right now, but I just make them look worse.

I think I fixed my screen so I see what you see now too.

tropico · October 15, 2010

jiro wrote: »

I decided to play around with your #5 image (the one i really like best) on photoshop and here is what I did and the result:

1. Copied the base background layer and run NikSoftware's ColorEfex 'white neutralizer' feature to get rid of the magenta cast a little bit.

2. Using this new layer I invoke the same software and used the 'pro contrast' feature and jacked up the contrast by 50% but kept the color cast correction to zero since the white neutralizer already handled that.

2. Using this new adjusted layer I used NikSoftware's Viveza light control software and added one control point on the short area of the baby (the white portion of the short) and bump up the brightness level a little bit to reduce the shadows on this area.

The end result is on the attached image. My monitor is not calibrated so I don't know if I got it correct (though it looks OK to me. )

I hope I did not offend you by using and adjusting your image, tropico.

Thank you!
No, I am not offended at all.

I am desperatly seeking help since I am totally failing...

I haven't used NikSoftware (is it the Nikon cameras software?) before. I shoot Canon and use Lightroom and Photoshop CS5.
To me the photo looks too bright maybe, but my screen is not calibrated either.

reyvee61 · October 15, 2010

"jiro"
The Pro Contrast filter added way to much contrast and blew the image out plus the skin tones are on the ghostly side especially on the baby's face.

reyvee61 · October 15, 2010

tropico wrote: »

Thank you!
No, I am not offended at all.
I am desperatly seeking help since I am totally failing...

I haven't used NikSoftware (is it the Nikon cameras software?) before. I shoot Canon and use Lightroom and Photoshop CS5.
To me the photo looks too bright maybe, but my screen is not calibrated either.

Nik software is available for PS, Aperture and CNX2 as a plugin

tropico · October 15, 2010

reyvee61 wrote: »

Nik software is available for PS, Aperture and CNX2 as a plugin

Thanks for the input. I got a lot to learn.

reyvee61 · October 15, 2010

Monica I used Color Efex Pro in Capture NX2 to warm the baby's skin tones a tad.
Capture utilizes control points for speed and ease.
I applied a control point on the baby's face and used the Remove Color Cast filter at 50 percent strength to effect only the skin and then I used the heal tool to touch up the artifacts on the white background.
Did a small amount of tweaking with curves in RGB mode

reyvee61 · October 15, 2010

Yikes!
There's a huge band of artifacts running the length of the frame right above baby's head...that wasn't there until I uploaded here.....whoops!
But I hope this demonstrates the warmth in the skin tones....

tropico · October 15, 2010

reyvee61 wrote: »

Yikes!
There's a hug band of artifacts running the length of the frame right above baby's head...that wasn't there until I uploaded here.....whoops!
But I hope this demonstrates the warmth in the skin tones....

Thanks a lot for taking the time to help me!
The process look great!

I will play around in photoshop tomorrow morning, my brain works much better in the morning. (it is 10.18 pm now)

reyvee61 · October 15, 2010

tropico wrote: »

Thanks a lot for taking the time to help me!
The process look great!

I will play around in photoshop tomorrow morning, my brain works much better in the morning. (it is 10.18 pm now)

Funny, I'm so the opposite...such a night owl I am :-)

jiro · October 15, 2010

reyvee61 wrote: »

"jiro"
The Pro Contrast filter added way to much contrast and blew the image out plus the skin tones are on the ghostly side especially on the baby's face.

Thanks for the comment. I guess my monitor is way off to totally wash out the skin tones from the adjustment. I'd probably add a mask on the 'pro contrast' adjustment layer to cover the skin areas of the baby's face to lessen the wash-out result. Thanks again.

Scott_Quier · October 15, 2010

tropico wrote: »

Ok. I am back to my Photoshop now, and I got the original photo in front of me.
It looks terrible, it is underexposed, and I now realize there is maybe no way I can fix this photo....

I really lost my spirit now.... and I feels kind of hopeless.

:cry

Ok... I am a drama-queen. lol.

Well, that would tend to explain the lack of contrast. When you start with under-exposed images and then push the exposure in post, you pay the price somewhere. It's usually in increased noise and loss of contrast.

Since you don't yet have a light meter, you can always use the histogram in your camera. Since you are working with stobes, you can more easily control your exposure than if you were shooting somewhere dark.

Shoot in manual mode, shutter speed somewhere between 1/120 and 1/250 (but less than you x-sync, whatever that might be - check your owner's manual for that information). Set your ISO to 100 or 200 and your aperture to a value of your choice. Take a test shot and check out the histogram. Most of your image data should be pushed to the right. If it's not, then you need to increase your exposure (increase light, open aperture, increase ISO .... or some combination of these three) and take another shot. Check your histogram. Does it look good? Yes. OK, now check the image on your camera LCD - do you have any blinkies? No? Good, unless you have yet to turn them on.

Anyway, once you have it dialed in (and it shouldn't take more than 10 minutes once you have your lights positioned where you want them), you can snap away with nary a care. Easy, peasy! Hope that helps a bit.

BTW - on my calibrated monitor, the image brightness looks ok, but the WB is off a bit. Some are heavy on the magenta (the first one is a good example) and most are a bit cool.

tropico · October 16, 2010

Scott_Quier wrote: »

Well, that would tend to explain the lack of contrast. When you start with under-exposed images and then push the exposure in post, you pay the price somewhere. It's usually in increased noise and loss of contrast.

Since you don't yet have a light meter, you can always use the histogram in your camera. Since you are working with stobes, you can more easily control your exposure than if you were shooting somewhere dark.

Shoot in manual mode, shutter speed somewhere between 1/120 and 1/250 (but less than you x-sync, whatever that might be - check your owner's manual for that information). Set your ISO to 100 or 200 and your aperture to a value of your choice. Take a test shot and check out the histogram. Most of your image data should be pushed to the right. If it's not, then you need to increase your exposure (increase light, open aperture, increase ISO .... or some combination of these three) and take another shot. Check your histogram. Does it look good? Yes. OK, now check the image on your camera LCD - do you have any blinkies? No? Good, unless you have yet to turn them on.

Anyway, once you have it dialed in (and it shouldn't take more than 10 minutes once you have your lights positioned where you want them), you can snap away with nary a care. Easy, peasy! Hope that helps a bit.

BTW - on my calibrated monitor, the image brightness looks ok, but the WB is off a bit. Some are heavy on the magenta (the first one is a good example) and most are a bit cool.

I usually use the histogram and do everything you say, but this was one of my first sessions after I got my strobes, so everything didn't work out perfectly.

Thank you for your advice.

D'Buggs · October 16, 2010

Scott_Quier wrote: »

BTW - on my calibrated monitor, the image brightness looks ok, but the WB is off a bit. Some are heavy on the magenta (the first one is a good example) and most are a bit cool.

x2

Mark1616 · October 21, 2010

I love the fun photos here and although as some have pointed out there are adjustments to be made (for the photographic eye) I'm sure the family loved them. What paper did you use (brand/colour), I'm guessing it's a super white but I've never used this yet however I love the results with some reflection.

Family studio portraits C&C please

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