Sunshine in the Valley of Fire

kdog

It's hard to go wrong with a beautiful girl in spectacular scenery. White balance was puzzling because the color in the rocks affects skin tones. So I just kind of went with the flow and didn't try to neutralize the natural reflected colors too much in the processing. I still need to process the majority of the shots, but wanted to throw a few out there for any feedback that might help for processing and/or shooting next time.

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Thanks for looking and commenting.

-joel

dlplumer

Someone is having fun.

1. WB could use some tweaking I believe (as you already noted)
2. Model seems inexperienced. Facial expression seems exactly the same in each image. Maybe work on getting her more relaxed and animated in future shoots.:D

zoomer

Great idea for a shoot. 6 and 8 for me.
I can see why white balance might be tough. The first 4, did you try the eyedropper on her white top. The last ones look better WB wise.

Just a thought, sometimes tough white balance situation like this one and when you are in green shade, pulling out the flash is a great help in getting a better white balance.

kdog

dlplumer wrote: »

Someone is having fun.

1. WB could use some tweaking I believe (as you already noted)
2. Model seems inexperienced. Facial expression seems exactly the same in each image. Maybe work on getting her more relaxed and animated in future shoots.:D

Thanks for the comments, Dan!

kdog

zoomer wrote: »

Great idea for a shoot. 6 and 8 for me.
I can see why white balance might be tough. The first 4, did you try the eyedropper on her white top. The last ones look better WB wise.

Just a thought, sometimes tough white balance situation like this one and when you are in green shade, pulling out the flash is a great help in getting a better white balance.

Thanks, Mike! The eye-dropper on the white top is the first thing I tried, and it didn't look right at all. Kinda warm and green. I tried her shorts too between the checkered stripes, not much different. I'll try a WB target next time. Although one doesn't necessarily want to nullify the color casts completely does one? Do the colors look bad? I did use a fill-flash on many of the shots, although I couldn't tell you now which ones have it.

zoomer

I think much of what you see as white balance issue is her tan blending in with the color of the rocks. In a couple of the shots her skin (on her face) looks a bit splotch, probably again because of her tan.
Maybe select the whites, inverse and then increase the rest of the exposure. Close that and then increase the black point a smidge. That may clean up the tones....maybe not.
For me, 2 and 4 are the ones where things look really blended. 2 could use more contrast/black point, 4 is where everything looks the same color.

The right or wrong of color casts can sometimes be discretionary.....

kdog

Thanks, Zoomer! I'll keep your pointers in mind as I continue to work through the shots from the shoot. Your technique to increase exposure without blowing out the whites is a real "why didn't I think of that" head-slapper. And yeah, I see portraits all the time with all sorts of discretionary color casts so that I'm not really stressing about it too much.

Hackbone

If you can adjust you raw files color temp try starting at about 5200 and see if the color is better. As a side note with models......try to stay away from the platform high heels. They tend to loose that feeling of ladylike in my opinion. Just op for a traditional high heel.

kdog

Hackbone wrote: »

If you can adjust you raw files color temp try starting at about 5200 and see if the color is better. As a side note with models......try to stay away from the platform high heels. They tend to loose that feeling of ladylike in my opinion. Just op for a traditional high heel.

Hi Charles, I appreciate you checking in. I'm a numbers guy and so 5200 was the first thing I tried. Some images look pretty good at that temperature and some looked a bit warm.

Here's an image with raw WB set to 5200K/0 tint.



To my eye this looks a little warm.

Next I tried using PS auto-color on the 5200K image and I thought it looked too cool, so I faded that back 50% and this is what I got.


Still looks a bit cool to me, and I'm seeing some blue in the hair. Perhaps something in between? I also think they look a bit oversaturated, even though saturation and vibrance were left at 0. I could desaturate which makes the skin tones look better although takes the punch out of the rocks. Any thoughts would be great.

zoomer

That last one looks pretty close. Don't look at it with the red version, reducing the red saturation really helps, let it set showing by itself on the screen for a minute then come back and look at it. Give it a bit of levels adjustment, increase white point a smidge and black point a smidge and you should be there. I really like that last shot.
She is a pretty girl.

kdog

Zoomer, thanks so much. This better?

dogwood

dlplumer wrote: »

2. Model seems inexperienced. Facial expression seems exactly the same in each image. Maybe work on getting her more relaxed and animated in future shoots.:D

She looks downright pained in some photos. Try tearing out some favorite pics from fashion/style/swimwear magazines and bring them along. Show her the poses (yes, you do the poses and do them very exaggerated) and I guarantee she'll laugh and your goal is to get the shot when she's more relaxed and laughing at you. I know it sounds crazy but try it before you knock. Models LOVE to see the photog do crazy glam poses.

kdog

Thanks for your comments, Pete. She's aware that she needs improvement on the her facial expressions. She calls that her "constipated look". She tries to do alluring, and some times, not all the time, it comes out pained-looking. Like I say, she's aware of it and working on it. I picked these shots fairly at random for the composition and posing and didn't pay that much attention to the facial expression, so I probably didn't show her in her best light. I'll pay more attention to it when I pick out more shots to process from the shoot.

However, aside from the facial expression thing, I thought her posing was actually pretty good. Can you say more about what it is about her posing that you don't like?