"Da Bros": Idea, Execution, Workflow, Final Image
elfving73
Registered Users Posts: 941 Major grins
[Disclamier: I'm lousy at doing "tutorials", and I'm no pro on photograhpy or pp what so ever, so if anything seems weird or wrong or just plain dumb, please inform me! If you wonder something that isn't explained please let me know and I'll add it to the "turorial" ]
A little background to the Idea:
When I went out to take these pictures I had no plans, just went out by chance. I was primarily going there to check up on the photo potential of the Industrial estate. It all begun when I was throwing paper for recycling one day and found a commercial catalogue from Fornarina. It was lavish and very extravagant and the mega high quality pictures on thick paper was absolutely blowing me away. It featured a beautiful (ok, let's be straight - very hot and sexy) woman doing commercial for women’s clothing and accessories on a garbage dump in a desert somewhere. I've never seen anything like it (in print at least) and I instantly felt that "WOW! That's what I want to do!" Well, that's not going to happen I guess, but that doesn't stop me from using their style for inspiration. So, my basic idea was to find a rather - how to explain - harsh? but still interesting environment to use for a shoot with a good looking women, trying to get that "commercial for women’s clothing and accessories a´la Fornarina"-feel. So, that's where the basic idea that got me out in the middle of the night came from.
Taking the pictures:
For these pictures I used my 10D on a tripod, a sigma 18-125 mm f3.5-f5.6 DC lens and my Speedlite 580EX. I shot in RAW using Manual mode. I exposed for the sky and underexposed by 1,5 stops to make it really dark blue. To get most of the scene fairly sharp, I set the aperture to 11 with an exposure of "1,6 sec. at ISO 400*. To get a little warmer touch, I set the WB to Cloudy, not necessary when shooting in RAW, since it can be altered afterwards, but I knew that that's how I wanted it.
I focused manually, approx 1/3 into the scene for maximum DOF (Depth Of Field) I experimented with the flash and found that FEC -1 in ETTL mode was enough to give jus a little fill for me (us).
* I shot in ISO 400 to reduce the exposure time. [ISO 400 give you 3 times shorter exposure compare to ISO 100. Everytime you increase the ISO by one stop, you decrese the exposure 1 stop and vice versa] Well, that shouldn't matter when using a tripod, now should it? Well, if you haven't tried, you have no idea how difficult it is to stand absolutely still for a few seconds - you always sway a little and no matter how little, the camera never fail to notice! Here is what to do: Shoot 1 frame without the model/models (you or who it might be) and the rest with the ISO setting that it'll take to get the model/models sharp. Then use the ISO 100 pic for the background image when stacking.
With the camera on tripod, and the focus and exposure manually locked on, all I had to do was to hit the self-timer and take the six pictures I needed for this pic. Hit the shutter, run into position, hit the shutter run....
PP Workflow: (ARC)
One of the great benefits of shooting in RAW is that it allows you to "develop" different exposures for maximum tonal range. It also saves you a lot of time and energy, since you only need to fine tweak 1 frame, and when you are done, just apply the same settings to the rest of the frames using "Previous conversion".
I didn't have to tweak the RAW-files all that much. Basically I increased the contrast and general saturation a little. To get the pic even warmer, I pulled the WB slider up a little. To give the sky a little extra impact, I increased "Blue Saturation" under "Calibrate". That's all there was to it, initially!
With the 6 different frames in Photoshop I begun the stacking in a 1+1-merge, 1+1-merge way to keep it simple. I took the first pic, when I'm lying on the ground and added the one with me to the right. Drag'n'drop holding down ctrl + shift makes the picture exactly centred with the other image. I used a sturdy tripod really fixed when shooting, so the frames look exactly the same only with me on different spots. I pulled down the opacity of layer 2 to approx. 50% so me on the ground on layer 1 got visable. Then I simply erased (on layer 2) around that area. Again, since the pics are exactly the same and with identic exposures, I don't even have to be particularly careful. When done, I merge. Then I drag'n'drop the next frame and do the same procedure over and over til I'm done. Really simple! :1drink
With the stacking done and the picture merged, I copy the background layer and begin with the overall pp. Clone out distubring flares, spots, things disturbingly cut of by the frame, things growing out of you head etc. etc. Then I boosted the contrast a little more, used the burn tool to darken the shadows in the sky and to darken the road a little on the lower part of the image, that are a little to obviously lit by the flash. I also brought out a little more detail in the shadows using the "Shadow/Highlight"-tool. (The best way naturally would be a new exposure from the original RAW, but I got a bit lazy)
: Then I merged the pic, did a copy, ran the pic through Neat Image (with the preset settings for an ISO 400 image), then set the layer opacity to ca 30% - this smoothens the pic just a little and gives the pic a little video game look (I think). Finaly, I added a little USM, cropped to the desired format and added a black frame using "canvas size".
[These pic isn't the same that I posted in the orignal thread, I've done these a little quick and flimsy just for this "tutorial".]
Stacked & Merged Only:
Final Image:
A little background to the Idea:
When I went out to take these pictures I had no plans, just went out by chance. I was primarily going there to check up on the photo potential of the Industrial estate. It all begun when I was throwing paper for recycling one day and found a commercial catalogue from Fornarina. It was lavish and very extravagant and the mega high quality pictures on thick paper was absolutely blowing me away. It featured a beautiful (ok, let's be straight - very hot and sexy) woman doing commercial for women’s clothing and accessories on a garbage dump in a desert somewhere. I've never seen anything like it (in print at least) and I instantly felt that "WOW! That's what I want to do!" Well, that's not going to happen I guess, but that doesn't stop me from using their style for inspiration. So, my basic idea was to find a rather - how to explain - harsh? but still interesting environment to use for a shoot with a good looking women, trying to get that "commercial for women’s clothing and accessories a´la Fornarina"-feel. So, that's where the basic idea that got me out in the middle of the night came from.
Taking the pictures:
For these pictures I used my 10D on a tripod, a sigma 18-125 mm f3.5-f5.6 DC lens and my Speedlite 580EX. I shot in RAW using Manual mode. I exposed for the sky and underexposed by 1,5 stops to make it really dark blue. To get most of the scene fairly sharp, I set the aperture to 11 with an exposure of "1,6 sec. at ISO 400*. To get a little warmer touch, I set the WB to Cloudy, not necessary when shooting in RAW, since it can be altered afterwards, but I knew that that's how I wanted it.
I focused manually, approx 1/3 into the scene for maximum DOF (Depth Of Field) I experimented with the flash and found that FEC -1 in ETTL mode was enough to give jus a little fill for me (us).
* I shot in ISO 400 to reduce the exposure time. [ISO 400 give you 3 times shorter exposure compare to ISO 100. Everytime you increase the ISO by one stop, you decrese the exposure 1 stop and vice versa] Well, that shouldn't matter when using a tripod, now should it? Well, if you haven't tried, you have no idea how difficult it is to stand absolutely still for a few seconds - you always sway a little and no matter how little, the camera never fail to notice! Here is what to do: Shoot 1 frame without the model/models (you or who it might be) and the rest with the ISO setting that it'll take to get the model/models sharp. Then use the ISO 100 pic for the background image when stacking.
With the camera on tripod, and the focus and exposure manually locked on, all I had to do was to hit the self-timer and take the six pictures I needed for this pic. Hit the shutter, run into position, hit the shutter run....
PP Workflow: (ARC)
One of the great benefits of shooting in RAW is that it allows you to "develop" different exposures for maximum tonal range. It also saves you a lot of time and energy, since you only need to fine tweak 1 frame, and when you are done, just apply the same settings to the rest of the frames using "Previous conversion".
I didn't have to tweak the RAW-files all that much. Basically I increased the contrast and general saturation a little. To get the pic even warmer, I pulled the WB slider up a little. To give the sky a little extra impact, I increased "Blue Saturation" under "Calibrate". That's all there was to it, initially!
With the 6 different frames in Photoshop I begun the stacking in a 1+1-merge, 1+1-merge way to keep it simple. I took the first pic, when I'm lying on the ground and added the one with me to the right. Drag'n'drop holding down ctrl + shift makes the picture exactly centred with the other image. I used a sturdy tripod really fixed when shooting, so the frames look exactly the same only with me on different spots. I pulled down the opacity of layer 2 to approx. 50% so me on the ground on layer 1 got visable. Then I simply erased (on layer 2) around that area. Again, since the pics are exactly the same and with identic exposures, I don't even have to be particularly careful. When done, I merge. Then I drag'n'drop the next frame and do the same procedure over and over til I'm done. Really simple! :1drink
With the stacking done and the picture merged, I copy the background layer and begin with the overall pp. Clone out distubring flares, spots, things disturbingly cut of by the frame, things growing out of you head etc. etc. Then I boosted the contrast a little more, used the burn tool to darken the shadows in the sky and to darken the road a little on the lower part of the image, that are a little to obviously lit by the flash. I also brought out a little more detail in the shadows using the "Shadow/Highlight"-tool. (The best way naturally would be a new exposure from the original RAW, but I got a bit lazy)
: Then I merged the pic, did a copy, ran the pic through Neat Image (with the preset settings for an ISO 400 image), then set the layer opacity to ca 30% - this smoothens the pic just a little and gives the pic a little video game look (I think). Finaly, I added a little USM, cropped to the desired format and added a black frame using "canvas size".[These pic isn't the same that I posted in the orignal thread, I've done these a little quick and flimsy just for this "tutorial".]
Stacked & Merged Only:
Final Image:
0
Comments
www.ivarborst.nl & smugmug
Can we have your permission to put this on our "Tutorials Site?" http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1100284
Say the word, and we'll take care of it
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Matty
Excellent!
Thanks, this is a very helpful tutorial. Thanks for taking the time to share your technique, Matty.
Two things. First, it makes such a difference when you can visualize what you want before you take the shot. In this case, you knew that making it warmer would give it more of that comic-book effect you wanted. Sweet!
Second, when I layer copies of a photo, all I do is copy/paste. No worries about lining things up, the pasted shot drops right in, easy peasy.
Again, thanks for doing this, it's great!
Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam
http://www.mcneel.com/users/jb/foghorn/ill_shut_up.au
I enjoyed it a lot
Awesome image....
Twitter: @steelephotoaz
Malte
Yes, you're right! Visualizeing is an important key! Before I've been the shoot first, think later-kind of photograper, but successfully, I've started to see the infact rahter obvious benefits of thinking first, shooting later.
Yepp, right again, copy/past does the trick too! That is one of the great things with photoshop - there are so many ways to do the same thing, and although you work with it every day for years, you could learn something new every time, if you want. What an amazing program it is!!!
Matty
Just for fun, what year are you born? I was born 1973 (19/9 - ring a bell?)
Matty
Fred
http://www.facebook.com/Riverbendphotos
Looking for tips on macro photography? Check out my Blog: No Cropping Zone.