Too much light?

mrcoons · December 8, 2007

While the histogram doesn't show this photo as overexposed I can't help feel that there is too much light on the subjects. Light sources were ambient light and 2 strobes. (I know I could have posed them better also that is a given.) Comments?

HiSPL · December 8, 2007

Part of the problem is the white shirt right in the middle of the frame. It is the lightest part of the photo and therefore draws your eye away from the faces. The second problem is too much background lighting. It needs to be a couple stops darker than what it is right now to make the subjects stand out better.

Ideally what I would like to see is nothing beyond the christmas tree. The faces could be lit with one strobe and a reflector for fill, and the other strobe could light the tree at about 3-4 stops darker. If you could get the second strobe up high so that it lights the tree from the top AND spills over the subjects hair at the same time you would be in business! Try to get an f8-f10 out of your strobes and use a 125th or better shutter speed and it will obliterate the wall behind the tree. You'll "see" nothing but what the strobe illuminates. This gives you the ultimate control over your lighting....

HTH!
-=Tim=-

System · December 8, 2007

you could try a gaussian blur/multiply blend mode and then ease back on the opacity slider-

and if that's too much do a screen blend mode to lighten it some (again, adjusting with the opacity slider)-

or you could bring up a new layer and burn the faces and adjust with the opacity slider-

mrcoons · December 8, 2007

HiSPL wrote:

Part of the problem is the white shirt right in the middle of the frame. It is the lightest part of the photo and therefore draws your eye away from the faces. The second problem is too much background lighting. It needs to be a couple stops darker than what it is right now to make the subjects stand out better.

Ideally what I would like to see is nothing beyond the christmas tree. The faces could be lit with one strobe and a reflector for fill, and the other strobe could light the tree at about 3-4 stops darker. If you could get the second strobe up high so that it lights the tree from the top AND spills over the subjects hair at the same time you would be in business! Try to get an f8-f10 out of your strobes and use a 125th or better shutter speed and it will obliterate the wall behind the tree. You'll "see" nothing but what the strobe illuminates. This gives you the ultimate control over your lighting....

HTH!
-=Tim=-

Thanks Tim - I will try your suggestions. I appreciate the help!

I have no idea on how to blur the background (I only have PS Elements 5 and do not use it very often) so I went back to Lightroom and reconverted the image. (First image was converted with Bibble Lite.)

Icebear · December 8, 2007

OK, ya got 'er bracketed. Fire for effect, Mr Gridley.

Chrissiebeez_NL · December 9, 2007

hope you dont mind i took a shot at it.
if you do, ill remove it for you

opened the image in Adobes Camera Raw 4.1

entered a recovery of 26 to recover some of the highlights
contrast +17
vibrance + 18

thats it.. not saying this is the way to go but the overexposed feel is gone IMO.

HiSPL · December 9, 2007

I think it would be too difficult to fix this shot in Pshop. It would require hours of work to get an acceptable image lighting-wise. On the other hand you could reshoot it in a few minutes.

The biggest killer for me is the shadow on the face of the lady in the center. The light that was camera-left is too far to the side of the subject causing a bit of harshness on the girls face with a small shadow between her cheek and nose, also it projects the girls shadow onto the face of the woman in the center. The boy is well lit, IMO.

The Key light (the main light used to illuminate the main subject) should be pulled a little closer to the camera for larger groups and should be positioned a little further away than normal. The reason for this is because you want to wash the entire group with an even amount of light and to do this you would try to position the light the same distance from each person in the group to know that they are receiving the same amount of light. Unfortunately this means a light source right on top of the camera (yuck). instead of having that type of flat single-source light we cheat the key light off to one side a bit, but not as far as we would for a single subject.

Another trick is to "feather" the light. This is where you point the key light at the furthest thing away from it. In this example, If the key light is camera left, you would point it at the boys face or actually a little further past his face. This way the boy is recieving the hottest part of the light source, but he's further away. The girl is recieving the edge of the light source, but she's closer to it. The trick is to balance the distance from the light to the edge fall-off of the light so that the two end up being nearly equal causing a nice even illumination for the whole group.

If you've done that, you will have about 3/4 of the subjects faces lit nicely, but you'll still have shadows around the nose and eyes. You can easily lighten these shadows with the use of a fill light or even better, a reflector. Placed on the other side from the key light this source will be used to lighten, but not obliterate, the shadows. You will just have to play with this to get it to look right to you, because everyone has a different idea of how much fill light to use. With a reflector it is as easy as moving it closer to your subject for more light or further away for less.

The reason I suggest using a reflector for your fill is because that leaves you another light to use as a kicker (on the floor, behind subject, shining up on the background) OR as a hairlight (up high behind the subject pointing at the back of the head/shoulders). Having a light behind your subject adds a whole new diminsion to your photograph. It really helps separate the subject from the background.

Foamcore in black and white, and cardboard gobos are your best friends when trying to control the light spillage. If you want to keep light off the wall just tape some cardboard to the side of your light for control.

I highly recomend the book Lighting, Science and Magic. It is heady reading, but there is nothing better on the subject of photographic lighting. Also the Strobist blog's lighting 101 can teach you ALOT about getting the most out of a small light package....

HTH!

{phew! that was a long post!}

Seneca · December 9, 2007

Here is my version of your picture.

[IMG][/img]

Here is yours...

My version is probably a little too dark...but what I was trying to do is darken the background and highlight the family and the tree.

mrcoons · December 9, 2007

Seneca wrote:

Here is my version of your picture.

My version is probably a little too dark...but what I was trying to do is darken the background and highlight the family and the tree.

Very nice Seneca, I like that.

HiSPL, thanks for your input as well. I will give your suggestions a try on my next attempt.

Thanks to all who posted!