LPS20 behind the scenes...
PaulThomasMcKee
Registered Users Posts: 429 Major grins
If you have a story or explanation behind your shot and want to share - Let's Hear It!
I don't have much of a story for mine...It's just a picture of my nephew Ryan. But I do feel like I learned a quite a bit while working on this image. The original was quite soft, so it needed some sharpening. My default method of sharpening - cranking the "Clarity" slider in light room - didn't provide a pleasing effect and neither did the unsharp mask tool in PS. Searching the web I found this article on sharpening using the High Pass method. It really provides a neat way to selectively sharpen a soft image and amazing control over the process.
Here's the original jpg...
Here's the High Pass sharpened version with more vignette (too much perhaps) and color adjustments...
And the cropped version that I entered -
Looking at these this way I think I like the uncropped version better now.
I don't have much of a story for mine...It's just a picture of my nephew Ryan. But I do feel like I learned a quite a bit while working on this image. The original was quite soft, so it needed some sharpening. My default method of sharpening - cranking the "Clarity" slider in light room - didn't provide a pleasing effect and neither did the unsharp mask tool in PS. Searching the web I found this article on sharpening using the High Pass method. It really provides a neat way to selectively sharpen a soft image and amazing control over the process.
Here's the original jpg...
Here's the High Pass sharpened version with more vignette (too much perhaps) and color adjustments...
And the cropped version that I entered -
Looking at these this way I think I like the uncropped version better now.
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The model was wearing a black shirt. lighting was a nikon SB600 with silver umbrella above hands slightly camera right. I used a 250W shop light ($20 at Home Depot) as fill camera left, about 6 feet from subject with parchemin paper to disfuse the light. Now, keep reading 'til the end, there is a secret!
The post-processing
1. Developed the RAW file using Raw therapee 2.2
2. Enhanced the 16-bits TIF image using Picture Window Pro 4. Here is the work flow; PW 4 works different than most but you can re-create with PS.
a. Cropped the image, the real original was bigger!
b. Created a selective mask for highlights. Used curve 80-->100 to select highlight and create mask, then applied brightness curve to tone down highlights. It basically reveals all the details.
c. Created a selective mask for mid-tones. Used curve 20-->80, the applied brightness "S" curve to enhance contrast.
d. You may have heard of the "Lazlo" effect. PW 4 does it really easily. Created a tone mask using curve (0,0 - 50,25 - 100,100). Sharpen the mask image twice with unsharp mask. Each time, use radii=2, amt=100%, thres=0.
e. Take the image and use the mask, then overlay 50% gray on top, it makes the contrast and texture come up.
f. Apply color curve to resulting image in HSL color space. Apply curve to S and L channel until you like it.
Well, the model rubbed its hand with ground coffee. I though the coffee would show on the original image but it did not. The color and texture revealed itself after post-processing!
The explaination might be hard to follow but this is what I did, whatever the result, this is the best I could do! --JY
Very interesting process and a superb result!
Tentacion - I figured that I probably wasn't letting anyone in on too big of a secret with the High-Pass sharpening method, but it's new to me and I'm pretty amazed with the nice results it seems to produce. It's good to have a new tool in the ol' (somewhat small for me) bag of tricks. I'll have to try the High-Pass/Guasian Blur thing sometime too - thanks for the tip!
-paul
I piled up dolls against the sofa. Picked up my sleeping baby and set her in front, then gently piled baby dolls in front and around her. Here's the original uncropped shot. (There's no way she would have sat still through all that awake, especially at 1/6 sec exposure!)
Just after she woke up, I set her back in the original setting and shot this:
I then pasted the eyes in, rotated a bit and blended them. I also did some sharpening and a little color adjustment to make them look a little more doll-like. I then did some skin tone adjustments so she would match the dolls better, tweaked a few of the dolls, cropped the image, got rid of the scratch on her nose and so on...
Here's the final image:
This round I started off with the idea that I would enter one at the very first opportunity, try to take a new theme-based photo every day, edit my post to show it, then decide which one to actually enter.. I did keep taking photos every day, but after my last entry, I never came up with anything I thought was better... I figure this post to be more of interest because of the process I was trying to follow, not the image or how they ended up..
First entry was that of the hobby horses. Here is the basic original in which I was working with a lighting technique in which I suspend the light above the subject and move it while the shutter is open. This muffles the shadows a bit, and overexposes the image, which was what I wanted...:
There are hundreds of these in my upstairs....
Then I took some shots of my blind shizu, at the beckoning of my wife, who says I don't take enough pictures!:
Detached retinas and a cataract in one eye... Bites if startled, but otherwise sweet.
Then I got into what was intended to be some shots of my daughter on her drums, mostly on the hands. I put the light below the drums and used slow shutter speed. I had intended to use something like this:
But I was more intrigued by a facial shot I took of her during the session:
I'd really thought of this first as one that was sort of one of my dual-theme entries, but the pm's I got talked about how it drew the eyes to the face.
It wasn't my best effort. I've spent most of the past week at horse shows, so very little time to do much outside of equestrian, and I didn't want to do that. So I left it in there and went on to thinking of what I might do for the SF.
www.HoofClix.com / Personal Facebook / Facebook Page
and I do believe its true.. that there are roads left in both of our shoes..
Not really very secret and actually not very much to show you but several people have asked me privately as well as publicly to explain how this was done.
One of the things that I find very interesting about the final image is that because of a few factors, the lighting and the removal of the specular highlights from the lights, the image ended up looking more photoshopped than it was. Erik (DoctorIT) mentioned it had a cartoon feel to it and I think that bending reality sometimes takes on that feel.
Another comment that came up several times was that the back two jars looked out of place. There is a small ledge in the brick alcove that I used to set up this shot and the two jars are sitting on that ledge. It is not obvious and because of the distance and angle of the shot they do tend to take on a out of place or floating look to them. I tried the composition without them and the whole feel and balance was severely hurt in my opinion, so I chose to leave them as they were.
When the idea first came to me I needed to decide how to execute it, for several days I thought I would use fake rubber or plastic hands and I even went on a shopping trip to see if I could find acceptable hands. Then I went on a research spree to see if there was an easy way to create my own fake hands, that too did not pan out.
In the end I decided to try a test shot to see if I could pull it off convincingly enough before actually dragging all the props and lights etc.. to the basement where I had the shoot planned.
Here is the result of my test.
This was a quick and dirty test but I learned two things from it. The water needed to be more dirty or less clear and the reflections from the lighting would need to be carefully placed or dealt with. I then mixed the water in some of the seven jars with milk and others with both milk and colored inks. One jar had some green and black food coloring added. The milk gave a nice translucent and glowing effect and also resembled an older looking specimen jar filled with formaldehyde.
Once all the jars were filled with liquid I packed them all into my car and took them to the basement I had planned on using as the backdrop along with my lights and other props.
The idea was to do a shot of the jars all in position with all the lids clamped shut. This gave me a starting point with which to base the whole image on.
Here is the initial setup without hands:
A bit warmer in color and as you can see a lot of specular highlights that got in the way of the main subjects, the hands. The shot above is all one shot they are all in place and sitting in front of the brick wall. ready for the collection to be added.
The next step was to employ some help and start collecting hands.
Each jar was filled with a hand and shot, being very careful to not move any of the jars in between frames.
Here we have our first two collected hands securely capped underneath the previously shot lids.
Dip and repeat - along with two of my own hands in the far right and left jars.
The process of removing the arm and person attached to the hand is quite simple since from shot to shot we have consistent lighting and everything is in the same position. A layer mask allows the hand and only the hand to be literally painted into the jar and then the specular highlight was eliminated to showcase the contents of each jar.
Some extra lighting angles were then blended in to allow for more depth and different shadows to try and accentuate the ledge.
Some things I thought might add to the image was a hint of blood ( too much) and also wrinkly skin from being immersed so long in the liquid. In the end it was a time factor that prevented me from taking it that far.
The whole project all together took about 12 hours of setup, studio and editing time. It has been one of my more satisfying and fun projects in this contest.
Here is the final image with the color temperature adjusted as a final step.
Thank you everyone for taking the time to message me about this creation I think I received the most private messages ever about an image this time around.
If anyone still has any questions about the how or why - I will be glad to answer them for you.
I was baffled how you were able to get her to sit there so still and look so much like a doll -- Very cool !!!!!
I'd say!!!!!
Greetings!
A work colleague of mine as a hobby performs as a juggler and fire eater at children’s events. In these kinds of acts the attention of the audience is mostly on the hands and face of the performer. This was the starting point of the image.
Some classic circus/sideshow acts trace their origins to ancient times, when they were part of broadly religious festivals, so they have metaphysical implications. <An ancient Egyptian wall painting (c. 1994-1781 B.C) appears to depict jugglers. It was found in the 15th tomb of the Beni Hassan area, Egypt. According to Dr. Bianchi, associate curator of the Brooklyn Museum, "In tomb 15, the prince is looking on to things he enjoyed in life that he wishes to take to the next world. The fact that jugglers are represented in a tomb suggests religious significance." ... "round things were used to represent solar objects, birth and death."> (Taken from Wikipedia).
Still today both the terms/associations connected with juggling and fire eating are used metaphorically. So the image picked up the ideas of fate and death, and therefore the background in the image had to represent the night cosmos filled with moonlight, but so as to look like a performer's theatrical backdrop.
My colleague is a hulk of a man, as you can see. I began to see him as representing the cosmic forces that we all are juggled by and which we try to juggle in our turn, in particular the forces that are working to bring about the time, place and circumstances of our death. His figure then became a form of the Grim Reaper. The working title of the image thus became The Executioner.
Now the cosmic executioner was in the image, I expressed our lives which he juggles in his hands as juggler’s balls, red for life and the bright blood which gives life. Like Justice, the Grim Reaper-Executioner is impartial, no victim can plead special treatment. The Executioner closes his eyes.
In classic depictions of executioners, the torso is bared and the head covered. The victim’s head is also often covered. As well, the classic executioner is a beheader with an ax. The juggler’s balls gained a dimension as the heads of the victims of the executioner over which he has complete manipulative power. The balls thus grew to be more the size of heads, bloody heads, but also to carry the significance of one whole life coming full circle to its end. The figure needed to be lit in a macabre light to point up the contrast to the doomed vitality of the balls.
In the act of execution a unique relationship is created between the executioner and his victim, who might himself be a murderer. Both are united in the taking of life. The figure in the image became ambivalent - executioner or murderer?
The taking of life is the primal source of guilt, and guilt engenders nightmares. The image grew this new dimension of a dream, a dream about the relationship between the executioner and victim in which guilt is dynamically flowing, being juggled between the two. The face is now the impartial executioner and the dead face of his victim-murderer and the face of a dreamer, all of them together.
The final title “blood on his hands…” clinches this guilty dream-shared guilt-multiple personality dimension of the image.
The balls-heads-lives are thrown up by the hands of Fate the juggler and their fate depends on the hands of the Executioner. The balls and the hands make a dynamic “fate” triangle in one plane of the image.
There can be no guilt without guilty handiwork. In another plane of the image the hands are the base of another triangle of which the head is the apex. This is the plane of guilt, which lives behind the veil, the forehead and the closed eyes (guilt is always shadowy), caused by the actions of the hands.
The hands are fundamental to the operation of the image both symbolically and compositionally. This is the inarguable link to the theme of this LPS #20. Hands of Fate, hands of Guilt, and the connection between them.
Images of a real translucent acrylic juggler’s ball backlit through a red gel were shot. The figure was shot. The veiled face was shot. The moonlit cloudscape was shot. The figure’s arms and hands were spherised and enlarged. The balls were appropriately sized and rotated. The pieces were assembled.
Some more standard images in this competition were possibly subjected to more post processing than this image.
I hope I have shared my fascination with the creation of this image with you.
http://www.behance.net/brosepix
www.tessa-hd.smugmug.com
www.printandportfolio.com
This summer's wilderness photography project: www.tessa-hd.smugmug.com/gallery/3172341
First of all, my LPS20 entry was hand held at a high ISO, at a slow shutter speed, in a dark room with only an upturned CFL for lighting. Crystal clear focus wasn't at all my intent this time. My aim was to get something with blur, a technique that I consider my strength, thought it didn't necessarily pan out this time. I challenge any of you to try this. I challenged one of my staff photographers to do this at a show this weekend, and she would accept no advice on how to do it. She know all about it! Needless to say she was all questions at the end of the day.
Then I will state for sure that post processing is a grand weakness for me, but not as weak as it was before I entered LPS6. Isn't that what this is all about? For 30 years I've been part of what is known as the "rag-machine," taking my shots, handing my film over, cards today, and moving on to the next game. This is where I have chance to move beyond that.
So I say "no thanks" to the one who just told me to "stick to horses." No Thanks.
www.HoofClix.com / Personal Facebook / Facebook Page
and I do believe its true.. that there are roads left in both of our shoes..
Emily, I never dreamed that you pasted her little eyes on what an awesome job you did.
You are all so very clever I aspire to reach that level of ideas in my head to seeing on screen/CS3. Very cool indeed.
Thanks to all for sharing your wisdom and talent.
peac, gail
I'm very happy about that!
http://www.behance.net/brosepix
Some of my comment/critique was intended “tongue in cheek”. No malicious intent I assure you and I certainly wouldn’t expect you to “stick to horses” as I sarcastically stated. My apologies.
Winston
Thank you MrsCue -- I am actually a bit surprised at how nice a response I did get from it.
Your portrait was one of my favorites as well. I hope to make comments on it in the unofficial feedback thread soon.
Why are you surprised at the positive responses? You have FREAKING HANDS IN JARS IN YOUR BASEMENT! Who'd dare tell you they looked bad?
Why suprised? The creativity you put into that was awesome. Wish I had thought of it!
Kinda reminded me of that film, "The Man with Two Brains" lol. Keeping brains in jars. Is that where you got your inspiration from?
Mine is in the whipping post if you wanna go give it some SERIOUS whipping. http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=82212
Great work!
Lisa
Thanks for all of the comments on my image. I wasn't sure if I could convincingly pull off the open eyes, so it was a great challenge for me as well!
Emily
Your high pass method is amazing - thanks for sharing! I needed that.
www.tessa-hd.smugmug.com
www.printandportfolio.com
This summer's wilderness photography project: www.tessa-hd.smugmug.com/gallery/3172341
www.HoofClix.com / Personal Facebook / Facebook Page
and I do believe its true.. that there are roads left in both of our shoes..
You're welcome and I'm glad you're getting good results. I was so thrilled with how it worked that I really felt that it was worth sharing - even though I'm sure many here already knew of it.
-paul
Hey Paul,
Thought I might share additional hints for the High Pass Method, that might give you an additional kick to your photos:
Duplicate background >>
on Background Copy >>
Control I >>
High Pass >>
(note: optional here you can add guassian blur and/or unsharpen mask) >> then Adjust opacity
Donna