Digital Camera & Photoshop tips

[Ookii]

Nice work Ookii. You got another flash you can remote trigger? A backlight in some of them would give some really nice separation from the background.

You've inspired me to have another go, just signed up on Model Mayhem :)

I wish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That would make things so much easier, and I could use my home studio much more effectively (not to mention I could get specular highlights on hair and pure white backdrops).

I'm going by the advice of Zack Arias, stick with one flash and a 60" umbrella for a year.  So that's what I'm doing.

I haven't tried a casting call on model mayhem yet, I've only been doing Craigslist.  I have a shitty port on MM right now, soon I can update it and actually show it to people.

[Righ]

And yes, a MUA and a hair stylist would be great. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Photoshop.

[Ookii]

And yes, a MUA and a hair stylist would be great. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Photoshop.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHA.

You serious dude?

[stray]

I would definitely not want to photoshop faces too much.. But if I were like you, and interested in nudes, I'd more likely photoshop an ass or two. Heh


Yeah anyways, finding a makeup artist or stylist interested in free/amateur work seems like it might be harder than finding a model. You could always learn yourself too though. 

[Mosesandstick]

Nice photos Ooki! I'd going to have to agree with everyone who says either MUA or PS. There are some clear blemishes and there's some bruising on the legs of the first model (women bruise much easier than men, something to be wary of). Unless you're purposefully going for a 'natural' look I guess.

I recently got some photos printed off photobox.co.uk and the results were  . I've tried calibrating my monitor and I just can't get the settings to fit exactly. The site I use I think basically prints the photos as they are with pretty much no adjustment. I think it might also have something to do with printing at 6x4. It just seems like without heavily saturated colours the photos seem very bland. My landscape photos seem 'insignificant', and I'm guessing this is the transferring of a huge scene to a tiny photo  .

Anyone had similar experience?

I just got a D90 and a UWA, and I'd like to print some photos I took at a really large size, maybe even a 30x20. I viewed some on a friend's 24" Dell and it just seems like a totally different experience.

[Merusk]

Were you really nervous around the nude model? She looks scared/ uncomfortable to me in both pics. Nice shots, you can just see the tension in her face and postures.

[apocrypha]

I recently got some photos printed off photobox.co.uk and the results were  . I've tried calibrating my monitor and I just can't get the settings to fit exactly. The site I use I think basically prints the photos as they are with pretty much no adjustment. I think it might also have something to do with printing at 6x4. It just seems like without heavily saturated colours the photos seem very bland. My landscape photos seem 'insignificant', and I'm guessing this is the transferring of a huge scene to a tiny photo  .

Anyone had similar experience?

I just got a D90 and a UWA, and I'd like to print some photos I took at a really large size, maybe even a 30x20. I viewed some on a friend's 24" Dell and it just seems like a totally different experience.

Definitely get or borrow a monitor calibrator if you can. It is difficult to get prints to look like how they do on a monitor though - monitors are emissive (emitting? Glowy anyway!), prints are reflective for starters, but if you incorporate colour management throughout your workflow, keep your monitor calibrated and use a good print lab you'll be able to get pretty decent results.

I use a place called ProAm in Bradford. You have to jump through a few hoops for them like using their printer profile and correct sizing and folder labelling on the CD you send them, but their prints are excellent and pretty cheap (59p 12"x8", £1.22 18"x12").

Printing at 30"x20" is possibly pushing it for a 12MP image. You'd need to res up and that might look crappy, but it totally depends on the photo and just how good you need it to look. You get far enough away from any image printed at any size and it'll look ok 

[Bunk]

And yes, a MUA and a hair stylist would be great. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Photoshop.

Wider shots that aren't closeups of the face can be doctored a little to remove blemishes  - healing brush for the win.

Beyond that though - no thanks.

Not only is finding a makeup artist to work with tough, finding one that has skills beyond "slap on five pounds of foundation" seems to be even harder.

[Mosesandstick]

Thanks as always Apoc.

I like that site you showed me, there prices seem dirt cheap. Unfortunately I'm also interested in things like photobooks so I've got to use a site like photobox for those.

I don't understand fully how the software works  . For example, if I have a calibration print (physically and on my computer), could I use those with the calibration software to calibrate my monitor?

[Ookii]

Were you really nervous around the nude model? She looks scared/ uncomfortable to me in both pics. Nice shots, you can just see the tension in her face and postures.

Really? I don't see that at all, we got along great. I wasn't really nervous, she knows exactly what to do as a model.

[Teleku]

Yeah, I'm not seeing it either.  She looks pretty relaxed to me.

[lamaros]

Were you really nervous around the nude model? She looks scared/ uncomfortable to me in both pics. Nice shots, you can just see the tension in her face and postures.

I got the exact opposite feeling from the shots. Thought maybe the expression in her face in the full body pic actually might even have taken away a bit from the shot overall because it was a bit too confident or whatever (nice expression, just not sure it worked with the shot, though I'm not sure what you were going for with it, so...).

[Nerf]

Maybe you should get naked too Ookii.  You know, to make them feel more comfortable.  You could probably sell the ensuing photo set for more too.

[Merusk]

Upon review it was just the 2nd shot I really saw it in.  I only peeked at the nude for a moment yesterday morning since the kids were up and about and I didn't want them walking up while I was looking.  Yeah, the full body shot looks relaxed.   The face shot, though I still see some tension around the eyes and something about her posture says 'tense' to me. Since that was the one I was focusing on I must have projected that impression on the quick view of the body shot.

[Ookii]

I've made a deal with myself to shoot everyone who responds to my request, but we'll have to see how that works. There are some people out there who want to model for some odd reason, but really shouldn't. I have to figure out how to shoot less nice looking people.

[Jherad]

I have to figure out how to shoot less nice looking people.

 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1EIOLOzYyo

I liked the second nude pic - didn't look tense to me. She has a great face.

This thread has been an eyeopener, I had no idea how much thought/prep goes into good photography.

[Merusk]

I've made a deal with myself to shoot everyone who responds to my request, but we'll have to see how that works. There are some people out there who want to model for some odd reason, but really shouldn't. I have to figure out how to shoot less nice looking people.

My drawing teacher freshman year in college made a point of hiring only 'funny' looking people for our 3 weeks of life drawing.  Ultra fat women, overly-muscled short & stocky men, ultra skinny women with odd bony bodies.  Her feeling was that the varied body types were far more interesting than just some chiseled & sculpted Adonis or Aphrodite.   Looking back, I'm inclined to agree when doing art.  Think about it that way and you'll find the shots.

  Just make sure the ultra-hung black dude doesn't make a point of stretching in front of the 19 year old girls. 

[schild]

And yes, a MUA and a hair stylist would be great. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Photoshop.

I made these back in 2003 for a Fark Photoshop contest.


Unfortunately, I did not win.

Edit: Spoilered, a little scrolly.

[Miguel]

Unfortunately, I did not win.

Hell, I'd say we all won with those.

[Ookii]

Look what I found out how to do tonight!



IT'S AMAZING.

[Ookii]

Also:



And two more this weekend.

[apocrypha]

What's the skin cleanup technique you're using there Ookii?

I've got a couple of models from ModelMayhem lined up for the next week or two. Had one no-show yesterday. Tut, 20-yr olds, unreliable!

[apocrypha]

Enough nikon nuts here that I'll post this.

If you want to watch that sort of thing, keep an eye on this site which was the source.

Lots of new toys announced today, the most important of which (to Nikon) is the new budget D3000. The most wonderful is of course the new 70-200 2.8 VR II. If it really does have greatly superior corner sharpness on full frame sensors, I imagine lots of people will be looking to sell the old model which is perfect for DX. And that would do me nicely.

Following up on this, it's looking like the D700? announcement is going to be D700S (pretty much just D700 with video and costing more $£) instead of the D700X (rumoured to be a 24MP beastie).

This probably means that the D700 will be discontinued and prices of remaining stock will rise, since it'll be replaced with the D700S which will be more expensive. So.... if you're a Nikon APS-C user thinking of switching to a full-frame camera now might be a really good time to get a D700 while the prices are where they are now.

Of course that's all rumour & speculation 

[stray]

Hey, am I imagining things, or was film ever as unflattering for skin/pores as digital is?

Also, we don't see the world this way either. I think having high detail is great for some things, but wonder if there's something that can be done to tone it down a bit just with camera settings/lighting, instead of post processing? Something that approximates human vision.

[schild]

Hey, am I imagining things, or was film ever as unflattering for skin/pores as digital is?

Also, we don't see the world this way either. I think having high detail is great for some things, but wonder if there's something that can be done to tone it down a bit just with camera settings/lighting, instead of post processing? Something that approximates human vision.

It has nothing to do with film vs. digital. Film is just as harsh as digital as is made evident by the pore-revealing nature of blu-ray. In fact, I'd say film is probably worse if you really got into it. It was just a matter of us not having a high-enough resolution monitor/tv at home to reveal said things and the lack of formats that film would benefit from (being that we just broke the 480p barrier within the last decade for video.

[apocrypha]

Also, we don't see the world this way either. I think having high detail is great for some things, but wonder if there's something that can be done to tone it down a bit just with camera settings/lighting, instead of post processing? Something that approximates human vision.

Human vision works very differently from cameras though. We see a small area in high detail and the rest in pretty low detail but we move the small area around lots and have an awesome brain that fills in the rest.

In many ways photography is an abstract media compared to the way our brain and eyes really see things. You're not really creating a perfect rendition of any scene except in the narrow sense of how the camera records light. We do a lot of things to make images that give the impression of the things we want - slow shutter speed and rear-curtain flash to create the feeling of movement for instance - but a high level of artificiality is kinda inherent to the medium I think.

That said, if you want, for instance, portraits with a more natural, flattering look then you can easily do things like shoot at very wide apertures (very good for blurring skin textures, as long as you've got a good sharp point on an eye or whatever), use very soft lighting (big huge light sources like flash bouncing off a white wall or a cloudy sky) which softens texture a lot and overexpose on faces a touch (a trick often used by celebrity magazines on ageing film stars).

[stray]

Thanks for the tips..

re: "high level of artificiality.." Besides natural shots, I think it's best to just play this up on the other extreme too. One thing I like about the DP2 I have is that it's 41mm (which is pretty close to a "natural" perspective, I think), yet the IQ can be surreal at times. I mean, it's possible to make things look even more surreal because the focal length kind of parallels how we view the world -- yet, what is seen is shit you'll probably never exactly see with your eyes. If that makes sense...

[Mosesandstick]

I find personally, that around 40-60mm  is around the area that we naturally percieve, excluding the peripherals. No image taken with a camera will simulate what we see with our eyes, unless you print a photo that's capable of filling a room and we can naturally 'ignore' the edges of the photo.

I find that people arguing over IQ and PS/PPing a bit irrelevent. I doubt any of us (since we're mainly male) hasn't thought a girl was really pretty and then when once we've started talking to her being surprised at how her skin looks (the number of beers helps too...). I think it's unreal to expect a photo on a computer screen to look like a real woman. If I wanted it to I'd go and find one  .

[stray]

Uh, I'm not just talking about women. I'm an equal opportunity "doens't like anybody looking like shit" photographer. ;) So far, my only guarantee is just kids. Seeing that they always have extremely smooth skin as to make an unflattering image impossible.

[Mosesandstick]

Sorry, maybe my mind was still preoccupied with all the talk about models and studios... 

I understand what you mean, my general point is that we rarely ever see someone's face as close as we do when we take a photo. Then it's a photographer's choice whether he wants to keep things looking natural or PP things away. If you want to print or display things very large it's probably undesirable to heavily PP things; it seems to me that we are more naturally drawn towards the falseness of a photo at significant sizes. When something is small it seems more visually pleasing for things to be smoothed over where we will be easily drawn to blemishes or 'flaws'.

[Ookii]

The overwhelming majority of photos are retouched, that's just how things are.

Whether it's a couple clicks of the healing brush are low and high frequency retouching though, that's a bit different! 

[stray]

Well to get back to that, you did a good job btw. Nothing against retouching. I was just looking for tips to bypass it, if possible. Also, I refuse to buy Photoshop these days (or pirate it), so it's almost a necessity to think of different methods. The only tool I have made for retouching is the little bullshit feature in iPhoto. It's good for small spots, but if I were to work on a whole cheek, it'd come out like a Dior ad.

[Mrbloodworth]

 

[Mrbloodworth]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean Stray. The picture of her in the black jacket is sundown and the pic of her in the green jacket is complete darkness. It's not so fun using a ringflash in darkness when it obscures the autofocusing light.

So far it's working out Bunk, I have a couple more models lined up, though I've already have one not show up.

And yes, a MUA and a hair stylist would be great. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

What is it you do? This a hobby or professional start-up?

[Righ]

Following up on this, it's looking like the D700? announcement is going to be D700S (pretty much just D700 with video and costing more $£) instead of the D700X (rumoured to be a 24MP beastie).

Not any more. Looks like the D700x rumor mill is strong again.