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Archive 2014 · Help with quick portraits

  
 
NCam
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Help with quick portraits


Hello all,

This past weekend, I was contacted by a friend of a friend to take portraits at a Downton Abbey themed birthday party for his wife. I have very, very little experience with portraits, but I reluctantly accepted. I bought a cheap background slave flash off of Amazon and used an on camera flash unit for fill and I'm pretty happy with the results. My job was to capture them quickly in front of a backdrop as they came into the party.

The one huge problem arose in the fact that the client bought a shiny backdrop to take portraits against. As you can see, there is a little bit of a glare on the background from the lights. I did my best to prevent this with an umbrella and by bouncing light, but I can't seem to shake it.

He was not bothered by it, but I am very bothered by it. Anyone have any tips or tricks to reduce it's noticeability? I would clone and stamp it out in PS, but I have 40 portraits and am not charging enough to process each one for more than 10-15 minutes. I'm trying to stick with Lightroom.

Any ideas at all will help immensely.

Thank you!


_NAC7181.jpg by NCamardo, on Flickr



Jun 04, 2014 at 11:08 PM
friscoron
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Help with quick portraits



Maybe someone else has an answer as to how to easily get rid of the light reflections on the backdrop, but I don't have it. It's all about the angle of the light off the backdrop to the camera. That it's a shiny surface doesn't help, as you mentioned. Your one shot at getting this without the reflection would be to have the lights at each side of the subject 90 degrees to the camera. But then, you probably wouldn't have a lot of light hitting the backdrop.

With what you have, sometimes you just have to let it go. They brought the backdrop and it is what it is. Just focus on making the people look as good as they can. Don't lose sleep over this one.



Jun 04, 2014 at 11:35 PM
GWMT
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Help with quick portraits


Try using an adjustment brush to cut back on the background and sync it.



Jun 04, 2014 at 11:53 PM
Steve Wylie
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Help with quick portraits


That's a shame. I've faced this problem, too, when someone brought a shiny vinyl banner they wanted quick portraits shot against. I had about ten minutes to try to angle the light to avoid as much glare as I could. That which I couldn't avoid, I had no choice but to leave it. I don't think you're going to solve this, especially if you have 40 of these. One thing I'd do is simply crop off the right and left edges. That diagonal glare on the right was the first thing I saw when I looked at this photo, and is the easiest thing to get rid of. Good luck.

On a separate note, if you could warm this up a bit, that would be a good thing.



Jun 05, 2014 at 01:03 AM
VilleK
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Help with quick portraits


If your client does not care, I think you should not use your time to remove those.

Maybe using a polarizing filter during the shoot would help this? At least to some extent.



Jun 05, 2014 at 02:57 AM
smackem
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Help with quick portraits


I live quite close to Highclere Castle, which is used as the set for Downton Abbey shown in the backdrop and have a few general images of the castle that could be used to replace the backdrop in your picture.

If you send me the original of the above photo, I will be able to replace the background with one of mine in Photoshop.

PM me if interested...



Jun 05, 2014 at 03:15 AM
Steady Hand
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Help with quick portraits


smackem wrote:
I live quite close to Highclere Castle, which is used as the set for Downton Abbey shown in the backdrop and have a few general images of the castle that could be used to replace the backdrop in your picture.

If you send me the original of the above photo, I will be able to replace the background with one of mine in Photoshop.

PM me if interested...


That's an excellent suggestion!




Jun 05, 2014 at 07:50 AM
elliotkramer
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Help with quick portraits


Didn't you see this as you were taking the shots? Adjusting the angle of the camera slightly would have gotten rid of the shine. We do it with eye glasses all the time. Standard practice to check for that. It is fixable in one picture. Even replacing the background wouldn't take too long, but in dozens of photos, it's a real problem. If your client doesn't care, just do better next time!


Jun 05, 2014 at 04:14 PM
Bewithabob
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Help with quick portraits


this would make for an enormous amount of work to retouch every background.

One suggestion would be to reshoot the background (if possible) to eliminate glare, and drop it in behind every one of your shots in photoshop, and no one wold know the difference.

That might be far less time consuming than to retouch the highlights out of every BG.



Jun 05, 2014 at 05:00 PM
jefferies1
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Help with quick portraits


If you would have placed the backdrop at an angle you can reduce the reflection about 90% or more. In other words push the lower end back about 6-8 inches forcing a angle. Looks fine in cameras but changes how the light hits. Like tilting a head to prevent glasses reflection or shooting a trophy, you angle it slightly down to block the reflections. Yes you can also tilt the camera as mentioned above. I just find it easier to tilt the background and use my normal camera position.

Cutting the people out and using a clean background sounds like the easy way to fix the issue.



Jun 05, 2014 at 05:22 PM
NCam
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Help with quick portraits




elliotkramer wrote:
Didn't you see this as you were taking the shots? Adjusting the angle of the camera slightly would have gotten rid of the shine. We do it with eye glasses all the time. Standard practice to check for that. It is fixable in one picture. Even replacing the background wouldn't take too long, but in dozens of photos, it's a real problem. If your client doesn't care, just do better next time!


I spent over an hour playing with lights and camera setups. The fact is that all lights (DJ's lights, my lights and even the venue lights) added to the glare. It was unavoidable given the circumstances. I unfortunately couldn't move the background either as it was already set up in a specific area before I got there. Learn from my mistake I guess.



Jun 05, 2014 at 06:23 PM
jlafra
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Help with quick portraits


Yeah, this is an issue that is tough to fix in post work. Possible, but time consuming.


Jun 05, 2014 at 06:58 PM
smackem
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Help with quick portraits


I have been in touch with NCam and sent him an image of Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey) with a view to using it as a new background for his image.






Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey)




Jun 06, 2014 at 05:35 AM
tonyfield
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Help with quick portraits


One quick-and-dirty thing that might help the glare problem is to use the Lightroom "post crop vignetting" to darken the edges.


Jun 06, 2014 at 10:08 AM
friscoron
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Help with quick portraits


smackem wrote:
I have been in touch with NCam and sent him an image of Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey) with a view to using it as a new background for his image.



Nice assist here! This would be his easiest and best fix.



Jun 06, 2014 at 10:23 AM
NCam
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Help with quick portraits



Agreed! Tony (smackem) has been a life saver with this. I will be editing tonight and have some pictures up.

friscoron wrote:
Nice assist here! This would be his easiest and best fix.




Jun 06, 2014 at 05:04 PM
NCam
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Help with quick portraits


And here is the promised photo with Tony's background:

7181 by NCamardo, on Flickr



Jun 06, 2014 at 11:58 PM
smackem
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Help with quick portraits


Well done NCam!

I think the family will be delighted with your new version. If it were mine, I'd move the subjects over to the left a bit to conceal the people in the background and also to reveal a little more of the castle.

All the best, Tony




Jun 07, 2014 at 02:41 AM





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