I asked the other for some help/ideas for pictures of a drummer. Well I went this morning to Dana's house and did these in his garage. He wanted a white backdrop so I had to shove a 9foot roll of paper into my car! It just barely fit.Well I am not absolutely stoked with what I have, but I am happy. I was expected him to be dressed a little differently but he said that he is a jazz drummer and usually plays for a more sophisticated crowd so I wanted to be dressed up. Well here are the shots.
nice job! they look clean. i think contrast could be increased a great deal (and maybe brightness lowered if so) unless of course you were going for a more low-contrast look
I did want them to be higher contrast but when I would boost it his jacket and beard started looking weird so I scaled it back down. Any recommendations? I want them to be bright and to pop, I don't want them to look dull.
maybe try duplicating the image and blending with softlight.
if that doesnt look good then try using the burn tool to darken some of the brighter parts of the image.
also, try duplicating the layer, apply a high pass filter and blend with softlight. try the high pass at varying pixel sizes and experiment with what looks good
Great job Sarah
I played with a level adj. layer, then masked out the guy
Also burned the drum kit to add a little more contrast
Good use more IMO.
top is the original..........hope you don't mind
No, I don't mind at all! I really like the way the drums look with the high contrast like in #5 from my first post. I will try my hand it making these look better! Thanks for the help! As for the color shots, they look good but his choice of clothing just didn't really look great to me so I thought black and white was better. He had tan pants with a pale green shirt and tie and a brown jacket.
OK, maybe it's the slow music I am listening to right now but I going to get mushy... This is the first time I have ever put pictures on the people forum and had a response. I usually have to beg for any comments, good or bad. I was very hesitant to even post these because I was afraid they would get no respect! So, I want to thank you guys for making me happy!
As a drummer, the first thing I look for is what brand everything is... so +1 on making Gretsch stand out... my other comment would be to try and PS out that tape on the underside of the cymbal to the left..
I really like his expression in #1... and I agree, we are hard to shoot as drummers.
-Mark
OMG, thank you so much for that, I had no idea what those black things were under the cymbals! I didn't know if they were supposed to be there or not! Good lookin' out! I really wanted to be sure that Gretch stood out, I went in and added a contrast boost to these and it stands out even more now. It was actually enjoyable shooting him! I mean it's better to hear good music from a drummer than the crying of a baby or whining of a toddler!
, glad to put that to rest... If i'm not mistaken the tape it to make the cymbals sound a little darker and to decay a little faster (if you tap a cymbal it will hum for over a minute, but the tape would likely reduce that time making the cymbals sound a little darker versus bright and shimmery)
Now I can't wait to Sunday to go and bang on my drums.
