Hi,

I usually light up a white seamless using two softboxes but I only have one at the moment, the other one isn't available and I have a job that needs it next week. Can I light it up with two bare strobes or will I get too much glare and/or not enough coverage?

Thanks

Completely bare strobes or with standard reflectors? I think you could do it either way, but I've done it with strobes with reflectors on both sides of the seamless. Get as much distance as you can between the strobes and the seamless, then aim each one at the opposite side of the seamless for the best coverage. It helps if you have a light meter to check for evenness, but isn't absolutely necessary.

Reflectors. Thanks!

Managed to get a softbox for each light in the end. Here is the result for an album cover.

Beni wrote: Managed to get a softbox for each light in the end. Here is the result for an album cover.

Is the fogging around her hands intentional, or were you trying to raise the exposure of her hands and the fog is a (perhaps unseen on your monitor) side effect?

I don't see fog?

When I view them on my laptop I can see the fog effect. Could be a calibration issue. When I tilt my laptop back the entire image darkens a bit. Almost seems like the hands were dodged a bit in PP.

Hands? What hands?

The client wanted the hands darkened, she felt that she looked like she was, in her words, holding onto her womb .

I had taken the original version of this image (which still had detail) and put it over her then masked in just the face and hands, that may be what you are noticing? Now the hands are gone and I darkened the face as well so that it would look balanced.

Beni wrote: ...I had taken the original version of this image (which still had detail) and put it over her then masked in just the face and hands, that may be what you are noticing? Now the hands are gone...

I don't know what you mean by "the hands are gone." They're a bit darker, but I still see them...and the fog. If you increase the brightness of the image temporarlily you'll see it, too. You can then darken the foggy areas and then return the image to normal brightness.

Here's an exaggerated adjustment to show what we're seeing...and what might show up to the client on a printed cover:

opfoto wrote: When I view them on my laptop I can see the fog effect. Could be a calibration issue.

Yep. Properly calibrated displays are important.

Beni, if you're trying for a black and white silhouette you're not there yet; I can see her face clearly -- her eyes are closed, for example -- and I can see her hands (and, yes, it looks like she's holding her womb).

Here's a link to an article on monitor calibration from 2007; although the products named have been upgraded since then, the basic information is accurate:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/ARTS/MONCAL/CALIBRATE.HTM

Although not as good as a true calibration using products like X-rite ColorMunki, Datacolor Syder, etc., a starting point can be manually setting the brightness and contrast of one's monitor using a step chart. One should be able to see 26 equally sized blocks in the chart here:

opfoto wrote: ...When I tilt my laptop back the entire image darkens a bit.

I've known that any viewing angle other than square-on could cause brightness issues, but I never realized until now just how serious -- and non-linear -- the effect was.

If I tilt the top of my LCD monitor way back most of this page will look normal, but blocks A through E on my chart above will blend into one large black block.

I can't remember where I saw them (Art Wolfe's studio, maybe?), but I've seen monitors that had devices clipped to the edges that work like gun sights to show when one's eyes are centered on and squared to the screen. I might have to look into that for myself.

On my calibrated screens both at home and in the studio (Spyder 4 Elite on all 4 NEC P221W screens) the hands are now practically invisible in the image above. The hands and face were never supposed to be completely black and silhouette. We have darkened the hands now for the other reasons mentioned above. Keep in mind that the shadows usually get more blocked up in print (talking about bulk printers not a calibrated epson) not the other way round, the face will print darker than it shows in screen.