This was my first attempt at portrait work. It was my daughters prom so I thought I would have a go at it. Equipment was Nikon D600 with the 24-85 kit, shot thru 40" white umbrellas with an sb910 and a sb700. Not thrilled with my background, but it worked in a pinch. I had less then 5 minutes with her because 5 minutes after she put on her dress the back zipper blew out and she had to leave for he seamstress.
I'll let the pros give you advise with the setup , but I will add just get a volunteer to let you shoot , adjust , shoot adjust. Make sure you have a laptop to see fast results.
Often a outdoor door or window with natural light to light subject is a good way to learn. Then re produce with flash.
I found they with paper backdrops creases are bad , and you need to understand how close the subject should be from the backdrop.
Agreed, photo lacks pop to it......would like you to take some more perhaps outdoors, work with PP and share. You gave a beautiful young lady to work with....your photo just needs pop!
croisenjc wrote:
i think you can use more vibrance and saturation~
That top-down perspective on the first is not very flattering. The distortion makes her look short and makes her head and upper body seem unnaturally large.
Arka wrote:
That top-down perspective on the first is not very flattering. The distortion makes her look short and makes her head and upper body seem unnaturally large.
Ehhhhhhhhhh. lol. Don't think snapseed made it very flattering. Just bumped contrast and saturation. Which yeah I guess it could've used a little, but, eh. You can't fix flat lighting with just that. I mean, well, technically you can, but yeah.
The shoot-through splatters light everywhere and, with the white background reflections, gives very soft lighting. Better results probably could be had if you used the umbrella as a reflector (i.e. not shoot through). This will give more directionality to the light. You might also get some better results with a smaller umbrella (for head shots) ... maybe a 24 inch.
Also .. play with the position of the umbrella from essentially adjacent and above camera level to maybe 60 degrees off-camera. You might like how the shadows work.
Quick select tool-refine edge w/smart radius at 1px- output to new layer.
Google free portrait background and open one I like.
Move tool to new background.
Authentic perfectly clear plugin with all options checked except remove noise.
Steve Perry web re-size action to 1,000px.
One thing I noticed is that the original pics are in the AdobeRGB color space and for some reason Firefox (with color management turned on) is not translating them properly. Only when I save the image and bring up in Photoshop does the color space get translated correctly. It would be interesting to know what software the OP used to generate these pics.
Once translated correctly, the skin color looks significantly better and there is a little more pop, albeit still with very even lighting.
Using cloth backgrounds you have the wrinkle issue unless you can point additional alights on it for a bright white look which will blend them. The foot area is harder to hide because movement will add more. It is best to use a hard surface to stand and blend with the background. Seamless paper works better but it will tear and get footprints if not careful. When shooting a standing person and you want the feet or 1/2 body to show the it is best to shoot slightly up. If the idea is a tight headshot then it is more forgiving to shoot down as the angle will help close portraits look better.
Your skin tone is much better in the posted images then any of the so called corrected. I think umbrellas are just hard to control light with, at least for me. Try to focus light with a soft box and fill with a reflector or even a white board and see what results look like. That should add depth and contrast before doing anything in post.
Could be the monitor I'm using at work, but the white balance on the original pictures is too blue and green for my taste. pokemanyz's edit looks much better on the white balance for me. You can add all the contrast, vibrance and saturation you want, but unless the white balance is correct, your skin tones will never look natural. Typically white balance is the first thing I change when editing a photo.
Not bad for your first time. The first two things that jumped out at me is that the lighthing appears to be very flat, and the top-down perspective makes her appear unnaturally short. Very pretty girl. With some practice you'll really come away with some images where she shines!
