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11/13/2007 12:35:46 AM · #1 |
I had my 3rd bridal shoot this weekend. I was very excited and eager to try some new things and I knew I had a bride who would be more than eager to 'try' right along with me. It turns out her favorite shot was among the new things I tried, but I am not at all pleased with the results. I've played with a little bit and here are my before and afters. My biggest concern is the low light I think. How big can I safely print this shot before I see problems on the print? Anyone else care to take a stab and educate me, send me tutorials...anything at all I can do to improve this??
 
Otherwise, the rest of the shots I am more pleased with, aside from an elbow cut off an a little more light needed in the eyes in some!
    
   
Message edited by author 2007-11-13 00:36:22.
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11/13/2007 12:46:39 AM · #2 |
There's plenty of potential in it. I spent 2-3 mins with shadow/highlight, match color, and vignette and got this:
It needs to be worked on from the full-size original to do it right. Aside from controlling the delicate luminance values between veil and scrim, there's also the matter of cleaning up the "stains" on the dress under the arm, which are exaggerated by the shadow recovery. But it cane easily be done.
It also could possibly benefit from a bit of "glow" processing, I didn't try that. I'd be happy to work from the original if you wish.
R.
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11/13/2007 12:58:24 AM · #3 |
Shadow/Highlight did most of the work, but also a slight saturation boost, slight cooling filter since it was all very yellow, slight curve to deepen shadows, dodged the ring, teeth, eyes, and pearls, burnt her hair and the row of buttons along the back of her dress. Then used a lasso to select the yellow stain effect on the dress, desaturated most of the yellow channel, and used a light application of dodge to match the shade to the rest of the dress.
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11/13/2007 01:15:41 AM · #4 |
Here's my quick stab at it. Assuming your shooting in raw you should have no problem recovering this. Shadow/Highlight very lightly, Levels, couple curves and thats all, I think I went a little overboard on the curtain, and lost a little too much detail in the hair but you get the gist of it. I didn't touch the color but you can certainly play around with it.
[thumb]612732[/thumb] |
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11/13/2007 01:25:09 AM · #5 |
Figured I'd take a crack at it.. Similar to  Nocturnal_Delusion edit in ACR open to CS3 burn/dodge here and there, shadow/highlight, hue/sat...
Did you shoot this in RAW? would make it a lot easier to edit...
-dave
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11/13/2007 01:29:27 AM · #6 |
How about something like this:
[thumb]612747[/thumb]
Cropped tight to get rid of the blinding light. Used a screen layer to lighten her up. Used a softlight layer to add contrast.
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11/13/2007 01:50:22 AM · #7 |
Here is my attempt
[thumb]612750[/thumb] |
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11/13/2007 02:24:20 AM · #8 |
And yet another:
Used a brush in multiply mode for the curtains, then a sponge tool to desaturate, then dodged to lighten the darker areas. Applied a soft focus filter then strong USM, followed by some close edge cloning and manual blur tool to remove some of the compression artifacts in the original. Some light overlay brushing in a tone to even out the skin color.
Message edited by author 2007-11-13 02:28:53. |
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11/13/2007 06:31:56 AM · #9 |
Originally posted by dwterry:
How about something like this:
[thumb]612747[/thumb]
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Nice crop! |
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11/13/2007 06:52:17 AM · #10 |
Were you using an external flash? If not I would suggest on getting one, along with a diffuser for it. It will really clear out the shadows.
Are you shooting in RAW or JPEG mode? I would think that for a wedding shot (reguardless if it was real or not) I would be shooting in RAW just for adjustments after the shoot.
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11/13/2007 10:10:49 PM · #11 |
Thank you ALL for the great tips...lots of things I would have never thought of or realized the effects that could be achieved! I did happen to get my copy of of Popular Photography and Imaging today, and voila, a step by step tutorial on understanding layers. I never really understood them and still don't think I know the difference between a layer and a mask!
Anyway...you have given me more than enough tips to fiddle with the picture and hopefully salvage a decent print.
I did shoot in Jpeg since that came up quite a bit. I wouldn't know what to do with RAW once I got it. I tried shooting in RAW once before and could never get the images from the card to my pc. :-( I hope to try it again here in the near future before the wedding.
For those interested...this was shot completely outdoors under some trees. I wanted to use a reflector to get a little more light on the bride as opposed to a flash, which would have brought me too much light for what I wanted. It proved to fail me though. There just wasn't enough light coming through those trees to reflect. :-( I can think of a lot of things to try differently next time
Thanks,
Julie
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