First off, a big thank you to all who commented during voting.
The salient points of the story below: If the first photo shoot presents some flaws, try to re-shoot if you can. Also never wait until the last day – set-up and Post Processing will drive you crazy!
The scene I was trying to emulate:
Raiders of the Lost Ark
So. The first photo shoot looked good on the preview screen of the camera but then on screen on the computer it didn’t look nearly as good. I discovered many mistakes.
One biggie being that I forgot to use theater make-up on my husband’s hands to get them to have the same look dirty look as his face. Lighting and background were also problems. The first shoot had one regular 40w lamp light sitting just below my husband shining towards him at a upward 45 degree & one large construction work light switched on shining at a 45 degree angle of to his right.
My Indy model declared after the evening shoot that he would NOT do a re-shoot for he could NOT STAND the theater make-up I had applied to his face. So I thought what I had was what I would just have to work with. After several rounds of Post-Processing the end result was
The plain black backdrop made the scene flat. Not to mention the main subject, my Indiana Jones, looks like a cardboard cut-out – he appears flat and the lighting set-up was clearly not the best. I also had two questions on my PP steps that I was not absolutely sure were legal . One was a Color Curve Adjustment in a separate layer the other was use of the Clone tool to clone the jacket color to dirty Indy’s hands. So I fired off an inquiry to SC and waited.
The next day, after Sunday morning coffee, my husband looked at my final result. He pointed out all the flaws and then (insert Jaw Drop here) - agreed to another re-shoot without me pressing him! Well I didn’t argue. I set out to set up the scene once again in our family room. Yes, that’s right I turned our family room into a studio:-)
Since the black curtains I hung last night were not going to block the strong morning light coming in on the window I went for – the black trash bags. In Raiders the Golden Idol is in a cave-like setting. So crumple the black bags for the craggy, wet rock backdrop. It was my hope that a shallow DOF would work to hide the sharp details of the backdrop.
Hauling out the two large construction work lights I positioned one to shine at a 45 degree angle at my husband’s right. I turned on the other work light and angled it up to the 10 foot ceiling to bounce off of and back down to the silver car window reflector that I had lying on the floor behind him. I placed the 40 w lamp in the same position I had for the first shoot. And then I opened the front door to let natural sunlight stream in to light up his left side. Lastly I did use flash but wrapped a thin layer of tissue around the flash unit to tone done any harsh light and shadows caused by the flash unit.
To avoid PP on the toning down the shiny reflective quality of the ribbon band on the hat I tore it off (this was a Party City Halloween prop hat)
We had the shot of Indiana Jones on the computer screen so that my husband could look over and easily study Indy’s facial expression and his hand positions to get a close emulation. I only spray painted the back of the “Idol” gold. He had to look at the top of the Idol to keep a straight face. This is the front of the Idol that was staring back at him:
Idol Drives Indy Insane
I remembered to apply the theater make-up to both his hands and face this time. Background, lighting, and details in the elements were much better in the re-shoot. It still took a good part of some Post Processing, but the details in the elements, background, and lighting were much better than in the original shoot. The final product:
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