success or failure - DPChallenge Forums

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

11/23/2008 03:06:57 PM · #1

Alright, last friday I had my first on location company portrait. They wanted a group shot for their Christmas card. Their marketing company contacted our photography club trying to see if someone was available to take the shot. Well, I volunteered and didn't really know what I was getting in to. It turns out, they wanted me to come on location to shoot this and bring a background.

Strike 1, no background stand.

My father in law and I had to fabricate one and even ended up costing more than what I was getting paid for the entire shoot.

They wanted to do it at 7:30 am before they opened and said that I could come in at 7 and set up. I worked until midnight the night before and still managed to be awake at 5:45 to get ready. I went to take my dog out and, holy cow, there were 4 inches of snow on the ground....there was nothing at 1am when I got home. I got ready as fast as I could and left.....there were accidents all over the place and it took me 45 minutes to get to the place when it should have taken 10.

Strike 2, I was there 30 minutes late.

It wasn't all bad that I was late b/c not all the workers were able to be there on time either.

So, I continue on and set up everything.....amazingly I got the background up and a couple test shots fired in 20 minutes. They absolutely had to have this thing done by 8am. My wife and I got everyone in there and set up, had to rearrange, but just had to take what we had.

Strike 3, my lighting failed....well, not really failed, but it was next to impossible to light with what I had....they had like 20-30 (reallllllllly high) foot ceilings and flourescent lights.

Did I mention that I had to light 14 people with 2 580 EXII's and only had a 10 foot wide background and bearly enough room for me to shoot at 24mm (I really debated throwing on the 10-22mm for this)?

I fired off a couple shots and the lighting was completely off....fidgeted around with with the settings, angled them differently turned off all the overhead lights and got something "usable" thinking I could fix it post.

Had them out by 8am so they could answer their phones.

I got home and popped the card into the computer to see what I got. A nightmare. There was someone either blocking someone else or eyes closed in every shot. I "chimped" after every shot and knew that I had a couple bad ones...but I didn't expect ALL of them to have something wrong. The Owner called me the day before and said that the guys wanted to wear black shirts. I told him that it would be pretty hard to get contrast right with it.....and it was nearly impossible.

So.......do you think I succeeded or failed on this shoot. I told them I would have something for them on monday.

The original

After editing

I know it's not perfect, I can see many flaws with it, but do you think that they will be satisfied with it? It will not be printed very big, just Christmas card size.

What I had to do to edit it.
-filled in the entire background
-took out the guy on the left and cloned him in from another shot
-took out the guy on the right as he was behind the girl and his eyes were shut and cloned him in from another shot
-made the guy in the front middle taller by about 6 inches
-sharpen
-levels
-neat image

Success or failure?

Judi

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

11/23/2008 03:11:08 PM · #2

I think you did pretty good. The editing around the replacement guy on the right is a little obvious though. His lighting and edging is more noticeable than the others...but under the circumstances....good job.

photokariangel

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L IS USM

11/23/2008 03:11:43 PM · #3

well, i say you did a well job after all the misshaps that happened. hey,you do what you can right?
only real flaw i could spot on the edit was the far right guys head is dissapearing into the backgorund.
other then that, nicely put together.

pixelpig

Sony Alpha a55

Sony DT 1.8/50mm SAM

11/23/2008 03:17:50 PM · #4

Waugh! excellent job overcoming adversity--I expect each one will be happy with it, & it'll certainly make a fine card. I'm impressed anyhow!

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

11/23/2008 03:29:42 PM · #5

alright, I didn't realize that the guy on the right was "that" noticable, but looking at it again...yes, it really is, so I just went back and spent the extra 2 seconds to "fix" it a little bit....put his hair back in over the background

I'm afraid that is the best that I can do

the one thing that REALLY bothers me is the shadow on the face of the furthest right girl in black

suemack

Canon EOS-20D

11/23/2008 04:35:04 PM · #6

Try selecting her face with the round marque, feathering your selection, create a new layer with your selection and do a curves adjustment (or change the mode to screen and gradually lower the opacity of the layer till it looks ok).

ETA you can add a mask to your selection, invert it and gradually brush on the lighter details of her face.

Message edited by author 2008-11-23 16:36:40.

Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L IS USM

11/23/2008 04:51:21 PM · #7

Originally posted by suemack:

THANK YOU for your suggestion!

here's what I ended up with (I did it a slightly different way). I like it much better w/o the shadow on the face

photokariangel

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

11/23/2008 05:17:43 PM · #8

Originally posted by XMountaineer:

Originally posted by suemack:
Try selecting her face with the round marque, feathering your selection, create a new layer with your selection and do a curves adjustment (or change the mode to screen and gradually lower the opacity of the layer till it looks ok).

ETA you can add a mask to your selection, invert it and gradually brush on the lighter details of her face.

THANK YOU for your suggestion!

here's what I ended up with (I did it a slightly different way). I like it much better w/o the shadow on the face

Ah, this looks great!

suemack

Canon EOS-20D

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

11/23/2008 07:38:19 PM · #9

Originally posted by XMountaineer:

here's what I ended up with (I did it a slightly different way). I like it much better w/o the shadow on the face

Looks great!

Daybis

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

Canon EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM

11/23/2008 07:44:05 PM · #10

I think it looks great.

yanko

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Carl Zeiss 50mm ZE f/1.4 Planar T for Canon

11/23/2008 08:24:13 PM · #11

Not bad given the circumstances but to be real honest the whole background looks completely fake to me. There's no sense of depth between the background and the last row of people. Now the client might not notice since they probably don't use photoshop so it may not matter to them but if it was my photo I would try and fix it. First thing I would try is add a light gradient (black to transparent) so that the background fades downward. That way it will show some light falloff and not look so evenly lit, which makes the background look like it's right on top of the back row so much so that it seems unnatural given the lack of shadows you removed. Anyway, just a thought. Nice job on getting something you can work with.

Message edited by author 2008-11-23 20:28:42.