Not My Normal Self Portrait - Part 3 "The Post"

Hey everyone, here is the third and final instalment of my "Post Apocalyptic Corporate Headshot" series of the "The Shot," "The Shoot & The Gear," and "The Post."

Here's the video that shows how I created this image in Photoshop.

Cheers!

DC

Not My Normal Self Portrait - Part 2 "The Shoot & The Gear"

Part 2, "The Shoot & The Gear." The original concept for this image came to me when my wife asked me to take her to Michael's, a local craft store. It was around Halloween and they had all of their Halloween themed things out on display. As soon as we walked into the store I saw the skulls, which got me thinking about how I could possibly use one. My first thought was some kind of self portrait with the skull overlay, or a bones behind the face kind of thing. So I had to grab one.

I decided to try some sort of overlay so I knew I needed a headshot of both me and the skull. 

I wanted a dark look so I chose only one light to camera left and positioned it so I would fully light my right side, and have enough drop off to darkness on my left.  I needed to have the lighting the same for both shots, so I had to have both my face and the skull in pretty much the same position. I also chose a black background to keep the dark theme. Here's the lighting set-up.

I took a lot of test shots, and was tethered into Lightroom to see them a bit larger so I could assess the overall exposure and focus. Once I had both nailed down I did two things:

1) I turned the AF switch on the lens to "off" so the camera wouldn't try to refocus everytime the shutter was fired, and;

2) I placed a mark on the ground as a reference for my distance from the lens.

Here's the self-shot I used - this is the RAW shot converted to jpg, no post done yet.

Once I was satisfied with my self-shot I grabbed the skull for the next shot - again, this is the RAW shot converted to jpg, no post done yet.

As you can see I was holding it up at head level to try and get the same perspective. This is where the mark I placed on the ground came in. For the self-shot I was sanding over the mark, but for the skull shot I was standing behind the mark placing the skull above it closest to where my head would have been. This was key to get light to fall in same way for both shots, and also to try and match the perspective when I took both into Photoshop to merge them.  

Gear used for the shoot:
- Nikon D810
- Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8
- Nikon SB900 Flash
- Nikon SU800 Commander Unit
- Lastolite 24" Ezybox
- Black backgound with Manfrotto background stand
- Vello wireless Shutter Boss - remote trigger
- Tethered into Lightroom

Stay tuned for part 3 "The Post," where I'll show you how I created the final image in Photoshop and Lightroom.

Cheers!

DC

Going to Photoshop World? Like HDR? Head to Nelson!

Continuing the lead up to Photoshop World 2015 in Las Vegas. I've posted before about checking out the Old Ghost Town in Nelson, Nevada. So if you're heading to Vegas for PSW2015 then definitely take the time to head down there, especially if you like HDR. Even if you don't like HDR there's a ton of shooting opportunities out there.

I'm a fan of HDR and the Old Ghost Town had been on my list for a long time. I finally got there last year for the first time, and I was like a kid in a HDR candy store! I was bracketing left, right and centre!! (I know, I know...insert groan here)

Tons of old buildings and run down cars & trucks, lots of texture, overall a fantastic setting to shoot. But don't forget, you won't be the only photographer there, so make sure you bring some patience and respect for others who are there to enjoy this place as you are.

Cheers!

DC

Photoshop World 2015 is Almost Here!

Last year was my first Photoshop World in Las Vegas. There was so much that I missed as there was so much to do. At the end of the conference I mentioned this to Scott Kelby and he looked me right in eye and simply said…”dude, come back next year!”

 

There's also a bunch of Pre-Conference workshops and I attended the Concert Photography workshop with Alan Hess (an amazing concert shooter), and Scott Diussa from Nikon Professional Services (also an amazing concert shooter). You get some classroom learning first and then the really cool part…you get to shoot a real band! Yup, you get the whole experience with a live band, a loud band, lights, dry ice, like you’re at a real concert, and basically you are albeit a private concert for photographers only. The band last year was called Rebel Soul, a classic rock band with a great sound who totally rocked it. It was hard to separate my wanting to shoot, and my wanting to just sit back and enjoy the show.



The other really cool part was after the workshop all participants were asked to submit 1 photo of the shoot. The instructors would then choose the top 3 images to be presented at the Keynote Address (yeah the one that kicks off Photoshop World that everyone attends) for a chance to win great prize from Nikon, thanks to Scott Disussa and the NPS Team. The crowd cheers would choose the winner. To my total surprise my image (at the top of this post) made the top 3! Unfortunately, I didn't win, but I got a tremendous amount of positive feedback from so many people. It was an amazing experience.

The Pre-Conference workshops fill up fast, however, it looks like the Real World Concert Photography workshop still has some openings so definitely check it out.

The whole conference was a great experience. I learned a lot and made some new friends.

You can check out all of the details and register here:

Photoshop World 2015 – Las Vegas

Cheers!

DC

Ghost Town - Nelson, Nevada (Part 3 "The Post")

The third, and final part in this series is the "The Post." The following video tutorial walks through how I created the final image. It goes from Lightroom to HDR Efex Pro 2 over into Photoshop CC, and back into Lightroom.

Cheers!

DC

Ghost Town - Nelson, Nevada (Part 2 - "The Shoot & The Gear")

Following up from my previous post "The Shot" (above). This time I'll walk through the "The Shoot and The Gear."

After we arrived and got checked in at Nelson this was the first spot I saw that I wanted to shoot. It might have been the big Coca~Cola sign that drew my attention, it may have also been the overall shape of the barn. As soon as I looked at it I saw a very simple composition.

I knew I wanted to put the peak of the roof in the upper left hand third, which meant positioning myself on the right. I started with my tripod in it's full height position, but after trying a few test shots I lowered it by about a third. This gave me a bit of an upward looking view, which put the peak of the roof where I wanted it in the frame.

It was just past 6:00 pm so the light was beginning to fade, so it was a great time of day to shoot. I knew even before coming to Nelson that I was going to be bracketing every shot and have a little HDR'fest. Even if I wasn't going to do any HDR, but just single exposures, I still would have bracketed multiple shots. I didn't know when I was going to be back so getting a range of exposures provides some latitude to play around with in post.

As you can see from the above image I shot a 7 bracket set (-3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3) and I've highlighted the exposure value for each image. You'll also notice that these are NEF's so I was shooting in RAW, which provides for maximum flexibility in post. Again, I didn't know when I'd be back so I wanted to give myself the best chance for the best outcome in post.

You can also see that the +2 and +3 images are really blown out, but look closely inside the open door of the barn. In the other exposures there is no detail to be found, but at the high end I was able to get some of that interior detail. Also, check out the sky in the -3 shot. This has a nice natural gradient as the light was fading. So basically I chose 7 shots because I thought that would give me enough range to grab all of the detail from the shadows and highlights.

There's so much really cool stuff to shoot there that I could have stayed a lot longer, but it was getting dark, and our stomachs told us it time to feed them! ;)

The Gear - I was shooting with a Nikon D810 fitted with a Nikon 16-35mm f4. Shot in aperture mode, 16mm @ f6.3. This was my first real outing with the D810 and I'm very happy with how it performs.

Stay tuned for Part 3 - "The Post", where I'll walk through how I mashed all 7 exposures together to create the final image.

Cheers!

DC

Ghost Town - Nelson, Nevada - Part 1 "The Shot"

While I was attending Photoshop World 2014 in Las Vegas last September I finally got the chance to head down to the old Ghost Town in Nelson, Nevada. However, if you punch "Nelson, Nevada" into your GPS you'll get nothin'! Good thing I had a travelling companion that day who told me it was actually called "Searchlight, Nevada" ...thanks +Deb Uscilka! Punched in "Searchlight" and away we went!

If you do go, and it's your first time, be sure to sign-in at the main store. There was $10.00 charge, which is really nothing compared all of the great photo opportunities there. And believe me when I tell you we were not the only ones there that Friday night.

After we checked in this was this first location that I set-up to shoot. As the post title says this is Part 1 "The Shot". I'm going be trying something new here on the blog where I'll take one image and follow it with a 3 part series. I'll walk through "The Shot", "The Shoot & The Gear" (what I used and how I got the shot), and finally "The Post" (post processing to make the final image).  So stay tuned for Part 2 shortly where I'll talk about how I got the shot.

Cheers for now!

DC

Lightroom Sharpening Quick Tip Video Tutorial

Here's another video tutorial with a quick tip on how to use Lightroom's Sharpening tool to dial in the right amount of edge sharpening and avoid having too much sharpening in the overall image. Great little tip for quick edits or quick portrait retouching.



Enjoy!

DC

Video Tutorial - Lightroom Post Crop Vignette Tool

I've been pulling together some basic video tutorials that focus on my workflow and some of the tools that I regularly use. The first one produced is a tutorial on Lightroom's Post Crop Vignette Tool.



Enjoy!

DC

How to Know What Edits to Make?

Now there's a really good question. It's something that I still struggle with for every image that I edit. I've mentioned before that I consider myself a forced creative, in that I mean that creativity is something that I really need to work at to achieve as opposed to being naturally creative. So when I look at editing my images I need some structure to keep me on track.

Before I shoot a scene I try to get an idea of what I want the finished output to look like (the operative word here is "try"). Will it make a good black and white? Does it have a lot of colour that I want to make vibrant? Would HDR be a good choice?  This is typically my starting point so that when I upload into Lightroom, where my workflow starts, I already have a pretty good idea of what I want to do.

So here's a brief overview of my workflow and how I break things down for a little bit more structure. I tend to take threefold approach which consists of 1) global adjustments; 2) selective adjustments; and 3) finishing adjustments. Here's what that looks like:

Global Adjustments:

White Balance: Is the image too warm or too cool? Or is there a colour cast? White balance is a good place to start. Auto WB works pretty well on most advanced DSLRs, but sometimes it take a lunch break.

Exposure: Is the image too light or too dark? Whether you set the exposure yourself, or let the camera do it, in some cases they can both be wrong. This is where I use the histogram and clipped highlight/shadow warnings. Try to make sure that you don't have any data leaving the left and right sides of the histogram.

Contrast: Done with either the Contrast slider or the Curves tool. I shoot in RAW format which means that there's no processing done by the camera so a little initial contrast boost can help.

Sharpening: Again working with RAW files means that there's no initial sharpening so I typically do a little bit in Lightroom. However, I always do final sharpening a little later on in my workflow.

Noise Reduction: My ISO is never the same for every image, and sometimes even my lowest ISO setting can show some noise.  I always take a quick look and add some noise reduction if necessary. Lightroom has pretty good tool for this.

Selective Adjustments: (These are different for every image, but here's what I look for)

Distracting Elements: Is there anything that needs to be removed? Something that you didn't see in the viewfinder? This is where learning to use the variety of tools in Photoshop can help like the Clone Stamp; Healing Brush; and my personal favourite, Content Aware Fill.

Light or Colour Adjustments: Enhancing specific areas of the image with colour or light. This can help draw the viewers eye into the image directing it to where you want by lightening certain areas and  darkening others. Lots of ways to do this with the layer adjustments, layer masks and the brush tool. However, my favourite plug-in for this is Nik Software's Viveza 2.

Contrast Adjustments: I find myself more often than not making selective contrast adjustments to certain areas of an image to bring out more detail. Similar to colour and light adjustments these are done with layer masks and the brush tool.

Selective Sharpening: Things that have a lot of edges can take a fair amount of sharpening; however, if you also have softer areas in the image, you definitely don't want to apply to same amount of sharpening. Portraits are a good example, you want smooth skin, but sharp eyes, so you would only apply sharpening to the eyes in this case.

Finishing Adjustments: (I'm typically back in Lightroom for these)

Vignette: I like vignettes, some people don't, but I do so I add them to pretty much every image. Sometimes it just a slight effect, but it's a nice finishing touch.

Exposure: This kind of bookends my workflow. I'm not sure when I started doing this, but usually after applying the post crop vignette I like to bump the exposure up just slightly to offset the edge darkening that creeps into the centre of the image. Exposure does this a little better than the Feather slider so it's a bit of a balancing act for me.

So there you go. A little peek into my workflow and how I approach my editing. It's taken me a while to get a clear focus on this and it's something that has developed over time. Your workflow may be similar or it could be totally different. All I know is that this works for me. In the end, only you can decide for yourself what is going to work best for you, but if you're still struggling I'll offer these 2 final tips:

1) Learn as much as you can about various Photoshop techniques. Learn the most widely used tools, and learn about using layers and layer masks; and

2) Seek out photographers who are creating the images that you really like. Try to learn how they process their images. With YouTube, blogs, Twitter and other social media options it's not as difficult as you may think find a tutorial or to connect and ask a question.

Sometimes we don't think about the edits that we could, or should be making, because we don't know how to do them, which can become a vicious little circle. So hang in there, learn lots and try new things.

Cheers!

DC

My Love / Hate Relationship with HDR

I've had a love/hate relationship with (High Dynamic Range) HDR photography for a while now. I love it when it's done well as you can pull out a tremendous range of tones and detail. I love how they can be gritty and edgy (and halo free), and I also love when they have that silky smoothness. It's the simple beauty of HDR done really well.

On the flip side I hate it when I see HDR poorly done, and truth be told I have done some pretty horrible HDR myself, so another point for the hate side of the column is that I have not been able to create HDR images anywhere near the level of those that I look up to.

All that being said I'm now sliding more over to the love side as of late. Giving due credit to folks like RC Concepcion from Kelby Media Group, and Trey Ratcliff over at Stuck in Customs, who are not only tremendous HDR creationists, but also failingly gracious with their teachings and musings on the subject. In a very short time of following their HDR work I can now say that things are making more sense to me.

Now I've written a few HDR posts on the blog starting back in March 2010 and followed up with a couple of revisits later on in the fall of that year. I still stand by what I wrote then, but personal development is continuous, and what a difference a couple years can make. When I first tried HDR I studied up on how to shoot bracketed frames and then grabbed Photomatix to merge and tone map the images. My understanding at the time was capture in camera, merge to HDR in Photomatix and you're done. But boy, was I naive! I missed the most critical and creative step, which is finishing the image.

It's extremely important to spend some quality time figuring out what you want the final image to look like, and also knowing how to get there. This is something that I think comes with time and experience, but the more you do it the better you'll get. Also, by following others who really know what they're doing you can see how they approach finishing an image and you can then begin to develop your own style and ideas. I love video tutorials exactly for this reason. How are they creating a certain look and feel, is it a Photoshop or Lightroom technique or certain software plug-ins? There's no shortage of tools and techniques out there, you just need to find what works for you.

So at this point I'm happy to say that I am beginning to leave more of the hate behind me as I now understand HDR photography a lot more, and I'm getting better at making some of those finishing decisions.

So keep an open mind and always look for new way to develop your skills; the results can only get better over time.

Cheers!

DC

Photoshop Layers - To Flatten or not to Flatten?

Now there's a question that has been asked in Photoshop circles for as long as I can remember. The ultimate answer, though, is that it's really up to you. Everyone will choose one or the other for different reasons. In the past, I used to flatten everything. Why? Because in most of the videos and book tutorials I have seen for photography that's what was shown. So like most humans who initially learn by imitating others that's what I did.

A couple of advantages to flattening layers are 1) it keeps your file size smaller; and 2) it looks cleaner in your layers panel. However, I recently discovered a problem, at least for me, after I have flattened my layers, and I'm really putting myself out there with this so please go easy on me... I can't always remember what I have done to the image! There I said it, and I suspect that I'm not alone out there on this.

I'm finding that the combination of using a number of different plug ins and masking techniques for different parts of the image, I don't always remember which filter I used, or what I painted back in or removed etc. So if I flatten my layers all of the information is lost to me, unless I remember, which as I mentioned above was my issue.

There are a lot of ways to organize your layers such as merging them, naming them and creating layer groups, so I'm beginning to do that instead of flattening. I'm not worried about file size as I have a lot of storage space. But now I can at least see what I have done.

So there it is... my answer to the question is not to flatten. How about you?

Cheers!

DC

Something with Potential Goes Grunge with Topaz Adjust

There are times when you're out shooting that you come across something with what I like to call "potential". I mean this is why we shoot, isn't it? It's that time when you see something and you know exactly what you are going to do with it. For me recently it was this tractor. When I saw it I instantly thought "grunge". I knew what I was going to do with it in post, all I needed to do was get a decent composition that I liked.

I spent probably around 20 minutes trying a few different angles for composition. I started with the Nikon 18-200 lens because that was what I currently had on camera. I moved around a fair bit, but couldn't get what I was looking for. It was then that I realized what I needed to do... get low, shoot wide and push in tight. So I switched to the 10-24mm and set to back to work.

Since I had already decided that I wanted to do something grungy (or close to other worldly) I knew that by shooting really wide that would only enhance the overall look... that is if it everything worked out as I was hoping.

My post processing started in Lightroom with some basic adjustments, and then over to Photoshop for little Lab colour move to boost the reds, yellows and greens. Next was over intoTopaz Adjust to get the grungy look (note: this would have been good HDR candidate, but I didn't have a tripod and didn't feel that I could handhold with any decent luck).  I started with the Spicify filter and then layered the Dramatic filter. 

Now, I know that some of you will think that this is just way over the top, and you would be absolutely right! But, this was the look that I was trying to achieve. The one inherent problem with pushing things this far are the halos around the trees and top front grill of the tractor, so I had to compromise a little. I minimized this (note that I said minimize and not eliminate) by using a layer mask and then the brush tool to blend as best I could between the tree line and the sky. I tripped over to Nik's Viveza 2 to bring some more colour back into the sky that was removed when blending the halos down.

Below is the original file so you can see how bland it really was. However, this thing had potential. It just took some time to bring it out to the way I wanted.

Cheers!

DC

Made the Switch From PC to Mac

Well I finally made the switch from my old Dell Laptop to a MacBook Pro. My Dell was around 4 years old and was not able to keep up with the heavy lifting required for Lightroom and Photoshop CS5, and it was time for a change.

I have to say that after working with both machines side by side for couple of weeks I now realize how clunky Windows is compared to Mac OS. The Mac interface is so much cleaner and things seems to flow better...now I get it!

However, making the switch comes with the added task of moving your files and applications over to the Mac. I have a bunch of programs that I use regularly so I thought I would provide a summary of my experiences after moving things over.

How to move your Lightroom Catalog:

Moving Lightroom is really a simple process since it's cross platform compatible between PC and Mac, which means that you can use the same licence key. First step is to go to the Adobe site to download, and install, the current version of LR and then use your licence key to activate it. Now one thing to keep in mind is that the licence key is different from version 1, 2 and 3. Each version was an upgrade and came with the new licence key. So you need to use the proper key for your version. If you have a lower version of LR then it might be a good time to upgrade as you move to a new system.

Next step is to prepare your catalog and preview files to be moved. The first thing that I suggest is that you do a backup of your LR catalog to ensure that you have something to fall back on if things go sideways. LR's backup includes an integrity check which is a critical feature so I recommend that you use this regularly to avoid your catalog getting corrupted.

Once this is done you need to find the proper LR files that need to be moved. The 2 that you need are the "Lightroom Catalog.lrcat" and the "Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata". On your PC these are found in the "My Documents/My Pictures/Lightroom" folder, unless you have moved them to a different location.  Copy these 2 files to an external HD. On the new Mac the path will be "Pictures/Lightroom". The folder will be created when you install LR on the new Mac.  Connect the drive with the 2 files to your Mac then Copy and Paste both files into the Lightroom folder. If you have more than one catalog then you will need to move all of the files over. Next double click on the "Lightroom Catalog.lrcat" file and LR will launch your catalog. Note: this just moves your LR catalog, it does not move your original image files. That's the next step.

Once you have launched the LR catalog you will see the question marks beside the folders indicating that the files are missing or offline. Now it's time to reconnect all those missing files. This process is made a lot easier if you have a well organized file structure where there is a main folder or a top folder that contains all of your images. This way you will only need to do this step once as all files and folders within the top folder will be updated. To do this go to the LR "Library/Folders". Right click on the top folder and select "Update Folder Location", next navigate to the location of where that folder exists on your HD and click OK. That's it! All of your photos will be linked.

Now, if you moved your images to a different HD like I did then you will need to make sure that you Update Folder Location to the new drive. I did a straight copy and paste of my images files, folder structure and all, to another drive. Once you've done that you're ready to start working with your photos in LR again.

After you move everything over, I suggest that you backup the LR catalog on the new machine.

How to move your Nik Software Suite:

Nik Software did the right thing and made all of their products cross platform compatible. All you need to do is go to their site to download, and install, the Mac versions and then use your current licence key to activate them. It does take some time if you have the entire suite, but it's still a really simple process. I was also able to get the free upgrade to Color Efex Pro 4, sweet!

How to move your Topaz Labs applications:

Topaz Labs also makes their products cross platform compatible so follow the same process as mentioned above for the Nik suite. What worked out really well for me was that Topaz Adjust 5 was just released as a free upgrade for Adjust 4 owners. So I was able to jump right into Adjust 5.

How to move Photoshop CS5:

This is where Adobe falls short of the rest of the industry as Photoshop CS5 is NOT cross platform compatible. Which means that you are not able to just download the Mac version and use your PC licence key. Some folks at Adobe say that there are specific reasons for this, but could not explain it to a simpleton like me.

What you need to do is contact Adobe, by phone is best, and explain that you want to do a cross platform exchange. Now in my case I was swapping the same version (PS CS5) and was told that the exchange would be done at no charge to me and that they would ship me the Mac version. I did have to pay a $22.00 shipping fee, which was no big deal. However, if you have an earlier version of PS, say CS3 or CS4, then you're going to get caught out because Adobe no longer sells or supports those products, which means you will need to pay for the upgrade to CS5. Adobe was able to ship me the Mac version in a couple of days. In the meantime, all you need to do is download the 30 day trial version for Mac to begin using it, and then plug in the new licence key once you get it from Adobe.

As an aside, it's not a big surprise that Adobe has some pretty backwards policies when it comes to negative option upgrades and pricing. Their most recent upgrade policy for the next version of PS recently drove Scott Kelby, President of the National Association for Photoshop Professionals, to pen an Open Letter to Adobe Systems.

Overall, a pretty simple process to move things over. You just need the time and patience to get through it all.

Cheers!

DC