Experimenting with light and shadow

[photoguy6405]

Posted this in the experimentation gallery and was disappointed to get only one response, so I thought I'd try again here.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a291/photoguy6405/Other/Key1-600x400.jpg

[Flo]

Kinda cool.great for Valentines day.Key.heart....:cool:

the hot pink is hard on the eyes? In behind the key itself.

[Danger_Darren]

I agree about the hot spot behind the key, it is distracting. Other than that i think it is a great shot. I like the whole mood the picture carries.

[loony33]

The hot pink is annoying on one of my monitors - on the other one it is rather nice.
How did you get the vignette effect?

[Dramatis]

What was the lighting setup on this? Looks like two lights to me: main fired almost straight on and a softer light lower than the key and to camera right.

Really like the composition and use of lighting here though I wonder how it would look against a redder background than the pink I'm seeing. The detail on the head of the key is lovely!

[photoguy6405]

The lighting set-up is deceptively simple. It's a single 20 yr old army flashlight with a red lens, about 18" away, with the shadow projected on a solid plain white background. The flashlight was purposely set at a slight angle. The room was otherwise dark. The vignetting is natural as that's where the light from the flashlight falls off naturally.

I wanted the vignetting, but I also wanted the shadow to be a little sharper. I tried moving the light back, and I did get a sharper shadow in doing that, but it also made the light a really annoying pink and also very flat and uninteresting.

The key itself also came out with a red tint that I didn't expect and didn't like, so I isolated the key in PS and desaturated it. First time I had done anything even remotely complex in PS and it took me over 2 hrs to learn the ins and outs of selections.

Valentine's Day is actually what gave me the idea for this. I'll work on the hot spot and see what I can come up with.

Thanks for the comments and thoughts.

[Dramatis]

The lighting set-up is deceptively simple. It's a single 20 yr old army flashlight with a red lens, about 18" away, with the shadow projected on a solid plain white background. The flashlight was purposely set at a slight angle. The room was otherwise dark. The vignetting is natural as that's where the light from the flashlight falls off naturally.

I wanted the vignetting, but I also wanted the shadow to be a little sharper. I tried moving the light back, and I did get a sharper shadow in doing that, but it also made the light a really annoying pink and also very flat and uninteresting.

The key itself also came out with a red tint that I didn't expect and didn't like, so I isolated the key in PS and desaturated it. First time I had done anything even remotely complex in PS and it took me over 2 hrs to learn the ins and outs of selections.

Valentine's Day is actually what gave me the idea for this. I'll work on the hot spot and see what I can come up with.

Thanks for the comments and thoughts.

In the future, when you want to do a small selective desaturation like this the Sponge tool comes in handy. If you want to work non-destructively a desaturated duplicate layer and a layer mask also work wonders. :)

[photoguy6405]

In the future, when you want to do a small selective desaturation like this the Sponge tool comes in handy. If you want to work non-destructively a desaturated duplicate layer and a layer mask also work wonders. :)

My PS skills are still rudimentary at best, and I got a couple books to help me and what I ended up doing was selecting the key and moving/copying it to a separate adjustment layer and destaurating that. That was the first 'solution' I found in the book so I went with it. I wasn't familiar with the Sponge tool, but any tips I can get for PS are most certainly welcome and appreciated.

Just selecting the key was hit-and-miss and frustrated me to no end. Everything I did after that was a breeze in comparison.

[PETERSYMES]

I like the shot, it is interesting.
I do agree that the hotspot detracts from an otherwise good shot.