Family Wedding first time as a second shooter HELP!

[Keydogg]

Hey guys,

I decided to take my camera along to a family wedding in a marquee for a few shots and to try and get some experience. This was really difficult as I have never really done this type of event before, the lighting was VERY challenging for 2 reasons, 1. it was very dim, 2. the disco booth made up the main bulk of the light, and kept going from green, to red, to blue... argh!

Right, the gear I was using was my 400D (XTi), 220ex (DIRE flash) and 2 lenses, the 70-200 2.8L IS and sigma 18-50 2.8 EX macro.

There are 2 reasons for me posting:

1. Help with the photography
2. Help with PPing. My skin smoothing method is very basic (duplicate layer, surface blur, layer mask, brush white on the skin, use transparency to try and get it right). I also think I might have over done the white balance and they're all a bit yellow (I was going for a warm look).

Please please PLEASE can someone have a go at PPing the originals and run me through roughly what you did as I am wanting to learn! Thanks!

Here are the pictures:

1.
http://www.owns.tv/%7Ealan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/Picture-5498-1.jpg

Original:

http://www.owns.tv/%7Ealan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/IMG_5498.jpg

2.
http://www.owns.tv/%7Ealan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/Picture-5543-1.jpg

Original:

http://www.owns.tv/%7Ealan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/IMG_5543.jpg

3.

http://www.owns.tv/%7Ealan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/Picture-5622-1.jpg

Original:

http://www.owns.tv/%7Ealan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/IMG_5622.jpg

4.

http://www.owns.tv/%7Ealan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/Picture-5527-1.jpg

Original:

http://www.owns.tv/%7Ealan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/IMG_5527.jpg

Tell me your thoughts!

[Keydogg]

Here are a couple of others:

5.
http://www.owns.tv/~alan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/Picture-5525-1.jpg (http://www.owns.tv/%7Ealan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/Picture-5525-1.jpg)

Original:
http://www.owns.tv/~alan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/IMG_5525.jpg (http://www.owns.tv/%7Ealan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/IMG_5525.jpg)

6.
http://www.owns.tv/~alan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/Picture-5674-1.jpg (http://www.owns.tv/%7Ealan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/Picture-5674-1.jpg)

Original:
http://www.owns.tv/~alan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/IMG_5674.jpg (http://www.owns.tv/%7Ealan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/IMG_5674.jpg)

7.
http://www.owns.tv/~alan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/Picture-5603-1.jpg (http://www.owns.tv/%7Ealan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/Picture-5603-1.jpg)

Original:
http://www.owns.tv/~alan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/IMG_5603.jpg (http://www.owns.tv/%7Ealan/Alan/400D/CazWedding/IMG_5603.jpg)

[jcolman]

One PS tool that would help is a godsend for removing wrinkles/dark areas under the eyes. I forget it's name but in PS2 it lives just above the clone tool. Basically you draw a line around the dark area under the eyes, drag it to a section of skin on the cheek that's smooth and the action copies and blends the skin from the cheek to replace the skin under the eye. It will really help your shots.

As for photography help, Adding a couple of off-camera lights and modifiers would help tremendously but that takes money and time to learn how to use them but it's something that you'll need to learn if you plan on doing this for a living.

[Keydogg]

The next 2 items on my shopping list are an 85mm 1.8 and a 580EX II. I would have given a limb to have been able to bounce light about, and the 220 is so weak!

I think the tool is called the Healer!

[Fingertip]

I have found that shooting RAW drastically reduces the white balance problems you are having. Trying to change color that drastically on jpegs is pretty tough.
I thought you did quite good on #2 though.
I have heard that you should not do PP on men (like on #3) they look better with the rougher natural skin tone.

[Keydogg]

Hi fingertip, yes I shot RAW on these shots, the originals I have posted up here are just straight JPEG conversions. It really helped in rescuing the WB like in #3. Ill have a look at not skin smoothing the men.

Can someone have a quick go at PPing some of my photos to show me what sort of end result I should be getting?

[reefergal]

Those are nice,

[Lunajen]

Nice shots. Just having color balancing problems...download Lightroom and try tweaking them in it. JPGS respond a bit better in Lightroom to me and and it is nondestructive to the image. Download the free trial for 30 days...at www.adobe.com

[Keydogg]

Yes I currently have lightroom, I think it might be my monitor calibration that is the problem here!

[LeesaB]

Get lightroom, it's an awesome program, then spend a few bucks on some presets or even search thing web there are some awesome free ones out there also.

You'll be happy you did :-)

[Keydogg]

As I said I have lightroom, and also PS CS3.

I'm intrigued to know about presets, what do these do? Is there a site I could read to learn about these?

Thanks!

[LeesaB]

There are a few places do a search for free lightroom presets

Here is a blog that may help

Adobe Photoshop lightroom killer tips

I rarely use PS anymore, I do for maybe 10% of my images anymore it's all about lightroom.

[Keydogg]

I rarely use PS anymore, I do for maybe 10% of my images anymore it's all about lightroom.

That's the best news I've heard all day. What really grates me is having to do a bit in lightroom, then a bit in PS, then a bit in lightroom, etc.

[tsw910]

yeah .. Leesa is on point .. LR is for about 80-90% of the work .. and the rest from 20-10% is for mainly final touch ups to be blown up or main photos ..

[LeesaB]

I know and I got fed up withit also and built a really good workflow and yes I still use PS but not as much as I did, and I found that PS was not created for photographers, in reality it was more for the artists, and others not us!