Lighting pros, how do we get highlights on portraits to not overexpose when boosting contrast?

Everytime I'm in the studio using a large octabox or softbox, my portraits' highlights on the back of my 5D Mark III looks fine but then on the computer they are too bright. I love boosting contrast to add pop to my photos, but of course, this looks terrible when there's no headroom left for the highlights! I have no idea why my highlights are coming out so hot even before I get to editing. When I boost my contrast in post, I want my highlights to end up far from pure white, and I want my shadows to be deep and dark, but still not pure black.

Here's a failed attempt at me trying to do this, but only had one light on the model (with a slight hair light behind) and I think lack of fill light ruined it:

first, there is nothing blown out in that pic. maybe a bit too bright but nothing that couldn't be recovered.

second, your "fill" is not doing what you want partly because it is placed too far behind the subject (assuming you want the eye socket lit) and it is just not that bright.

try a reflector as fill and make your kicker a true kicker.

edit: i just looked at your linked files. you are making way to many assumptions on those images. There is absolutely no reason to think such drastic adjustments were made in post. in fact, i've never made that kind of adjustment to contrast. +/- 5 at the most for a studio shot.

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #17406323
second, your "fill" is not doing what you want partly because it is placed too far behind the subject (assuming you want the eye socket lit) and it is just not that bright.

try a reflector as fill and make your kicker a true kicker.
.

Op stated, "only had one light on the model"...no Fill

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #17406323
first, there is nothing blown out in that pic. maybe a bit too bright but nothing that couldn't be recovered.

second, your "fill" is not doing what you want partly because it is placed too far behind the subject (assuming you want the eye socket lit) and it is just not that bright.

try a reflector as fill and make your kicker a true kicker.

edit: i just looked at your linked files. you are making way to many assumptions on those images. There is absolutely no reason to think such drastic adjustments were made in post. in fact, i've never made that kind of adjustment to contrast. +/- 5 at the most for a studio shot.

Yes there is nothing blown out because I tried to expose for the highlights but in doing so the blacks (background and shadows) got way too dark. I want the darks to be much brighter so the entire contrast of the photo is flatter, and during editing I can decide how contrasty I want it to be, does that make sense? It's basically how we edit in video, the actual footage is recorded very flat, almost no contrast, but in the color-grading stage we can push the contrast as far as we need to without losing any detail.

If you eye-drop tool my original sooc photo's highlights, you'll see it's on the brink of being overexposed. There's absolutely no room for play here:

What RAW processor are you using?

Alveric wrote in post #17406369
What RAW processor are you using?

I use both Lightroom 5 and the latest Camera Raw. Though I know it's my fault for not knowing how to light properly.

When you import into LR, are you using the Linear curve or LR's default Medium curve?

Alveric wrote in post #17406381
When you import into LR, are you using the Linear curve or LR's default Medium curve?

Interesting question but sorry to say I don't know. How would I find out? When I go into the develop modules 'Tone Curve' it just says linear on it.

I had this problem a lot so now to just boost the contrast without affecting the highlights I will make a copy of the image in photoshop, then add a black and white layer and merge it with the copy of the image. Finally blend the original image and the BW image using "soft light" and use the opacity slider to get it where it doesn't affect the highlights too much(around 30-50%).

moodlover wrote in post #17406388
Interesting question but sorry to say I don't know. How would I find out? When I go into the develop modules 'Tone Curve' it just says linear on it.

Then you are already using the Linear curve. The reason I asked is because LR (at least version 3.3, which is the one I used) by default applies contrast to images that are imported; I thought that might be part of your problem.

FWIW, I wish my images were that contrasty right off the bat –less massaging in post that way.

Wilt wrote in post #17406345
Op stated, "only had one light on the model"...no Fill

i was referring to the hair light as fill since it crept up so much on the face.

moodlover wrote in post #17406366
Yes there is nothing blown out because I tried to expose for the highlights but in doing so the blacks (background and shadows) got way too dark. I want the darks to be much brighter so the entire contrast of the photo is flatter, and during editing I can decide how contrasty I want it to be, does that make sense? It's basically how we edit in video, the actual footage is recorded very flat, almost no contrast, but in the color-grading stage we can push the contrast as far as we need to without losing any detail.

If you eye-drop tool my original sooc photo's highlights, you'll see it's on the brink of being overexposed. There's absolutely no room for play here:

Ideally, I would like to not have to recover either the highlights or shadows, I want to learn how to properly light so there's plenty of latitude in both. And yeah as said above I wasn't using a fill at all (major mistake I'm realizing). I guess what I'm asking is how can I compress my contrast/light-to-shadow range in the studio so that the highlights are far from pure white and the darks are far from pure black. Thank you for the help!

first, if you want to shoot flat and increase contrast in post, you are going to need another light or two. Isn't' that how you do it with video?

i am not a video guy, but i hang around with one who is top notch. This is only a guess, but a guess with some experience. I've seen video shot like you're talking about, blast it with light and fix it in post. IMO, stills are much more likely to show any fault in the lighting. Think about it. If that model were moving, her face would move through all kinds of lighting scenarios in one or two seconds. If it was crappy at the start of the two seconds it would be better at the middle or end. At that point they would cut to another scene and you would forget about the first without even having time to criticize. With stills, you have one shot. The viewer is not distracted by movement. Bam that's it.

There are video people that do amazing things, just as there are photographers who do amazing things. Interestingly enough, those skills do not always overlap.

Instead of boosting contrast in LR, try using the specific tone controls in the basic panel of the develop module. There you can boost (or lower) just highlights or just whites or just shadows or just blacks. You could also try adding vibrance instead of boosting contrast. Vibrance increases saturation in middle tones without effecting extreme shadows or highlights.

Your video experience may help you but I think you will get more out of a RAW file (you are shooting RAW aren't you?) that is full range and exposed a bit to the right (on the histogram). That kind of file will give you lots of room to adjust in LR.

moodlover wrote in post #17406201
Everytime I'm in the studio using a large octabox or softbox, my portraits' highlights on the back of my 5D Mark III looks fine but then on the computer they are too bright.

Try reading the histogram instead of relying on the image shown in the LCD. Also, have you calibrated your computer's monitor? Could be your monitor is not accurately displaying the image. Do your prints come out looking like what you captured in the camera or what you see on your computer screen?

moodlover wrote in post #17406201
I love boosting contrast to add pop to my photos, but of course, this looks terrible when there's no headroom left for the highlights! I have no idea why my highlights are coming out so hot even before I get to editing. When I boost my contrast in post, I want my highlights to end up far from pure white, and I want my shadows to be deep and dark, but still not pure black.

If you boost contrast you're pushing the highlights up and pulling the darks down. So if you start off with a high contrast subject, as you did in your sample, you will start to blow-out the highlights and loose the shadows as you apply more contrast.

moodlover wrote in post #17406201
Here's a failed attempt at me trying to do this, but only had one light on the model (with a slight hair light behind) and I think lack of fill light ruined it:

Question: does lack of fill light (meaning using just 1 key light) create TOO much contrast in-camera, and make the shadows too dark? I find that when I use only one light for portraits, the picture already has the amount of contrast I want in the final edit, so I cant even push it at all. I guess what I'm going for is a low contrast raw picture, so I can grade it and boost contrast to my hearts content.

Yes, a fill light is one way of reducing the contrast on your subject. This can be a second light or it can be a reflector. A fill light positioned just to camera right and slightly above the lens would have helped with contrast and provided a catchlight in the model's eyes.

If, using your light setup, the picture already has the amount of contrast you want in the final edit, then why are you boosting contrast? If its not broken, don't fix it!

moodlover wrote in post #17406201
I found images from a great photographer who has the lighting I'm after, and he uses only natural light from windows, I'd love to figure out how he has deep contrast but still such smooth highlight rolloff after editing, and of course I want to do this with no more than 2 lights in a studio:

CLICK: http://i.imgur.com/YHG​dJPV.jpg
CLICK: http://i.imgur.com/av9​l0Hp.jpg

Thank you guys so much for the help and I apologize if I broke any rules, I mean no harm!

I assume you don't have windows for natural light. The next best thing is large light sources placed a distance away from the subject, with reflectors or light colored walls to fill in the shadows. The bigger the light source the softer it becomes. Adjust the position of the light source and the reflector until you get the contrast you want.

But I'm still confused about why you feel it's necessary to boost contrast in every shot, even those that are already high contrast.

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #17406438
i was referring to the hair light as fill since it crept up so much on the face.

first, if you want to shoot flat and increase contrast in post, you are going to need another light or two. Isn't' that how you do it with video?

i am not a video guy, but i hang around with one who is top notch. This is only a guess, but a guess with some experience. I've seen video shot like you're talking about, blast it with light and fix it in post. IMO, stills are much more likely to show any fault in the lighting. Think about it. If that model were moving, her face would move through all kinds of lighting scenarios in one or two seconds. If it was crappy at the start of the two seconds it would be better at the middle or end. At that point they would cut to another scene and you would forget about the first without even having time to criticize. With stills, you have one shot. The viewer is not distracted by movement. Bam that's it.

There are video people that do amazing things, just as there are photographers who do amazing things. Interestingly enough, those skills do not always overlap.

Yes video is a bit more forgiving for sure, especially with high-end video cameras that have a huge dynamic range, so all the highlight and shadow detail is captured anyway. But the idea is still the same, I want to record flatter contrast and I shouldn't have been using one light only. For fill, would I have the 2nd softbox behind me, or to the side of the model pointed to her dark side?

rgs wrote in post #17406463
Instead of boosting contrast in LR, try using the specific tone controls in the basic panel of the develop module. There you can boost (or lower) just highlights or just whites or just shadows or just blacks. You could also try adding vibrance instead of boosting contrast. Vibrance increases saturation in middle tones without effecting extreme shadows or highlights.

Your video experience may help you but I think you will get more out of a RAW file (you are shooting RAW aren't you?) that is full range and exposed a bit to the right (on the histogram). That kind of file will give you lots of room to adjust in LR.

exactly. i was going to mention processing in my first post, but the fact is that the capture is most important. Given a RAW file i bet the shadows in the eye could be pulled up quite a bit.

FWIW I think it is a very good photograph. Given just a touch of fill in her left eye it would be able to be yanked around wherever you wanted.