First Portrait

Last night I helped a buddy of mine shoot some portraits he is doing for a project. It was my first time shooting this (actually, almost everything I do now is my first time ) Anyway, I just bought a backdrop and stands on Saturday and brought them and my 2 umbrella lights over. Lights are set up slightly in front of subjects, one on either side.

So here was one of my favorites from the evening, and want some C&C. One thing I already learned.... I need some sort of rear or boom lighting to light their hair to help it stand out from the background. So please add suggestions of how you would do it and with what equipment. I was shooting with a 430 on camera, sometimes directed at subjects, sometimes bounced off ceiling.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

I think its a tad too dark still. And a hairlight would definitely have helped separate the hair from the BG, it sort of blends a bit right now. Personally I'd like to see the BG a bit deeper, but its gonna take some work so you don't blend their hairs with the BG. Layers is all I've got to say...levels and layers!
Not bad for a first try tho, keep it up!

TSEE wrote in post #4218172
I think its a tad too dark still. And a hairlight would definitely have helped separate the hair from the BG, it sort of blends a bit right now. Personally I'd like to see the BG a bit deeper, but its gonna take some work so you don't blend their hairs with the BG. Layers is all I've got to say...levels and layers!
Not bad for a first try tho, keep it up!

I see people talk about adjusting levels all the time on this board, but I'm not sure what this entials. Some way to make pictures "pop" is what I've gathered And by layers, I'm assuming you mean editing the photo in PS using layers. Is there a sticky or something on levels?

No sticky that I've seen....open the photo in photoshop, go to levels and now someone better correct me if I'm wrong, the left one adjust your black point (contrast?) I go anywhere from 5-20 usually depending on the photo. The middle one adjusts the midtones...if you use only this one it will get more "washed out", I got anywhere from 1.05-1.40 depending on photo. And the last one I think was white point. The biggest difference I saw when using the last slider was one white backdrop photos, the whites became more pure.
Here I found a tutorial for ya, maybe that explains it better:
http://www.cambridgein​colour.com/tutorials/l​evels.htm
And yes using layers, use duplicate layers and then adjust things one at a time on separate layers, erase the parts that became "bad" in one layer, letting another one shine thru. Just a little playing in photoshop and you'll get the hang of it!

I agree seperation from the background would be helpful and a hairlight to help with that. I know a lot of people like to take pictures and photoshop later, but seems a waste of time, if you can just get everything done in the shot. Pratice makes perfect and I myself am still in practice mode.

I really don't know much about the lighting or any of that, but looks odd that none of them seem to be looking at the camera though. Good first try though, way better than what I've been coming up with.

Thanks Sue! I'll give that a shot and see how it looks.

coralnutz, that's because there were two of us there shooting, and they happened to be looking at him for this pic. Other ones where they were looking at me, the kid was all crazy.

Ok, I changed levels to something like 6, 1.25, and 250. Better?

Original

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png'

They're a bit lighter which is good but you washed out the BG. Here's where layers would be good (or the hair light to start with so you separate them from the BG)...
Here's what I did...opened it, madea duplicate layer. Then on the top layer ran levels, something like 5, 1.20 and 220 I think? Then used the magic wand and the selection brush (do this carefully so you get a nice selection, I was a bit sloppy with this smaller copy, but hopefully you get the idea) to select just the BG, then use the magic eraser and delete the BG from the top layer, letting the darker on teh bottom show thru.
Then ran 5 of saturation on it. Probably something like what I'd do.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

Ok, now I read the tutorial

I adjusted only the white level slider (There was a gap at the right of my histogram). Then I clicked on auto to see what it would do, and it seemed to make around the same change, although it does not show you what it changes it to, just adjusts the histogram and resets the sliders.

I liked what auto came up with...

Sue, in your version, his shirt looks really washed out to me.

Yeah, I noticed I probably took the white point slider too far...dial the right one down and it should look better. The stripes sort of disappeared on the collar.
Yeah the auto wasn't bad.

You've got the idea now. The edited image looks much better, gives them some sense of 3 dimensional image.