Alien Bees Users Check In (2)

Great shot Alex, I love the pose and her expression!

think ive found a skin process i like. let me know what you think. camron rads method

Skin process looks good Mike.
The only thing I would comment on is that to my eye ( and this is probably just me.....because I see a lot of this these days, so apparently other folks like it ) when I see areas of the face that is blown out white, it bothers me. I'm not sure what modifier(s) you had on your light(s), but to my eye it's just a bit too harsh and specular.
But again, take that with a grain of salt, because I see a lot of work these days that is shot this way, so obviously many other folks prefer this look.
I do like the shot, nice pose. I might have had her wrap her fingers on her right hand around the flowers so we coule see them.

So what was this skin process, The photo is very lovely. I agree with Dave that it would be a touch better if her hand was positioned around the flowers as it looks uncomfortably bent.

here is the link to cams soften technigue. It does a great job.

http://abduzeedo.com/p​erfect-lie-photoshop-2

^+1 I spent a long time trying to create a skin softening workflow myself and threw all that away after I watched Cam's video. Very simple and very effective. I just got a call from PCB saying my Einstein is shipping out tomorrow or Wednesday!!! I'm very excited but also a little confused because they were estimating my Einstein late March but my VB mini early March but I haven't heard anything about my mini getting shipped out.

Last one in the set for Donielle

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I like that one the best. great DOF, lighting, and composition.

rohicks wrote in post #11932020
Last one in the set for Donielle

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Very nice!

....well....that's great, if you guys are getting the results you want, but I think Cam's proclamation that "using blur layers doesn't work" is simply incorrect. There are numerous ways of doing this, and his is certainly one way of doing it. By using blur layers and then going back and bringing the sharpness back in on the eyes, lips etc actually works pretty darn well, and the process I use is a lot less time intensive than how he is doing it.

I think the argument against using blur layers/layer masks is rooted in the fact that a lot folks overdo it. The beauty of it is, as always, you can apply as little or as much as you like. Some guys like to process skin to the point of 'doll skin', and others prefer to keep it looking as natural as possible while still hiding not only blemishes but smoothing a bit of the detail in the pores of the skin.

Whichever way it's done, of course the bottom line is end the end result......are you and/or the client happy ? And also, in my mind, have I created something that is "timeless" ? In other words, is it still going to look appealing 10 years from now when someone looks at the print ?

All of which has gone a bit off topic from the title of this thread.

phamster wrote in post #11922560
i try to plan things out on a shoot before going into a shoot , but when you deal with speeds of weather changes that happens under 5 mins, you try to get what you can get..

we did 4 different car poses (moving the car to a different spot) Father stated that there will be and addition person to help but that person didn't show up.. so moving lights around became a little slower, and the over all difference between the 2 shots is 15mins,the team was working as fast as we can to get as much as we can..

it was windy, so the large modifiers couldn't be used..

so in the end, i got 3 shots liked, lesson learned, is: for outside car shoot expect the unexpected..

here is the photo with out the contrasty action ran, i think i like it better with out the contrasty look...

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and the final from this series

a total of 5 lights were used for this shot

1 back lighting was AB1600 with 60 inch softlighter with an orange gel, camera left for the orange glowing look

2 key lighting on Vivek was Elinchrom Quadra with deep octa about 5 feet away held by dad @ 3.0 power boomed downwards

3-4 also had 2 speed lights on the rims held by my japanese Co Workers at Subaru Research Design, (Koga and Kubo - San) they tagged along to see the Car of course.

5 AB1600 with red gel with shoot thru to light up camera right @ full power

alien bee and the speed lights triggered by triggered by the New Cactus V5's

elinchrom triggered by the sky port, skyport on top of the cactus V5' that was on top of the camera

CameraCanon EOS 5D Mark II
Exposure0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperturef/4.5
Focal Length20 mm
ISO Speed100
Exposure Bias0 EV

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/-phamster-/5479701916/

WOW

simply.... ..... .....complex. I have sooo far to go. great work

Strobist info on my flickr

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/zsutton/5487451​583/

Bored and was about to hop in the shower after putting the moon unit together.