Retouch Experiments

I was experimenting with various retouching techniques today, using this recent image of Shawn that was still in my work queue as starting point.

Using dodge & burn often ends up discoloring the area. Previous results with clone in color mode were not satisfactory. For this image I played with using a custom gradient map and blending it in selectively to restore the color.

Also experimenting with different color model. I enjoyed adjusting lightness on a separate curves layer in CMYK on this image.

Photo retouching is a journey in itself. There’s so many things to see and try….

Putting it into Practice

This afternoon I took some time to practice some of the lighting techniques we learned earlier this week. Subjects were a pineapple and a chunk of Parmesan cheese. Shot with one softbox, a gridded spot, and a small reflector. Most shots were done with my old 100mm macro lens allowing me to get up close and personal with the pineapple.

And at the end I got a bit more playful with an unnatural combination. This is the cheese with some Asparagus arranged around it.

Catching Up

I have been spending most of today catching up on retouch tasks that fell behind in these hectic last few weeks. A whole day with no pre-determined tasks, except nice weather. A great lunch with the family and a nap in between various editing sessions. Here one of two close-ups of Gabriela that needed to be cleaned up.

Took the time to play with various skin clean-up techniques. But nothing beats pixel-by-pixel work in the end. There are apparently no short cuts that I feel look appealing.

Business Headshots

Change of pace – my wife needed a new set of headshots for upcoming events at work. This was the basic set, shot on a white wall. In the coming weeks we’ll also work on a set on location to mix things up a bit more.

Shawn in B&W

Picked up all the film I shot in the last few weeks from the lab. Here’s a nice shot of Shawn (original post). This one was shot on Tri-X 320 with minimal post processing.

Credit: Shawn (model @ SMG), Shyn (make-up)

And The Rest

These is the last installment of images from this week’s workshop with Don Giannatti at SPA Studio. I already posted Samuel’s images and the champagne bottle.

First up our shot of one of the participant’s Nikon camera. And yes, if you inspect the Exif data, this was a Canon shooting a Nikon. A very nice single light setup. Well, when I say single light - it involved a single studio strobe, but also an array of fill cards, that for practical purpose are passive light sources. The other key to this image is that it was shot with a tilt-shift lens which preserved the perspective of the camera, even though it was shot from below the horizon line.

Next up a produce shot. Taken on Fuji Pro 400H film, outside of the studio in natural sun light. The sun side-lit the shot with small reflector on the right for fill and specular highlights.

Moving on to Tyease, one of two models we worked with on Monday. For the left image, we had started out with a great shot of Tom Hanks by Dan Winters as an inspiration for the light and then carefully built this up. A softbox for fill, a dish as key, a strobe for background splash, and a small gridded hairlight. For the right image we setup a simple two light setup – a softbox as key on the left, and a small strip on the right as rim light. I shot this with the tilt-shift lens and a tilt on the vertical with the focus on the lip region. The fall-off in focus was captured as seen here.

And finally this image of April, which was our first shot of the workshop. The goal was to create an image to be used in a magazine double-truck design featuring April as a new and upcoming dancer. We used the shadows and streaming light to fill the space on the left. I also added some design to emulate the magazine design in the spirit of the assignment. This was the most complex light setup we used. It consisted of a simple reflector key light, 3 separate gridded highlights for dress and face, and the goboed head on the left for the streaming light.

Samuel & The Trumpet

More images from the workshop. These are my two picks from the set we shot down at the water front in Mukilteo with Samuel. Both were shot on Tri-X 320 film. In post I increased the contrast some more, to further push the feel and keep the eye more focused on Samuel in what is a busy scene.