Photoshop Pic Before and after C and C please

milos

Got a chance to put together a small indoor studio setup today in my back kitchen.

Took these shots using a D90, a Nikon speedlite and a white backround.

The speedlite was set to brighten just the backround but as you can see it did not.

Its my first time to ever use seperate light and backround so your comments would be welcome

swingking

Lighting is good but the composition is boring. I assume this was just a test shot??

magicbastarder

i'd drag the saturation sliders back a bit, it's a bit OTT in the post.

milos

yes they were all test shots but my concern is why did I get a grey backround and does the PPed backround look PPed

5uspect

What settings did you use on both the camera and the flash?
According to this you shot it on Program AE, basically fully auto. Is this correct? You'll need to be shooting in a manual mode with a flash to get good results.

If the flash is directed at the background stick in manual and up the power as required.

If you shoot in aperture priority (or manual) you can meter on the subject and use the flash to over blow the background. The opposite is often used for dark backgrounds and is called slow sync.

Here the flash is used on the subject shoot with a longish exposure (or higher ISO) to brighten up the background.
Here is a basic guide:
http://www.canon.co.jp/imaging/flashwork/ettl2/slow/index.html

Oh and the PP isn't great. You've also forgotten the area under his chin.

PopeBuckfastXVI

You got a grey background because you used a single bare strobe to light both the subject and the background, it looks like the flash is reasonably close to the subject - this means due to light falloff and the inverse square law your subject is getting proportionally way more light than your background. The fact that you've used a bare flash head really isn't helping.

What you need to do is take the flash waaaaaaaaaay back from both the subject and the wall, and diffuse it. You then need to pump up the power and set everything to manual - don't use Nikons CLS. Your camera meter wants to render that wall as grey (18% grey to be precise) and that's what it's doing. You want to open up your aperture as much as possible and set your flash power high (shutter speed won't make any difference) and nuke the wall to essentially make it a completely blown highlight - something your camera meter would throw a sh*t fit over, but something you want for your shot.

Definitely don't use direct flash for shots like this, gives really ugly shadows all over the subject.

milos

thanks all very helpful advice

jpb1974

A bit off topic but -

For really great portaits find a window in your house that lets in a nice bit of indirect sun-light (but not too much) and get yourself a cheap reflector from eBay (plus someone to hold it) e.g.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120503037843&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

"Reflector - Subject - Window" - you can't beat it.

5uspect

Also you'll need to be using an off camera strobe.

tricky D

5uspect wrote: »

Oh and the PP isn't great. You've also forgotten the area under his chin.

Also bit between bicep and glass and background through the glass between index finger and nose.

The Force Kin

milos wrote: »

yes they were all test shots but my concern is why did I get a grey backround and does the PPed backround look PPed

in order to get a pure white background, you would need to set up another flash behind the subject facing the backdrop