How do I get a more natural looking photo edition?
Feb 26, 2015 12:38:36 #
Hi Everyone, I took this picture during sunset, around 6pm with my Canon 7D at 50mm 1/250 sec. f/1.8 ISO 100 RAW. I took the picture knowing I had to do some post process, and so I did, but I think the result looks to manipulated. I want a more professional look through editing because in the future I want to try wedding photography and this place is a usual spot, maybe you guys can give me some tips. What do you guys think?
Original RAW
Edited
Feb 26, 2015 12:41:13 #
danaco11 wrote:
Hi Everyone, I took this picture during sunset, around 6pm with my Canon 7D at 50mm 1/250 sec. f/1.8 ISO 100 RAW. I took the picture knowing I had to do some post process, and so I did, but I think the result looks to manipulated. I want a more professional look through editing because in the future I want to try wedding photography and this place is a usual spot, maybe you guys can give me some tips. What do you guys think?
Then you should have used flash, no PP can give you that look, do it in-camera!
Feb 26, 2015 12:48:33 #
If you goal was to get the girl and the water you could have moved to you right and not included so much of the sunset. Either that or take the shot in the morning just before sunrise.
Feb 26, 2015 12:50:03 #
Feb 26, 2015 13:05:50 #
I tried but couldn't manage to use it properly. I did the exposure on the sunset without flash, then with the flash get light on her, but the flash didn't light her enough even in it's max. It's a good flash (neweer Seeelite 560), but I didn't use it properly.
Feb 26, 2015 13:09:12 #
marsdad wrote:
If you goal was to get the girl and the water you could have moved to you right and not included so much of the sunset. Either that or take the shot in the morning just before sunrise.
Hi, I wanted to include the sunset. if I had a flash, do you know if I should expose on the sunset and then shoot with flash until the subjeft is also exposed? Thanks!
Feb 26, 2015 13:35:54 #
speters wrote:
Then you should have used flash, no PP can give you that look, do it in-camera!
I tried but couldn't manage to use it properly. I did the exposure on the sunset without flash, then with the flash get light on her, but the flash didn't light her enough even in it's max. It's a good flash (neweer Seeelite 560), but I didn't use it properly.
Feb 26, 2015 14:30:02 #
Hi Danaco. If your attempts to use flash (more than one flash is a possibility) don't work out, you'll have to depend on PP.
You don't say what PP software you have, but I'll mention what I'd do and assume that you have something similar.
The first thing you should do is lighten the shadows to the max. If you don't have a shadows slider, Curves or some such should do the trick (not as selective as the shadows slider, but it can be made to work). If you do have shadows, there are various ways to give the pic more than one application.
The sky in your original shot is so good I'd be tempted to try to keep it. To that end I would try selecting the girl/wall and giving them some selective lightening. The face probably needs slightly more lightening than the body, so I would do it in two stages - whole body first then face only.
Lets assume that you've tried what I suggested and maybe thrown in a bit of extra global lightening, and you've ended up with something like your posted edit. I would say that it's pretty good except for the sky. To recover the sky you could select it and lower the highlights a bit or perhaps give it a general de-brightening.
I would also say that the sky is over-yellow, and to fix that you could use the WB and Tint sliders to reduce the yellow and re-introduce a touch of orange or magenta. The sky is also too vivid, and you could sort that using the Saturation slider (it should be available when working on a selection).
Another possibility is to use the HSL tools to target yellow and use the yellow tint slider to shift it towards orange or even orange/pink. Doing the same sort of thing with the orange tint slider would probably help. However, the down side to using the HSL tools globally is that everything in the shot that's the same colour (yellow, orange or whatever) will be affected. That includes the girl's complexion, and you really don't want to mess too much with that. But it'd be worth a try to see how much you could get away with. And hopefully you'd be able to do most of it by making selections, as described above.
You don't say what PP software you have, but I'll mention what I'd do and assume that you have something similar.
The first thing you should do is lighten the shadows to the max. If you don't have a shadows slider, Curves or some such should do the trick (not as selective as the shadows slider, but it can be made to work). If you do have shadows, there are various ways to give the pic more than one application.
The sky in your original shot is so good I'd be tempted to try to keep it. To that end I would try selecting the girl/wall and giving them some selective lightening. The face probably needs slightly more lightening than the body, so I would do it in two stages - whole body first then face only.
Lets assume that you've tried what I suggested and maybe thrown in a bit of extra global lightening, and you've ended up with something like your posted edit. I would say that it's pretty good except for the sky. To recover the sky you could select it and lower the highlights a bit or perhaps give it a general de-brightening.
I would also say that the sky is over-yellow, and to fix that you could use the WB and Tint sliders to reduce the yellow and re-introduce a touch of orange or magenta. The sky is also too vivid, and you could sort that using the Saturation slider (it should be available when working on a selection).
Another possibility is to use the HSL tools to target yellow and use the yellow tint slider to shift it towards orange or even orange/pink. Doing the same sort of thing with the orange tint slider would probably help. However, the down side to using the HSL tools globally is that everything in the shot that's the same colour (yellow, orange or whatever) will be affected. That includes the girl's complexion, and you really don't want to mess too much with that. But it'd be worth a try to see how much you could get away with. And hopefully you'd be able to do most of it by making selections, as described above.
Feb 27, 2015 10:31:32 #
danaco11 wrote:
Hi Everyone, I took this picture during sunset, around 6pm with my Canon 7D at 50mm 1/250 sec. f/1.8 ISO 100 RAW. I took the picture knowing I had to do some post process, and so I did, but I think the result looks to manipulated. I want a more professional look through editing because in the future I want to try wedding photography and this place is a usual spot, maybe you guys can give me some tips. What do you guys think?
OK, you have enough detail in her face to get a very nice image. I'd do the majority of post processing in the RAW editor. I'd leave the background area as is, but do a bit of dodging. I'd lighten her face a bit of her front to bring out the detail, but not quite as brightly as you did in the second image. That way it will look a lot more natural.
--Bob
Feb 27, 2015 12:14:46 #
The first thing that catches my eye is the sun, in the second image. I'm surprised the speedlight did not give enough fill light on the subject without blowing out the background. On the second image you could reduce the glare from the sun/sky.
Another option
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