Seeking portrait help: I’m volunteer in a nursing home and am currently doing portraits of the residents, who will then decorate frames to have them to give to family as Christmas...

ngrea Loc: Sandy Spring, Maryland

I’m volunteer in a nursing home and am currently doing portraits of the residents, who will then decorate frames to have them to give to family as Christmas presents.
One resident always wears glasses with dark brown bifocal lenses. I have little trouble dealing with reflections on clear lenses, but the dark lenses are giving me problems. The resident isn’t able to follow directions on how to tilt her head or change her pose, and I’m not sure if I can get her to pose again, so I need to take care of it in editing. If I clone or airbrush enough to remove the reflection, the lens looks solid, rather than semi-transparent. Does anyone have suggestions? The best I’ve been able to do is tone down the reflection so it is less noticeable.
Per HIPPA (healthcare privacy) regulations I can’t post any example.
Any ideas will be appreciated!

alggomas Loc: Wales, United Kingdom.

Do the lenses have to be semi transparent?
You could take a photo of the glasses on their own, then erase the portrait ones and replace?
Erase the cente of the lense and replace with a lighter colour?
There may be other ways but all involve work.

Tomfl101 Loc: Mount Airy, MD

Sound like you know the basics for removing reflections but are the lenses dark by being light sensitive to strong outdoor light? If so move indoors. Try tilting the frames downward to eliminate reflection and or raising your light source (assuming you are using studio lighting). A higher camera angle may help as long as you don't go so high as to diminish eye to camera impact.

ngrea Loc: Sandy Spring, Maryland

alggomas wrote:

Do the lenses have to be semi transparent?
You could take a photo of the glasses on their own, then erase the portrait ones and replace?
Erase the cente of the lense and replace with a lighter colour?
There may be other ways but all involve work.

Thank you for your suggestion

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

ngrea wrote:

I’m volunteer in a nursing home and am currently d... (show quote)

As for tilting her head, can you tell her to look at a picture placed on a table in front of her? That would get her head down.

If you have to edit reflections out of the dark glasses, can you use the standard techniques for replacing unwanted things in an image? I imagine it won't be easy to edit something on eyeglasses.

ngrea Loc: Sandy Spring, Maryland

Tomfl101 wrote:

Sound like you know the basics for removing reflections but are the lenses dark by being light sensitive to strong outdoor light? If so move indoors. Try tilting the frames downward to eliminate reflection and or raising your light source (assuming you are using studio lighting). A higher camera angle may help as long as you don't go so high as to diminish eye to camera impact.

The lenses are not photo-sensitive. I’m shooting indoors, using natural light from north windows to get a softening and relaxed effect. But may have to switch to artificial light for this one. Thanks for your suggestion.

ngrea Loc: Sandy Spring, Maryland

jerryc41 wrote:

As for tilting her head, can you tell her to look at a picture placed on a table in front of her? That would get her head down.

If you have to edit reflections out of the dark glasses, can you use the standard techniques for replacing unwanted things in an image? I imagine it won't be easy to edit something on eyeglasses.

The resident is in the memory care unit and does not respond to requests. A family member of the resident assisted with the shoot but neither of us had any luck getting a change in position. That’s why I think I’m stuck with what I can do with editing. I may play around more with cloning from the multiple shots I took to see it I can do better.
Thanks for your suggestions.

Low Budget Dave

I used to have the same problem with a family member, and I had to literally take a bunch of pictures with and without the glasses. Then I would copy a small portion of one of the "no glasses" shots into one of the "glasses" shots so that it looked like you could see her eyes through the dark lenses. When I painted it in, I had to use only about a 10% transparency, because otherwise the lens looked too transparent, and everyone knew that she never wore transparent lenses.

If you don't have any "no glasses" shots, then your best bet is to take a picture something nice, desaturate to 50% and darken it to about 85% black, and paste that picture into the eyeglasses so that it looks like a reflection.

If her head is tilted up, then the reflection can be clouds and sky. If her head is to an angle, then you can add a "reflection" as if she is looking at a painting or some friends. If the head is tilted down, then you can add a "reflection" of some potted plants and flowers.

ngrea Loc: Sandy Spring, Maryland

Low Budget Dave wrote:

I used to have the same problem with a family memb... (show quote)

thank yoiu for the suggestion.

Morning Star Loc: West coast, North of the 49th N.

jerryc41 wrote:

As for tilting her head, can you tell her to look at a picture placed on a table in front of her? That would get her head down.
...snip...

Is there someone available who can get her attention and have her look at something with her head at the right angle? Maybe a picture, a toy, or simply speaking to her so the lady will look at this person's face, and have her own face tilted at the correct angle?

ngrea Loc: Sandy Spring, Maryland

Morning Star wrote:

Is there someone available who can get her attention and have her look at something with her head at the right angle? Maybe a picture, a toy, or simply speaking to her so the lady will look at this person's face, and have her own face tilted at the correct angle?

We tried all that. But thanks for the suggestion

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

ngrea wrote:

I’m volunteer in a nursing home and am currently d... (show quote)

Are the reflections the same in each lens?

Actually, could you post the picture?

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

Here are two approaches:
One using cloning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWUMrhvaNqs

And one that plays with thecolor of the refection:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qv3ETGvvGE

ngrea Loc: Sandy Spring, Maryland

dsmeltz wrote:

Are the reflections the same in each lens?

Actually, could you post the picture?

The reflections are very similar on both lenses. One is more transparent. I can’t post picture because the law prohibits revealing any personal information about a person in a healthcare facility.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

ngrea wrote:

I’m volunteer in a nursing home and am currently d... (show quote)

Maybe put a couple of eyes on the glasses and then lower the opacity 'til it looks real.