Natural Light Portraits - For CJ's comments

mobilevirgin

mobilevirgin

I'm a cheeky little sausage
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As a follow up to this thread, CJ's kindly offered to have a look at some pics I took at the weekend. All natural lighting, taken at a party on Sunday afternoon. No flash. I was quite pleased with them, but CJ suggested they could be improved. Which I have no doubt they could be - I'm no expert at this sort of thing.

2044572503_9b0929a00e.jpg


2043497587_9007272b8c.jpg


2044293294_20eac7eb65.jpg
 
Heya.

OK, I'm going to use the second image as an example, because you've done a good job on the lighting.

First, the reason the second image is strongest in terms of lighting is because of the lighting direction. See the catchlights in the eyes? They're present in both eyes and near the top of the eye, which means you have a light source illuminating the important part of the face. The shadows are falling toward the back of the face and slightly downward, which means the mask of the face is highlighted. That's just right for a flattering portrait.

I can tell by the small size and "hardness" of the catchlights that there is a single light source, and it is either small or relatively far away. Still, because the direction of the light is good, the slightly hard light is fine.

What you're lacking in this shot is midtones. You've got great modeling shadows given dimension to the face, but they're not terribly effective because they're so very light. I've pulled down (darkened) the midtones while leaving everything else basically alone. See how the image changes?

20434975879007272b8cnv5.jpg


(A slight disclaimer: all monitors are different, so this image may appear too dark to some people. Adjust the midtones to your personal taste and monitor; the important thing is to see the major difference between the first and second images.)

Make sense?

- CJ
 
It does - looks a lot better. What I'm struggling with is a (brief) walk through in Photoshop as to how you achieved that. Are you using curves? or something else?

/edit - How rude - thanks - I appreciate it
 
MV, I've never really bonded with the curves function, partly because I'm not a digital photographer and I don't do much in PS. I generally prefer to use the levels function, because I can adjust just the midtones without inadvertently messing up the highlights and shadows.

- CJ
 
Ok - fair enough - I'll have a go at one of the others and see what happens
 
yeah - you're right - its a bit soft - it was resized for web and I didn't sharpen it up - that wasn't the point of the exercise - I was trying to get the mid tones a tad darker. Looking at it now, its not much different from the first version, I think :-(
 
Heya, MV -

Sorry I couldn't get back to this thread before. Got swamped with holiday orders, then it was Thanksgiving, and in my zeal to make an impressive gourmet meal, I attempted to cut my right hand off in a slicer. Stitches are cool, and add a certain unique beauty to a woman's hands, don't you think?

OK, back to the matter at hand.

The image you posted doesn't look much different than the original, as you noticed already. Remember I mentioned that the image I adjusted was particularly well-suited for deeper midtones because of the lighting direction? Well, in the one you played with, the lighting direction is not nearly as good. The shadows are falling under her eyes, and the mask of her face is not lit. When the lighting direction is off, darkening the midtones will make the lighting problem more obvious.

If I recall correctly, there was another image with these on your flickr page with two subjects in the frame, where the lighting direction was a bit better. Why don't you have a try with that one, and we can talk through the results. Deal?

- CJ
 
Sure thing - thanks for the comments.

Sorry to hear about the stitches - but it is presumably better than cutting off your trigger finger altogether.
 
Here's the original as I processed it 1st time round (save for a bit of sharpen after resize)

Kate_Ax1.jpg


Here's the re-touched version - using levels to increase the mid-tones.

Kate_Ax2.jpg


I see what you mean about the light being better on this image than the one of Kate on her own. I think, perhaps, I'm learning something here. Am I?

Thanks
 
Yes, MV, you are learning something. LOL. Lighting direction and midtones will make all the difference in your future people shots. Nicely done.

- CJ
 
cjnicolai said:
Heya.

OK, I'm going to use the second image as an example, because you've done a good job on the lighting.

First, the reason the second image is strongest in terms of lighting is because of the lighting direction. See the catchlights in the eyes? They're present in both eyes and near the top of the eye, which means you have a light source illuminating the important part of the face. The shadows are falling toward the back of the face and slightly downward, which means the mask of the face is highlighted. That's just right for a flattering portrait.

I can tell by the small size and "hardness" of the catchlights that there is a single light source, and it is either small or relatively far away. Still, because the direction of the light is good, the slightly hard light is fine.

What you're lacking in this shot is midtones. You've got great modeling shadows given dimension to the face, but they're not terribly effective because they're so very light. I've pulled down (darkened) the midtones while leaving everything else basically alone. See how the image changes?

20434975879007272b8cnv5.jpg


(A slight disclaimer: all monitors are different, so this image may appear too dark to some people. Adjust the midtones to your personal taste and monitor; the important thing is to see the major difference between the first and second images.)

Make sense?

- CJ
Click to expand...

Looks a lot like what I sent to mobilevirgin via Flickr mail and I haven't even noticed this thread before :D

Here are my edits:

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204349758739ff662477osmbp1.png
 
cjnicolai said:
Yes, MV, you are learning something. LOL. Lighting direction and midtones will make all the difference in your future people shots. Nicely done.

- CJ
Click to expand...

Thanks, CJ - that you volunteered your time to look at this stuff is very much appreciated :clap::clap:
 
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