weekly pjm1's TP52 in 2016 - week 31 Fauna

Winter said:
Finally caught up to commenting here! (I actually do it alphabetically so it takes a while to get to you. :D)

Vast - I’m glad you did this instead of mountains and lakes (we have enough of those already, although I have no doubt you would have done a cracking job)! But I’m really liking R2D2 heading towards the great unknown. (He’s my second favourite star wars character. My favourite are the MSE-6 mouse droids because they make the cutest noises but they’re not really main characters so I guess R2D2 kind of wins by default, lol.)

Anyway, your creativity with the concept and the lighting is impressive. You’ve nitpicked your own photo but to my untrained eye, everything looks perfect. :p

Rough - Good take on the theme! I’m still struggling to take actions shots that are properly in focus so these are amazing in my opinion. You’ve picked some good moments to freeze, although I’d say the second one fits the theme a bit more. :)

Covered - So, I see you managed to shoehorn your new boom stand into the week’s theme. Hehe, well done, really good idea. I love it! Your daughter is just precious and the chocolate on her face is like icing on cake! I’m curious to know, was that spread on her artistically by a makeup artist, or was it all her, after having a go at the nutella? The reason I ask is it looks perfectly smeared - very symmetrical, and yet natural looking and totally cute!
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Thank you for that fulsome catch-up Sheylara... Indeed, a bit of shoehorning throughout those themes. I'll have to do something more obvious for colourful :)

The nutella was quite carefully applied - I know how to get into trouble with Mrs pjm1 and getting nutella everywhere is a good way of doing it :)

Thanks so much for the kind comments (y)

sparrow said:
Lovely portrait of your daughter and certainly on theme:)
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Hiya Liz - thanks!
 
Quick post right now (because of the time) - I'll stick up some pullbacks and SOOC shots later.

For this theme I decided to try to develop my Photoshop skills a bit more. I've been learning some basics (blend modes etc.) and thought it might be fun to put some of it into practice. The base shot was a simply setup shot and then I did some PS trickery...


Week 19: Colourful by Paul M, on Flickr

And no, I did no art aside from a bit of PS and the actual photography!
 
Hi Tim, thanks. Yes, the paper must have additives or something because I originally set the WB off the paper and the pens looked odd! So ended up setting it off the pens. I used two flashes with quite different (cheap) modifiers so it's possible one light gave a colour cast vs the other one...
 
Excellent idea Paul .....I really like it, that's a clever use of the see through tub for your pens, maybe the addition of a pencil either in the tub or on the paper would link the pencil sketch in more but I'm being picky, it's a brilliant idea, and I wish I'd thought of it :)
 
Excellent idea Paul. Nice composition and superbly lit with no loss od detail throughout. Definitely Colourful. (Still waiting inspiration). :clap:
 
susiejb said:
Excellent idea Paul .....I really like it, that's a clever use of the see through tub for your pens, maybe the addition of a pencil either in the tub or on the paper would link the pencil sketch in more but I'm being picky, it's a brilliant idea, and I wish I'd thought of it :)
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Thanks Susie... it was a sudden "aha" and I decided to do it while I had time. Agree on the pencil - sadly they were all broken and/or battered!

Carl Ayling said:
Excellent idea Paul. Nice composition and superbly lit with no loss od detail throughout. Definitely Colourful. (Still waiting inspiration). :clap:
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Thanks Carl!

Ok, here are the SOOC and pullback shots:

SOOC as you'll see, the reflections on the glass needed a bit of tidying despite my efforts to create a black surround to the white paper (which will become more obvious on the pullback) and the line on the paper and small softbox all in frame:

R5QeDIf.jpg


(edited to change photo - the one I previously posted as "SOOC" had some exposure, WB & crop changes applied)

Here is the setup, both lights are standard flashes and the beauty dish is gridded to prevent flare into the camera:

eQEpoug.jpg


The speaker grills left and right are there to try to prevent light spill onto the sides (to get those black edges to the glass) - but it didn't really work so I had to add them in post :) The small softbox frame bottom left is just giving a bit of additional fill / directional light on some of the pens.

And then I took it all into Photoshop to have a play. I added the line drawing from a conventional picture I took of my son which I switched to a multicoloured line drawing but for some reason only the green came through strongly (probably because I didn't quite do it right!)

Still, it was fun and hopefully it's interesting to see the progression of the shot.
 
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So the "drawing" is a photo with sketch effect blended with the glass? Clever stuff all round, really nice result. (y)
 
Excellent photo, well lit. And thank you for sharing the making of, very interesting.
 
d00d said:
So the "drawing" is a photo with sketch effect blended with the glass? Clever stuff all round, really nice result. (y)
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Thanks David - yes, I just used this technique but applied it to each R, G, B layer independently: http://www.photoshopbuzz.com/change-photo-to-line-drawing/

Bit of a faff the way I ended up doing it and just got a green image, so something went wrong ;)

brrnd said:
Excellent photo, well lit. And thank you for sharing the making of, very interesting.
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Thanks Bernd!
 
Very clever Indeed Paul and a nice explanation I think the paper just needs a bit more light as you can see a fall off on the left they are difficult to do I tend to light them separately if I can or use the great big light in the sky though it can be a little harsh a bit of cloud can sometimes be a great diffuser, its an exellent shot and its always good to improve your PS skills
 
alsjazzera said:
Very clever Indeed Paul and a nice explanation I think the paper just needs a bit more light as you can see a fall off on the left they are difficult to do I tend to light them separately if I can or use the great big light in the sky though it can be a little harsh a bit of cloud can sometimes be a great diffuser, its an exellent shot and its always good to improve your PS skills
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Thanks Allan. That was the main purpose to be honest (and selfish!) - honing my PS skills. Agree about the exposure on the paper and although I wasn't after 100% white, I need to control the light better across the frame. No shortage of cloud cover where I live usually, although today is a glorious exception!! Looking at that setup shot, I can see the beauty dish isn't quite level, but then I had the front lighting (small softbox) so I can only guess I was trying to balance the two. Memory is now a bit foggy!

Cheers for looking in and commenting (y)
 
Really like that Paul a very cleverly thought out image the drawing really adds another level to the image
 
Thats a cracking idea Paul, nicely executed too (y)
 
Always good to learn something.

Works well. Only minor crit are the dark sides to the glass. They just make the glass 'pop' a bit too much.

Cheers.
 
posiview said:
Always good to learn something.

Works well. Only minor crit are the dark sides to the glass. They just make the glass 'pop' a bit too much.

Cheers.
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Thanks Andy.

I added those dark sides in post - I was trying to get the same effect through lighting but just had too much light reflecting around and really needed a different lighting setup to achieve it anyway. So just added it via photoshop. Fair enough if you're not a fan... it's all experimentation at this point :)

Cheers for commenting!
 
Always interesting to hear how you achieve your shots, Paul - the PS work has worked really well. As a whole shot I agree with Susie that my first thought was that the colourful pens and pencil sketch were just a bit disjointed.
 
Emja said:
Always interesting to hear how you achieve your shots, Paul - the PS work has worked really well. As a whole shot I agree with Susie that my first thought was that the colourful pens and pencil sketch were just a bit disjointed.
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Thanks Emma... that probably means my PS wasn't as good as it should have been ;) Thanks for taking the time to comment - it's very much work in progress this photoshop lark, but I'm enjoying the various aspects of retouching and tweaking. I'm definitely no graphic designer though!!

Will probably try to do a "normal" photograph for this next week...

(y)
 
Ok, here's my "normal" photo for Entrance.

It's my "welcome back" that I'm given when I come up to our entrance :)


Week 20: Entrance by Paul M, on Flickr

I wasn't intending to mono this, but I think it actually works better like this.

A bit of PS retouching as our front door and entrance hall need quite a bit of fixing up :) It's cheaper to do it in PS than it is in real life!

Lit from a child-sized softbox just outside of frame left (had to shop out the reflection in the glass behind her) and a touch of fill from a reflector which is hidden by the door. I actually shot this in the middle of the day and although our front entrance is shaded at that time of day (as it's on the north side of our house) I still wanted it darker, so added a two stop filter to my camera lens.

It's not perfect, but I'm trying to do more blending of natural light and studio flash so this is another step along that path. You could say it's my entry point if you wanted ;)

Cheers!
 
Well, you couldn't have a better welcome awaiting your Entrance now could you. Cute model. Excellently taken Paul. (y)
 
Nicely done Paul, I think the mono works and your daughter is well lit
 
Carl Ayling said:
Well, you couldn't have a better welcome awaiting your Entrance now could you. Cute model. Excellently taken Paul. (y)
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sirch said:
Nicely done Paul, I think the mono works and your daughter is well lit
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Thanks Carl and Chris... Enjoying having a good play with the mains flash in indoor/outdoor scenarios (not just plain studio) - more experimentation to come!
 
Emja said:
That is very cute indeed and nicely done. I really like the conversion and the lighting is spot on for details of hair and dress. I could just run in for that hug myself looking at this. Gorgeous :)
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Thanks Emma. On further reflection, I'm not as happy as I was with the shadow that's cast from her nose over her mouth, but it's a minor thing I guess. I was quite pleased with the conversion as well - I had a good play with the different mixed channels and that was what seemed to work best.

I really should brush her hair more often!!
 
pjm1 said:
Thanks Emma. On further reflection, I'm not as happy as I was with the shadow that's cast from her nose over her mouth, but it's a minor thing I guess. I was quite pleased with the conversion as well - I had a good play with the different mixed channels and that was what seemed to work best.

I really should brush her hair more often!!
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Do what you must with the photos...but on no account brush her hair more often - it's wild and wonderful :)
 
A creative way to get the result you were after, Paul. Well done.

Cute pic and no better feeling than seeing your kid come to greet you after a long day at work.
 
All I can say Paul is WOW that is a fantastic image. And what a fantastic welcome home
 
I thought it was over-lit at first, but I like it the more I see it, and the B&W treatment seems to work well. Definitely one for the family album.
 
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