Retouching
Page 3 There's nothing too complicated going on here lighting-wise. Its simply a strobe with a bare reflector
held by an assistant right next to my camera on the left. Quite similar to Terry Richardson's style of
lighting, but with my flare in post process.
I fell in love with this whole series I did with the model in Black and White in my initial edit so the
first step in post, after doing the initial corrections in the RAW converter, was to add a BW adjustment
layer, so that I was always editing with the end look in mind.
I knocked out the rest of the background and used liquify to just clean up a few shapes and lines.
The image's composition seemed a bit off so with the flexibility of the knocked out background I
added a bit of height to the image to make it feel more balanced.
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Page 4 I'm not much of a landscape guy. While I love landscapes by the greats, its not my thing to
photograph. But this shot (taken on vacation in Maui) had an interesting symmetry and quality to it.
First task was to remove my wife and daughter. Not that this photo couldn't work with them there, but
they prove to be more of a distraction (its hard to tell what they are) than adding to the mood.
From there, I did a series of color adjustment layers, curves layers, and shadows and highlights
adjustments in various places to give a more painterly aesthetic.
Finally I decided to composite an island on the horizon from another photo to play up the foggy look
the photo already had. By adding the island in the background I could convey a greater sense of
atmosphere between here and there.
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Page 5 This photo was shot with the full intention of making it very much darker, but shot with subtle tones that could be tweaked and adjusted in post. This photo was all about the simplicity of the expression
and shapes created by her profile.
The fist step in post was to combine two adjusted RAW exposures of the same image to create the contrast of light and dark, but maintaining certain aspects like the front of the face, neck and jaw line.
The next step was to retouch the skin and adjust the shape of the hair in the back to seem more idyllic
and less distracting.
The final step was the color adjust and contrast to create a sharpness and almost glossy feel. I went
back and forth between having this as a black and white or color. I couldn't decide so I made a version
of both (slightly different adjustments). You can find the BW version in the "PORTRAITS" gallery
under "STILLS".
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Page 6 I had this whole photo mapped out in my head before we arrived on set. I wanted to use the two bridges to convey context (urban) and to converge on the subject, drawing attention to her. I shot from a low angle to bring a goddess like epicness to her person.
I really enjoyed the darkness of the bridge on the right, but was so bothered by how distracting the underside of the left bridge was, that I simply painted in to mimic the right side. You'll notice that both bridges were curved slightly. This was done to add a touch of surreality.
A softlight brush at low opacity, switching back and forth between black and white, is what I used to accentuate the highlights and shadows to add a bit of a painterly look to the image and clean up the
existing light.
With the overcast sky and the dark bridges the image teetered on looking both like night and day and I wanted the coloring to continue that feel. Blue and green were the colors that would push it more towards darkness, but the bright sky would keep it day.
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Page 7 The idea for this photo was to convey that she was eating something super sour. I went for a very
Jill Greenberg -esque lighting look and went through about a hundred different faces, all which were
fabulous to get this one.
Liquify and perspective transform were used to go from step 1 to step 2. I wanted the focus to be on
her face and that the sourness was taking over, hence I reduced the size of her body and made her head
huge, but still realistically sized. Its only when you compare the original to the final that you notice the
huge change.
I knocked out the background, which was made easy by my lighting method. I then proceeded with the
most time-consuming aspect of the edit which was the highlight and shadow painting. The goal is to
accentuate the existing lighting and add aspects that aren't possible in camera.
The final color adjustment brings that final polish and flare to the subject as well as emphasizing the
sense of sour that she's experiencing.
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Page 8 This photo was almost a throw away because the lighting didn't initially do anything for me. I cropped
it into a square and both brightened it and flattened the tones to have more flexibility with the edit. I
decided to crop out the eyes to bring a little mystery to the photo, almost like she's masked like a hero.
I blew out the background did some liquify to get the kind of lines I wanted. A fair bit of painting
highlights and shadows onto the subject was used to bring a sense of epicness that I thought this image
could convey.
I was on the fence about the railing, but once I removed it, it was clear that it needed to go. Once gone
the photo turned into this athlete climbing the temple (stadium) steps through the atmosphere.
The final color adjust (curves) and contrast (mostly channel mixer w/overlay) brought the kind of
drama I was hoping this image would bring.
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Page 10 There is something arresting about a dead on portrait and Kristen in this photo seemed to embody this
weight of emotion in her eyes that brought it to another level.
I wanted the edit to be simple and maintain the gravity of emotion on her face and not detract in a "whoa look how well that photo was edited" way.
Though the unretouched photo was quite warm, I went for a very cool and red hue. I can't say why other than it seemed to fit in my early testing. The background quite quickly became more and more of a distraction to me and I began to add more darkness until it was completely gone.
What I settled on was creating this look as if this face was peering out of the darkness and even her clothes were shadowed and unrecognizable. The catch light in here eyes adds the final touch to this photo adding to her gaze instead of becoming a noticeable gimmicky lighting set up.
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Page 11 This proved to be a bit more difficult of an edit than I had intended when I shot this. The best shot of her running ended up being where she intersected with the lamp and it just cluttered the the photo. Not to mention the wired fence and the lamp intersecting with that and the tediousness of removing it.
I took multiple shots so that I'd be able to clone in extra sky and clouds, though I went back and forth between going with a lot of clouds and a couple sparse ones. Adding more clouds made better of use of the negative space and extending the fence and ridge allowed me to place the model in a more
pleasing spot.
The final adjustments give more gravity and drama to the sky as well as to give a sense that the light is
peaking through the clouds almost like a spotlight and landing on her.
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Page 12 I was quite pleased with this capture and how her pose works and how the light hits her. What bothered me most was the fact that the scenery became more distracting than complimenting.
The first task was to isolate the subject and find an appropriate background to fit the perspective and
mood of the model's pose. I liked the idea of only the sky being visible and making her seem a little
more goddess like.
The rest of the work was spent on embellishing the light and how it hits her body as well as painting in
light to create continuity and this surreal effect of her being much higher in the sky than she possibly
could be.
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Page 13 I don't composite extensively, but for this photo it was necessary to get the final look and feel. Each subject was shot separately and isolated and brought into the editing bay. After initial edits on each
of them, arranging them became the paramount task. I flipped the two on the left to balance out the composition. I added in a white background with a bit of shading to give it dimension.
I had landed on a finished product, but was still unsure about it. The gentleman holding the pepperdidn't fit in because of how high he was holding it, and the food started to become a little more hokeythan I had hoped. I still loved what I had captured, the expressions and how the light worked, but something needed to be done to remedy.
You'll notice the final stage is a bit more of a traditional band photo (the classic flying V). I liked the idea of having them emerging out of this unfettered light and all looking sublime and hopeful in the midst of it. If you jaunt back to the 3rd phase you'll notice that the expressions play a very small role, while in the final phase they are what holds your attention.
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Page 14 This photo was shot with the full intention of making it very much darker, but shot with subtle tones that could be tweaked and ajusted in post. This photo was all about the simplicity of the expression and shapes created by her profile.
The fist step in post was to combine two adjusted RAW exposures of the same image to create the contrast of light and dark, but maintaining certain aspects like the front of the face, neck and jaw line.
The next step was to retouch the skin and create adjust the shape of the hair in the back to seem more idylic and less distracing.
The final step was the color adjust and contrast to create a sharpness and almost glossy feel. I went back and forth between having this as a black and white or color, I oculdn't decide so I made a version of both (slightly different adjustments). you can find the BW version in the "PORTRAITS" gallery under "STILLS".
BACK >
