How's this for contrast JT?

[jtsmith]

By George I think he's got it.....

Much much better Mike.

J T

[dynamike]

Thanks Jimmy. I'm trying to get back to images with nice color and contrast. Been a little flat lately.

[dynamike]

Thank you so much sir. I really appreciate your help.

Just so all of you know, I am a student of JT's, as well as Rick Hughes. Both of these guys have been available to help me by phone even after the seminar was long over. That's what JT did yesterday. Over the phone he helped me see some better color management techniques.

Sorry, man. Just a shameless plug.

Mike

[dynamike]

That's exactly how I took it. Thanks again!

[dynamike]

How's about one better, a diagram?



This is a technique I employ to over power splotchy light. The light coming into the gazebo metered f3.5 @ ISO 100, so I set up an AB1600 shooting through an umbrella about 30 feet from subject behind camera left and metered it to f3.5. Camera settings are in the diagram.

I shot in RAW. After capture, I made a copy layer and set the blending mode to screen and adjusted the opacity to dial in my exposure. In this particular image

25% was right where I wanted it. I then made another blank layer and stamped all visible layers to make a composite layer. I copied this layer for further use later. So now, I have 4 layers in this order from top to bottom
<ul type="square">[*]composite copy for the skin softening[*]composite for sharpening[*]screen layer to adjust exposure[*]original layer[/list]
I then go to the sharpening layer and set the blending mode to overlay and then add a high pass filter at about 3.

Next, I go to the skin layer and apply the Kodak Digital Gem Airbrush plugin at 75% blending, 98 on fine detail, 75 on medium detail, and 30 on coarse detail. I use these setting each time I use this plugin. Then I adjust the opacity to where her skin looks real, but nice and smooth, usually about %75. I apply a layer mask and color it in areas that I want my sharpened layer to show through, like the eyes, hair, lips, detail in the top, etc.

Finally, I added one new layer and made a composite of all others. I first open the levels dialogue and adjust to where I like it. Usually bringing in the right and left sliders until they are where data starts and the middle to my liking. Next, I open the curves dialog and adjust from right in the middle a little up and to the left and then at the bottom a little to the right. This makes her pop off the page. Lastly, I added about +10 in saturation.

I hope this helps.

Mike

[isaiahbrink]

Man, for a second there, I was expecting a black and white ortho image, you remember that film discontinued long ago that either showed black or white, no grey. But, while I was disapointed on that aspect, your images did not dissapoint me in the area of artistic talent. Good work sir.

Isaiah Brink

[dynamike]

Thank you so much Isaiah.