Playing with Color

Yes, when we were young, we played with a crayon in school and learned color. What colors look good together, and what colors do not? Who knew that I would play with color again? Not crayon’s but with flashes with gels. We heard the term RGB but what does it mean? Red, Green, and Blue. With these colors, we see all colors. Like your TV or computer is RGB. But what happens when I combine all three? If you said white, you are correct. I saw this setup in the book Studio Anywhere, and I always wanted to do it. In my family room with a white wall, I set up 3 flashes equal in power and in-line with the subject. I placed a filer on each (red, green, and blue). Next, I took the shot and got this.

Remember, RGB equals white. Noted on the subject, but what happens in the background or shadows? You see Red and Green = Yellow, Green and Blue = Cyan, and Red and Blue = Magenta. This is what you see in the background. Now I know what you are saying. Why? Well, maybe a picture of something different? Plus, the understanding color will help your photography and what you can do with flash if needed. Last I wanted to do it, and I did it. Ok, what makes black? Combine the cyan, magenta, and yellow, and you have black. When we print, we print in CMYK and see our TV or Computer Screen in RGB.

Practise Time

The weekends in Ohio have been just about raining all the time. With that, it was time for practice time in my make-shift studio in the family room. This time I wanted to have the perfect photo for cutouts to be used in composites using a white background. I wanted the fly-away hairs and no blowout. So with that, I set up my seamless white paper. To keep it white, I used two 200-watt flashes to light it. I set up a chair about 8-10 feet from the white paper. For my key light, I used another flash with a soft box on it and had it about 5 ft away from the chair.

While crowded, the studio was set. Next was a subject. Yep, I could not convince my wife for this assignment, so I used myself. Messing up my hair so that I would have fly-away hair, it was time to practice. Then, it was time to practice using my phone to trigger the camera. I use a light meter when I am in the studio and begin practicing. I did overexpose background, underexpose, and wrote down what happened. I did the same thing with the key light. (main light). In the end, I came up with what I wanted and time for photoshop and tried different backgrounds and see if the cutout worked. It did. Next time, I need to buy a wig and use it on my mannequin head.

Taking away things you don't like

I hope everyone had a great time during the Holidays. For Lisa and I, we sure did. We got to spend some family time. As with any event, you always want pictures. In this case, it was no different. We went to a restaurant in the Cincinnati, Ohio area, and after we were done, we wanted a quick picture. So you got it, the waiter took it with my iPhone. The picture is great for us. It did what we wanted. A memory.

We got back home, and I looked at the picture, and I thought. I wonder what this would look like if I got rid of the distractions. This will be an excellent picture to practice on. With that said, I opened photoshop and started to get rid of what I call the easy distractions. The easy thing I used is what is called the patch tool. Easy items would be like the glasses in front, the silverware in front. For me, it starts looking good. Next was let’s finish it with some of the hard things. Like Lisa with the napkin. Notice her hand is blocked. With that, I needed to make fingers that looked like they belonged. Out came the clone stamp. I had other tuff things and used a combination of clone stamp and brush tool. I got what I think is a better picture.

Final Image

Practice makes perfect, the old saying goes. I m always practicing something. One to keep up with the new things out there, and second, to be good at anything, you need to practice and, yes, practice some more. That's what this exercise was all about. You see, the first picture will be fine; after all, it's not going to any magazine, but my thought was, what if a client wanted something removed? Can you do it?

Playing and learning

The cool thing about photography is that you can do it anytime. I like to practice and learn and then practice some more. Today I wanted to play with gel lights and practice shadows and highlights. So I grabbed something that would not complain, and I worked with what I had. For I was at a bed and breakfast place, I had no idea I would do this.

I had two lights, one light stand, and my gels. The first thing I wanted to do was light from behind to give it backlight. Using a CTO gel and a MagMod Grid, I set this up first. I liked what I had, but way too much shadow in the front. I knew I wanted to reflect light back into the front but did not have one, or did I. Yep, pillowcase to the rescue. I brought in really close to the left side and got what I wanted. Next was to set up the fill light. I wanted the shadows to fill in with blue—my second light I set up using a blue gel. I had no light stand, so I set the light on the floor and flashed on the ceiling. Yep, I took advantage of a giant softbox with a flash of blue to fill in shadows with blue. It worked and did what I wanted without using Photoshop.

So much playing and learning. Just another thing to put into my back pocket.

Having fun with Composite

Having fun playing around with compositing. Composite is when you take two pictures or more and make it look like you intended this picture. I like to keep practicing. In this case, I took a stock photo of the lady. Then I looked at what I was thinking and found a stock picture of the woods. One thing that is important that light is coming from the same direction. It makes it look natural. Once I blended the two photos and matched the color. I thought it was missing something. Out came the brush and made some butterflies. Again matching color with the scene and light, the butterfly was next. Last, I felt it needed type. That was it, and I came up with something that I liked, but more importantly, I got some more practice using Photoshop.