spacer spacer
spacer

Tangents

Photoshop tips – retouching for portraits

August 24, 2010

Photoshop Tips – retouching for portraits

When retouching portrait photographs, I have a certain look that I (currently) like – a slightly ‘polished’ look, but still natural. Definitely not ‘plastic’.  With a few steps in Photoshop, and a few steps that I may or may not add, I can easily get to the styling in post-processing that I want.  Some of the steps are specific, but others are added depending on taste or ‘feel’.  Some of the steps involve Photoshop plug-ins which are essential for me …

(more…)

       Comments (38)

 

 

reducing the blue color cast in white clothing

August 11, 2010

reducing the blue color cast in white clothing

Often when working in the shade, or anywhere we need Cloudy or Shade white balance, we’ll often see a blue tint in the white clothing.  I suspect this might be due to detergents being used which give a blue-ish tint to white clothing to make them appear cleaner.  Or perhaps this is from UV light when we’re working in cloudy conditions or in the shade.  However it might be, we will often get that blue tone in white clothing, as in this photo below …

(more…)

       Comments (11)

 

 

favourite recent images – portraits of a bride

July 25, 2010

I frequently post a favorite image from the past weekend.  This time, I’d like to post a few images.  All are portraits of the bride, Denise, on her wedding day.  This might show some of my approach and style in wedding portraits …

(more…)

       Comments (36)

 

 

HDR technique

July 11, 2010

I often check the websites of regular followers of the Tangents blog, and I recently noticed some interesting urban landscapes and architectural photos by Tom Kaszuba. What caught my attention about these is that these images were enhanced with high-dynamic range (HDR) processing. HDR images look bold and detailed. Quite distinctive. Sometimes though, HDR processing can appear garish and overly bold. Tom Kaszuba went for a more subtle look – detailed, yet understated. Just beautiful.

I asked Tom to share some of his technique and ideas with us with a guest blog post …

HDR done right

by Tom Kaszuba

I have always enjoyed HDR or “high dynamic range” photography. Images with a very wide dynamic range can bring scenes to life. The pictures seem to jump off the screen, brimming with a visual flair not seen in “conventional” photography. High dynamic range photos pack a wallop when done right.

While I saw the great potential in HDR I also saw many of these images across the web that looked garish and way overdone. Surreal, cartoonish and overcooked were just some of the things that came to mind when viewing HDR photos. They reminded me of the velvet paintings that were popular in the early 1970′s. Painful on the eyes.

Over time I have picked up bits and pieces from tutorials and articles on the web about HDR editing. HDR processing software was important. In my case I settled on Photomatix software to begin the editing process of the HDR images. While other software exists and Photoshop has it’s own built in HDR rendering tool, my personal preference is Photomatix.

The first thing I do when capturing HDR photographs is to grab the most important ingredient for the successful outcome of a great HDR image. My tripod. Then I make sure I use my remote switch to eliminate camera shake completely. The tripod, remote switch combo are the HDR shooters “must have” tools.

Now comes the actual shooting procedure …

(more…)

       Comments (41)

 

 

positioning the softbox and flash

June 23, 2010

positioning the softbox (off-camera flash)

I’ve had a number of people ask for more pull-back shots during photo sessions where I use off-camera flash with a softbox.  During this recent photo session in New York, with Christina and David, I did step back for a photo to include the softbox …

(more…)

       Comments (25)

 

 

which white balance setting should I use?

June 20, 2010

what white balance should I set my camera to?

… that’s a question that baffles photographers who are just starting out with digital photography.

You have a few options in setting the WB on your camera:

  • you could shoot in auto white balance (AWB), and hope your camera nails it.  And then you can also feel excited as each new generation of camera offers better AWB.
  • you could set your camera to one of the preset WB settings, such as Daylight, Cloudy or Incandescent.  And hope your camera’s preset is close to the correct WB.
  • you could do custom white balance readings and save it as you encounter and work in new situations. These custom white balance readings can be done with all kinds of white balance cards and discs.

These all work … usually. However, what we need to understand is that quite often, there is no ‘correct’ white balance setting.  What we are after is a pleasant white balance …

(more…)

       Comments (26)

 

 

retro styling

May 21, 2010

A retro-styled portrait of my assistant-with-an-attitude, Jessica.

While we were busy with another portrait session on location in  Manhattan, we saw this old car, and decided we just had to use it in a shot.  The pose is all Jessica.  I decided to keep the composition simple, as if it could have been a snapshot taken in the 60′s of someone’s girlfriend and car.  Or car and girlfriend, if you would.

The lighting is just the direct sunlight.  No fill.  I did bring up the detail somewhat in post-processing.  However, Jessica was purposely positioned so that the light fell onto her face, not leaving part of her face in shadow.

The vintage look is then finessed in post-processing …

(more…)

       Comments (4)

 

 

what you see …

March 17, 2010

… is not necessarily quite what was there in the original scene.

(more…)

       Comments (10)

 

 

alive for 365 – week 10

March 10, 2010

This very colourful street scene is – if I remember correctly – in the quaint town of Macroom in Ireland.  It was one of the towns we visited while exploring the beautiful country-side near Cork, Ireland last year.

It is my choice for this week’s entry for the ongoing Alive for 365 project.

To enhance the colours even more, I used my favourite Photoshop plug-in, Topaz Adjust 4 …

(more…)

       Comments (5)

 

 

alive for 365 – week 9

With the run-up to WPPI 2010 in Las Vegas, I didn’t have the time to mention my latest entries to the Alive for 365 project.  My choice for week 9 is this image which I titled a very obvious, “Cappuccino”.

The slightly surreal image is part of a London cityscape, with a double-decker bus whizzing past.  The lettering in the sky is actually the lettering in the coffee-shop’s window.  I had flipped the image around to have the word read correctly.  I also juiced up the drab colours a bit with Topaz Adjust 4.  Big news!  Topaz just improved on it with a free upgrade to version 4.

If you do order Topaz Adjust (or any Topaz product) through that affiliate link, use the discount code ‘planetneil’ for a 15% discount off any item in your shopping cart.  (There is also another time-limited discount in effect on their website.)

The effect that I used was the Psychedelic setting in Adjust 4.  I pulled down the opacity, and even then masked the sky to reduce the effect further on the sky …

(more…)

       Comments (1)

 

 

Older Posts »

 

 

 

 

All Rights Reserved © 2006-09 | Client Login