Similar to the recent post with Jessica J as the model, where I placed her feet in an asymmetrical position for a more dynamic pose, I did the same when posing Anita DeBauch's hands during a photo session.
In the companion photograph, you will notice that her hands are symmetrical around her face. While the pose does look cute, an asymmetrical positioning of her hands and fingers improved the pose. Read more inside...
Post-processing workflow: How to deal with color banding / posterization
If you've ever noticed banding or posterization in your photos, where you'd expect solid colors, then there's a relatively easy fix for it. This posterization effect appears as bands of colors, where the transitions between similar tones aren't smooth, but have jagged edges instead.
It is caused by the 8-bit JPG not having enough data to give you a smooth gradient when large blocks of color slowly change. You'll often see it in the blue sky in landscapes, or as in this case, with large areas of color in the Read more inside...
Using a large gridded strip-box / soft-box for portraits
There seems to be a natural progression with photographers exploring off-camera flash and studio photography. After the initial umbrella and softbox, the next purchase is usually a beauty dish, and then other esoterica such as ring-flash.
Personally, I'd suggest that one of the first light modifiers anyone should get, is a small or medium sized gridded strip-box. A strip-box is narrower than the usual soft boxes, and the grid really helps contain the light spread. So you now have the ability to get relatively soft light, but Read more inside...
