Gellie Sandwich and Flare

I almost broke my promise of posting weekly blogs. Oops. I had a few things to write about, but I don't have a lot of time right now, and since I shared these stages of images with a fellow photographer earlier this morning, I decided just to use share them again here in this blog.

 

Mind you, I have been limiting the amount of freelance commercial work I accept and narrowing my focus down to just equine related commercial jobs; logos, editorial retouch/edits, etc. I will now be able to spend more time on my own work. Sadly the personal digital based work I have been creating for myself at this moment, pales in comparison to the work I do for clients within the realm of commercial art; where  "near-to perfection" as possible is the ultimate goal.

 

I look at my personal work and cringe and send works off to shows with a bit of remorse and embarrassment because I know, it is not my best. I know most of the stuff I have online at the moment, is not my best. I apologize for that. There are many reason I don't have a lot of work online at the moment. One of those reasons will be addressed in an upcoming blog dealing with artist contracts and what artists need to be aware of when negotiating for commercial work, especially their rights!

Today's First Commercial Retouch/Edit:

 

One client today wanted a purchased stock photo of theirs' enhanced with a new "red sky morning" stormy look for a company PowerPoint presentation. They also wanted it done so that the final image had the feel of being taken with lighting amplified by gels, in addition to intentional flare. This method of lighting is more often utilized in fashion and music photography.

The client had sent me examples of what they wanted-what I would label as dramatic and extreme. The new background sky photo is from my own stock.

 

 

(http://pinterest.com/shadowhorse/lighting-techniques/) - this is a Pinterest folder I started to show some lighting techniques. The one image in here that is closest to what they showed me is the "nude", yes I said NUDE, in the water. However their example was even more extreme than this one. The photograph of the nude in the water was done IN CAMERA. That is not photoshopped gel lighting effects.

I always say that it is best to do everything IN CAMERA when you can. But I understand that not every photographer has the expensive lighting equipment to do such things, so sometimes it has to be fudged in photoshop, etc.

I have to also make note, for a second time today, of the certain irony there is, in fudging already enhanced/simulated lighting by computer rather than using flash/staged lighting. But it was fun!

Working time: 3 hours; give or take.





The original purchased stock

When I do assignments for lighting, I have to work first in black and white. I want to play with just the light and get a feel for it without having to think about the color. I feel this comes as a direct result from my artwork. Where most art I create starts as a black and white drawing and the color comes later.

 

Again, more black and white play, this time with a little light reflecting off the nose.

 

I start working the color and the flare in similar to how it may have reacted with the subject had it been done "in camera". Really its all a guessing game. Always study your shadows, its an embarrassing mistake if your light source is coming from a totally different direction than the shadows. I can't tell you HOW MANY amateurs make this mistake with photomanipulations. This becomes really obvious when artist has a few or more images pieced/stitched into one single composition and the light source is coming from all different areas in each image.

 

The flare was a little too red in the above and the gel to harsh on portions of the nose and cheekbones. I played some more with the image using omni lighting in PS. There are several variants of this "playing" and this image here was the client's favorite.



Detail of hair. If you intend on doing commercial retouching and editing, you need to make sure that you can separate every single little fly-away piece of hair and get edges of images in photomanipulations as "gentle-soft" and believeable as you can. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard photographers who do not have formal training and or enough experience in this type of work instruct people on making their edges SHARP. That is the worse thing you can do when combining images into a single piece of work. That is what gives the subjects in a work that "cutout" pieced together feeling. Also, one needs to make sure that there is no halo-ing in their work. Halo-ing is a capital offense in this line of work. Halo-ing is that aura a subject gets around its edge when the transition between the subject and its background or other elements in a photomanipulation are not precice and exact.