Some pics from the workshop ...

[Louie]

.... I am still a beginner in all things photographic and post processing - comments (and help) welcome! I did have a great day and learnt a lot, still have a long way to go


Model: Melissa




I think this one is a bit soft but I liked the pose .....



Melissa's rock



Thanks for looking,
Elena

[MATT]

The lighting sure is nioce ..Good work

MATT

[gstark]

Hi Elena,

Nice images, but the wb in each of these images seems to be all over the pace' were you set to auto?

For fixed lighting conditions - which is what you will get in a studio - AWB is not a good idea: you need to set a suitable wb value based upon your actual conditions, and have that as a constant value throughout the shoot, whilstever those conditions remain the same.

I understand that yesterday you would have had several different studio scenarios. No Problem: you just setup your wb for each different scenario.

Cheerz.

[Louie]

Thanks guys!


Gary, the white balance was only on auto for the image with the white background. Possibly some of my white balance issues on posted images are coming from me working them on an almost 3yr old uncalibrated laptop screen ....... and possibly not

[gstark]

Possibly some of my white balance issues on posted images are coming from me working them on an almost 3yr old uncalibrated laptop screen

That could certainly be a factor.

I'm not viewing these on a calibrated screen either, but each of them is displaying a different wb ... with the one you're referring to looking, to me, to be somewhat cooler than the other two.

[michael_]

definately WB issues and my monitor is calibrated, did you shoot in Raw? did anyone have a WB crad at the shoot? if so see if you can grab the image they used for CWB (Custom White Balance) and base yours off that. Other than that they seem ok, maybe a little underexposed and with the first one i think the DOF is too shallow, her right eye is out of focus seems a little awkward when looking at it, #2 definately looks a little soft, #3 seems the best exposed of the 3, i dont mind the pose but the hand does nothing and the shot would have been better if there was a hair light behind the model, not sure if you guys added more lights during the day, looks like it would have been a hell of alot of fun, hopefully Sydney can organise one soon.

[Kyle]

aside from the WB issues, i find the lighting a little flat, nothing really makes the model explode from the background. Needs a hairlight for sure.

Looks good overall though.

[Louie]

Hi guys, again - thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it!

definately WB issues and my monitor is calibrated

About this white balance stuff, I just don't get it . What exactly is it you are all looking at (that I should also be looking at) to decide that it is not correct? I had the WB set on whatever was appropriate for the situation eg. flash in the flash setup, cloudy in cloudy, same as everyone else.

did you shoot in Raw? did anyone have a WB crad at the shoot?

Yes, they are shot in RAW and no, there was no WB card there that I was aware of. I keep hearing that shooting in RAW means I can fix the WB when it is wrong, but I need to know how to determine it is wrong first! And after that, how to fix it

I did learn how to preset the WB on my camera yesterday using a white piece of paper but that was in a model-less set-up (thanks Dave). I might post one of those pics purely to see if you guys think it is correct or if there is something wrong at my end ......

Cheers,
Elena

[michael_]

shooting RAW means you have the full uncompressed detail of the image and can edit it without destroying it, which means you can make as many changes as you like and still revert back and it wont effect the image quality, which means you can alter WB, exposure (to a certain extent), contrast etc, im sure others can give a better answer but thats my understanding, how to fix WB, depends what software you use, i use LR atm and all i have to do is pick something within an image in the same situation which as close to white as possible click it and the image changes, i can then tweak the temp and tint to suit, in photoshop i would use curves, Cntrl+M from memory then use the three eye droppers and pick the white dropper and pick a white area, then black and middle grey, other than that like i said see if someone else at the worshop shot in CWB and if they can give you the reference image.

[Oz_Beachside]

nice to see your shots from the day, and glad to hear you learned a lot too.

i think the green top is from the available light studio, and the black dress was using softboxed strobes, so that would explain the color variation. white balance is easy once you can use the preset function, and set it for each type of light source before each set. but we were moving fast yesterday, so that may not have been too practical.

perhaps we should arrange another workshop for late feb?

[Louie]

perhaps we should arrange another workshop for late feb?

Ooooh, a white balance workshop, I'm there
We will talk more on this ........ and thanks for your comments Bruce


Cheers,
Elena

[AndyL]

I have never done any studio work, but...

A few valuable additions to my kit are a Kodak R-27M grey card, Q-14 colour separation guide and a calibrated GretagMacBeth colour chart. After setting a preset WB value it takes a few seconds to take a couple of colour reference shots (which include the grey scales) of the subject before rushing into it. I have found these few tools and the little extra time helps to achieve consistent exposure and WB, plus faithful colour reproduction.

Regards

Andrew

[gstark]

Michael,

shooting RAW means you have the full uncompressed detail of the image and can edit it without destroying it, which means you can make as many changes as you like and still revert back and it wont effect the image quality

Feeling pedantic tonight ... one simply reverts, rather than reverts "back". Where else would you revert to?


Elena,

Grab a copy of ViewNX or Nikon View; either will work with your camera. They come with a basic version of Nikon Edit, and you'll find a great deal of capability within those quite basic programs, including the ability to modify your wb settings.

What Michael was saying is correct: images saved as raw have your settings stored as parameters that get applied to the image at display time. When you change a setting, the new values get stored, but again as parameters, so you're always looking at the baseline image, with the paramteres then applied.

With a jpg, those settings are applied to the image, which is then saved in a lossy compressed format. Load the image, make a change, and then save, and again the image gets saved in a lossy compressed format, but this time, because you started with less detail, and the process of saving causes more detail to be lost, your image file, as saved, starts to degrade. The more you change and save, the greater the degradation.

[Willy wombat]

Did you have fun? It was nice to meet you Elena

[Louie]

Did you have fun? It was nice to meet you Elena

Yes I did! I had a great day.
It was nice to meet you too Steve

[Louie]

Michael, Gary, Andrew, thanks again for your comments. I am a convert of shooting in RAW so that things can be fixed and played with without altering the original image, an excellent concept and everyone should do it! Obviously in the perfect world I will get the WB correct when the image is taken (need to find me some of those card thingies and learn how to use them ). My issue is knowing from actually physically looking at an image after it is taken - is the colour/ WB right. Various threads and comments from this site tell me it is not purely subjective so I am wondering if there is something in particular I am supposed to measure against once the image is in the computer. When I open my RAW images in CS2 it has the whole kit and caboodle of stuff to change and I can play with it for hours but - how do I know when it is 'right'? 'Cos apparently what I'm doing isn't!

Aaah, I'm going on and on here, forgive me!! I'm tired and need to stop now! I will get the hang of it one day, appreciate your patience

[Louie]

So I've done some more playing .... while these may not be the most stunning of imagesin many aspects, I would like to know if they are a little bit closer to correct in terms of WB.







This one was with a bit more playing but I liked the result



I will be getting a chance to use some WB cards that my long-suffering friend Rod (Sandyfeet) has when I am in Sydney next month


Thanks for looking and for all of the help and advice given so far! I do appreciate it.