This week’s Wrap-Up features photographing cars by Lauri Novak, working with small critters from Julie Powell, then, Levi Sim shows how to make a magazine cover portrait group, Michael Muraz explains capturing photos for 3-D renderings and the Photofocus Team shares a video on Photoshop’s blending modes. This edition of the WW-U has something for everyone. Enjoy!
Portrait Tips: Photographing a magazine cover - When you make pictures for a client, you’ve got to keep in mind what their final use will be. In fact, you’ve got to quiz them carefully about what the final uses may include. This is especially true when you work with a magazine. Get the layout When you work with a magazine you must ask for the layout. You need to see what the final magazine layout looks like so you can consider all the elements in the photo and ensure that they aren’t obscured when the graphics are added. A magazine cover has lots of stuff cluttering the front. I say ‘cluttering’ because I’m a photographer who likes clean photos, but it’s necessary info for the magazine. There’s the magazine’s title, the snippets about what’s inside, the address label, a bar code, etc. You need to know what shape the title is and where they usually place text so you can plan for it in the photo. Plan ahead, know your tools Knowing what the final use will be, you can do a better while shooting. For this local magazine cover, I knew that the title was horizontal and at the top. While making the photo, I made sure a plain blue sky edged the top without the building obscuring it. Often, the cover photo looks poorly composed on its own, but once it’s framed with text the composition looks much better. I knew we needed space at the top, but I also knew we needed impact and I needed to be close to the subject. As long as I left a little blue sky at the top, I knew Photoshop’s Content-Aware Fill (which was brand new at the time) could help me add more sky at the top. Because I knew what the end-use would be, and because I knew what my finishing tools could do, I made a photo that met all the needs for my clients. I made covers for this magazine for a long time because I could plan and work well with their needs. Portrait Tips come out each week, and you can see them all right here.
Architectural photography: Capturing angles for 3D renderings - A lesser-known facet of architectural photography is creating images for 3D renderings. When an architectural firm designs a building, the client often needs 3D renderings of the building to market it, whether it is condos, rentals, offices or even public buildings. To make those renderings more realistic and to provide context, they’re often inserted in real photographs. The past few years, I’ve worked with a few clients to photograph specific views so they could insert their renderings and create the final image. It’s a little different compared to my usual work, as the client often wants very specific angles, and they will modify your image to suit their needs. It’s not about documenting a completed building, it’s about selling it. And the difference matters! Another specificity is that I’m not able to share images until the final renderings are made public. And sometimes it can take several months! Let’s talk about a few examples, where I’m showing my original image on the left and the final rendering on the right. This image is the classic skyline image to give context and provide a dreamy view of the building. In this case, I had to get access to a rooftop restaurant to be able to shoot the skyline from this specific angle that shows the CN Tower in the background. As you can see, they made some color/contrast edits and replaced the sky. This second example is the same building but viewed from the ground. As you can see the edits are much more dramatic, and quite impressive actually! The original shot is a day shot and they turned it into a dusk shot. They also heavily modified the buildings on the right so you could see the base of the tower and how it meets with the street. They also added some car streaks to make it more dynamic. Finally, I’ve also shot a couple of projects from a helicopter. For this shot, the rendering company actually gave me some precise instructions regarding focal length and altitude. I had many shots and they pick very specific angles so the buildings would line up exactly how they wanted. In terms of edits, they seem minor but they aren’t. First, it was shot in winter, so they added some green to all the trees to simulate leaves. They also inserted additional buildings that are planned or under construction. Shooting for 3D renderings is quite an interesting process and it can be a nice stream of income on top of shooting regular architectural photography. However, it’s also taught me not to trust renderings, as they often distort reality!
Getting to know Photoshop Blend Modes - Photoshop has lots of tools available to both photographers and designers. One of those is Blend Modes, which allow you to control how things like layers interact with each other. You can change the effect of lighting in your image, take out specific pieces of a graphic or add special effects, all through blend modes. In this LinkedIn Learning video, instructor Julieanne Kost walks you through Blend Modes in Photoshop and how to use them. Getting to know the blend modes from Photoshop CC 2019 Essential Training: The Basics by Julieanne Kost Transcript Blend Modes allow you to control how something, like a layer, interacts with another layer. However, Blend Modes aren’t limited to layers, you can also find them when you use the painting tools or apply layer styles, when you choose the fill stroke and fade commands, and even within the applied image in calculation commands. In this video we’re going to use the Layers panel as the example, but the math behind the Blend Modes behaves the same throughout the application. In this document I have two layers, the beach layer, which I’ll consider is the base color, and the watch layer, which will be the blend color. And as we change the different Blend Modes, the resulting color is what we’re going to see on screen. I’m going to hide the beach layer for a moment just to point out that the white on the watch layer is indeed white, it is not transparent, and that’ll be important in just a moment. So the Blend Modes are grouped together in the list and they’re separated by thin, gray lines. Let’s start by taking a look at the first group, Normal and Dissolve. When the top layer, in this case the watch, is set to Normal, which is the default mode, the pixels don’t blend, even though we could change the opacity to blend the layers, that’s not truly the same as a Blend Mode. When we choose the Dissolve blend mode, it appears that there’s no visible difference when the layer is viewed at 100%, but when I decrease the opacity, all of the sudden some of the pixels are randomly replaced, revealing a speckled effect, which is either the watch or the beach, but it’s not really a blend of either. So the actual pixels aren’t blending together, they’re not combining, I’m seeing one or the other. Alright, I’ll change the opacity back up to 100% and let’s take a look at this next group of Blend Modes. So, all of these Blend Modes, Darken and Multiply, Color Burn, Linear Burn and Darker Color, all have a stronger effect as the blend color becomes darker. And Darken and Multiply are the two most commonly used Blend Modes in this group. So, Darken is going to look at the color information in each channel, and it selects the darker of the base or blend colors as the result. So you’re always going to get a darker image. Multiply actually multiplies the base color with the blend color, so again, you’re always going to get a darker color and if you multiply any color with black, you’ll always get black. Multiply is a bit like sandwiching two chromes or two slides and projecting them together. The Blend Modes in this group have what’s called a neutral color of white, which means white will have no effect, and in fact, we can see on the watch layer, all of the white values have been hidden. Now, the third group of Blend Modes, Lighten and Screen, Color Dodge, Linear Dodge and Lighter Color, all have stronger effects as the blend colors become lighter. They’re basically the inverse of the second group of Blend Modes, and Lighten and Screen are the two most commonly used Blend Modes from this group. If we select Lighten, we can see that it’s choosing the lighter of the base color and the blend color as the result color. So basically, whichever pixel is lighter between the watch and the beach, it’s going to select that color and that’s what we’re going to see. If I switch to Screen, it’s actually a stronger effect because it’s multiplying the inverse of the blend and the base color. Again, the resulting color is always going to be lighter and here the effect is similar to projecting multiple photographic slides onto the same screen, so not through the same projector, but two different light sources under the same screen which would make it lighter. And, the Blend Modes in this group have what are the neutral color of black, which means that black will have no effect, and sure enough we can see that all of the black in the watch layer has disappeared and we can see through to the beach layer. The fourth group of Blend Modes, Overlay, Soft Light, Hard Light, Vivid Light, Linear Light, Pin Light and Hard Mix, all add contrast to an image because they lighten when using colors brighter than 50% gray, and they darken when using colors darker than 50% gray. And Overlay and Soft Light are the two most commonly used Blend Modes in this group. So with Overlay this Blend Mode multiplies colors that are darker than 50% and screens colors that are lighter than 50%. And it has the potential to add significant amount of contrast in the resulting image. If I change to Soft Light, while it also adds contrast to the image, it adds a lot less than the Overlay mode, so the darker areas are still darkened and the lighter areas are still lightened, but only as if they were mildly dodged or burned. The Blend Modes in this group have a neutral color of 50% gray which will have no effect, or which is hidden when blended. Now the fifth group of Blend Modes, Difference, Exclusion, Subtract and Divide, have both scientific as well as creative applications, but they’re really not used
It’s car show season - It’s car show season here in the Midwest and I’m off to my first one of the season this weekend. It’s been a while since I’ve wandered around and taken images at a car show, so I went back to look over this article and expand on it a bit. Talk to the car owners This is the number one thing to do to get more information about the car you are shooting. Get the back story, help tell that story with your images and include photos of the owner. They are proud of their cars and will talk your ear off about them. They love when you are interested and will offer to open up the hood, lower the hood and do what you may want or need to get a better image. During this time take a photo of the sign if there is one. Most car shows issue a sign with the year, make and model information on it. Shoot this first, shoot the car and shoot the sign again, it will make it so much easier to identify the car once you get back to editing. It’s also good to offer them your information, and let them know where you might be posting the images later so they can see what you’ve done. Watch your backgrounds and reflections Car shows come with a lot of people wandering around. Be patient when you’re shooting, wait for someone to finish looking and walk by so they’re not in your shot. Move around to get the background that works best for the area of the car you are shooting. Watch the reflections. All that chrome means tons of reflections, watch what you’re seeing in the hubcaps and bumpers and move, wait or use the reflections as part of the art. Get close An easy way to eliminate the people and other distractions in your car show images is to get close. Shoot the details. Awesome cars have equally awesome details. Think of the gear shifters, analog radio buttons, hood ornaments, car lock buttons, emblems and logos. Take images of the lines of the fenders, hood and along the side of the car. Get creative, and make abstract car art from your shots. One thing to keep in mind as you’re getting close though is to make sure your gear, bag, camera straps and tripods are not bumping up against the car. Do not ever set your camera on a car and always be aware of your proximity to the car. The last thing you want to do is make the car owner mad. Enjoy yourself at the car show Don’t forget to put the camera down and wander, relax and enjoy yourself. How you’re feeling is reflected in your images. If it’s crazy hot and I’m not enjoying wandering around in the heat, I take crap images because I just don’t want to be there. As with any photography you’re doing, take care of yourself first, hydrate, eat, and get a sense of the overall atmosphere. Take some wide shots of the rows of cars, the food vendors and the other people who are attending the show. Think about what images you can create that will convey how you felt at that moment. Most of all, have fun. Always have fun.
Working with reptiles and small critters - I recently did a photoshoot with some reptiles and small critters. All were Australian animals, but I am pretty sure most reptiles are similar around the world. I have done this several times and it is always a lot of fun, as long as you don’t have a problem with reptiles. We had a handler on-site, to wrangle the animals and reptiles and keep us informed on their behavior, habitat and needs. The setup for the reptiles and critters Try to keep the room warm, most reptiles, especially our Australian ones are coldblooded and are more docile and happy if they are warm. However, while using studio lights, make sure that they do not get too warm or dehydrated. Each reptile, insect or animal was only out for about 10 minutes at a time. We set up a table and placed black Perspex or Plexiglas (depending on where you live) to get lovely reflections. Keep in mind it will need to be wiped down occasionally — NEVER use chemicals like glass cleaner on the Perspex as it can harm the reptiles through contact. Just use water and a paper towel. We also placed a black sheet on a backdrop stand to keep the background neutral and avoid unwanted reflections. We used logs to pose the animals and add some interest to the images. With the studio lights, we have found that constant LED lights were less upsetting for the reptiles than a flash. I have heard of people using flash with great results as well. We found if the lights were turned down a little or not overly bright the reptiles were also fairly happy. The downside to that is that you need to have your ISO turned up a bit. Camera gear I was shooting with my Sony a7ii and my Sony 24-70mm but ended up using the 50mm macro for most of my photos, but kept the f-stop fairly mid-range … f/6.3. I found with a higher f-stop like f/2.8 it was difficult to maintain a great focus as they tend to move around a bit. My ISO was at 1250 and my shutter speed I tried to keep above 1/80s for both clarity and sharpness and avoid camera shake. A tripod was not really an option as the animals move around so much, that you have to keep moving around with them The animals We had a variety of Aussie animals that day. There was an Australian leaf insect, Albino Darwin carpet python, central bearded dragon, Centralian rough knob tail gecko, red tail black cockatoo and a green tree frog. None of these animals is considered dangerous at all, but for their own safety, we handled them as little as possible and let the professional handler deal with moving and posing them. We did have to get careful with several of them when they tried to leave the table — geckos can be VERY quick and frogs can jump quite high. This was a great afternoon spent with some curious Australian animals. I am sure each country has its own unique reptiles, critters and animals. Personally, I think I would draw the line at spiders — especially tarantulas — and anything that could be remotely poisonous, but perhaps that is just me. We also had a portrait session with a handler and his Queensland Carpet Python, Monty.
