Post Production

For our final images we had to do some amount of post production whilst still making the photos look as if they have had nothing done to them. I wanted to use a bit of smoothing and i also wanted to find out how to remove under eye bags on photoshop however we were not taught how do do this in our post production lessons, so I had to use my own skills on photoshop to try and edit my pictures. 

I pretty much applied the same concept of editing to all of my pictures which I will detail below.

• This is my image that I have chosen to retouch
• I started by creating a new adjustment layer and made a layer to change the brightness and contrast of the image.
• I turned the brightness up to 25 for my high key photos and about 15 for my low key photos, but this sometimes varied, but never went over 25.
• I then changed the contrast to 11, this was the same for all of my photos as it was subtle.
• if my image was in black and white I would have created a new adjustment layer and selected black and white and then merged the layers down, I did try changing up the levels of colour within the black and white but I found that it looked better just adjusting the brightness and contrast.

• This is what my image looks like after doing these two steps, as you can see the photo looks more vibrant but isn't too different from the original image, I like the warm glow that this effect gives to the skin.
• The final thing I wanted to do was just to bring out the highlights and shadows a bit more so I used the dodge and burn tool.
• Lightly I used the burn tool through the eyebrows to fill in sparse hairs and along the lash line and eyelashes to emphasise them.
• I also used the dodge tool to emphasise the highlights.
• When doing this I always use a brush that has a 0% hardness so it blends nicely.

The Pictures below show my step by step for post production, as you can see the burning and dodging is very subtle, but it just brings out the highlight and brows and eyelashes a little bit and brings the photo together. 

To make these pictures better i would have liked to know how to use the clone stamp tool to cover some of the imperfections like cuts and bruises on the skin and also on closer inspection you can see slight fallout under the eyes from the mascara which I could not correct and I would have liked to smooth the skin just a little bit but unfortunately we were not taught these skills. 

Post Production

Photoshoot Set up

For my photoshoot my brief was to use two different lighting set ups for my high key and low key photographs, and to think about which ones would look better in either colour or in black and white.

For my high key set up I kept it simple, I want these photos to be in colour to display the pop of colour, so to do this I will be positioning my camera on a tripod, with a light with a beauty dish on directly above my model, then I will be getting my assistants to use a reflector around the models face to get rid of as much shadows as possible. I have chosen to do my high key photos in colour as I believe this will show it off better and will look more vibrant.

For my low key photos I will be using 2 different lighting set ups, for both of them I will have a white  backdrop, a light for flash, and also a light with a soft box on it, for the first lighting set up I will position my model in front of the soft box and for the second i will have the model against the background still with the soft box on. I have chosen for these photos to be in black and white as this will really emphasise the shadows of the face.

Posing Inspiration

Posing Inspiration

This is a quick mood board I made to bring to my photoshoot for inspiration and direction for my model on how to pose. I want to convey emotion through my photographs, I want it to be quite dark, so I have chosen serious poses and have also kept to a dark colour scheme. I will use different lighting techniques to make it mysterious.

I will be using low key lighting for my black and white photos as this will give me the best shadows that will really emphasise the emotion in the photographs like the ones seen above and the high key lighting will be used for the colour photographs, and this is where I will show my pop of colour.

I will be using an analogous colour scheme as I will be using a dark red, this will be very close to her hair colour which is also a dark browny red. The makeup will also be very bronzed which will compliment the whole look.

Low Key Photos

For our low key experimentation we tried shooting in front of a soft box and also shooting with the light from different sides.

These two images are our first shots from in front of the soft box, I really like the angelic highlights that are created around the hair like a halo effect. I have included both of these photos because the first one is a little bit too overexposed however i like how light it is, if I was going to edit these photos I would use the second photo and edit it lighter.

After fiddling about with appatures we finally shot these images, I believe this is the perfect amount of light coming into the camera and I personally love these images, the skin looks airbrushed and flawless.

This image was shot in front of the soft box but with the light from the side, as you can see there is increased skin texture which is something you need to be careful of when shooting with side lights.

For these images we shot with light form the side, I do not think these images are very effective for low key as there isn't much shadows apart from on the background.

For these images we shot them by using a direct light from the side on the model, this created really deep shadows on the face under the cheekbones and is definitely something I would like to use in my black and white beauty shoot.

Facetune Retouching

Today we had to team up in a group of 3 and retouch and image on face tune of someone in the group and write down all the steps that we took. This is the image before and after...

1. Smooth
2. Whiten
3. Details
4. Smoother
5. Patch
6. Smooth
7. Smoother
8. Reshape
9. Tones
10. Whiten
11. Reshape
12. Lighter Filter
13. Reshape

To retouch this images it took 14 steps and the photos are dramatically different, i focused on trying to make the skin perfect, and removing under eye circles. I also re shaped the face to make it slimmer, with bigger eyes and lips, and changed the tone of the skin.

I really enjoyed making the changes to this image, I think it is crazy that you can change someones appearance that much on a phone, but i do think that this level of retouching is too much especially for photos. The model was really surprised at how much we changed the photograph, and at the time it did feel a little bit awkward changing a persons face because it was like you are pointing out their flaws. I do not think the model looks better, if anything I think the image looks a little bit creepy, as the skin is too smooth it has the uncanny valley effect. After doing this i would like to experiment with retouching images on photoshop, so if i did this again i would like to retouch a proper image that was shot by me with correct lighting and makeup, as i think this would look more realistic, as you can tell the image above is clearly edited. I will do this for my beauty images for this project, however i will not be doing heavy retouching as this will not fit my brief.

Make-up & Hair Inspiraton

Makeup & Hair Inspiration

For our digital image beauty photoshoot the theme is 'the perfect base' and should include one key colour, this could either be a complimentary colour or an analogous one. The hair also needs to be thought about as this is something that is often overlooked in a photograph.

Makeup Design 1

My first make-up look is based around a really fresh, beachy, bronzed summer look. I am planning to do everything warm toned, to make the skin look healthy. This will be paired with lots of highlighter, I want to team this look with the low key lighting, as I believe it will be such a beautiful way to emphasise the shadows and highlights on the face, and will look gorgeous in black and white.

Makeup Design 2

For my second design I will be introducing my one key colour, I have chosen for this to be burgundy, as I want my photoshoot to have quite a dark feel. I will be applying this on top of the first makeup design, as I want the skin to be the same as the one before. I will use this makeup for the high key lighting, as this will emphasise the colour, if this was to be shot in black and white then the lips would just look black.

Hair Design

For my hair design I simply just want straight hair, which I will use a lot of mousse through to give it a wet look, I will play about with slicking it back and putting it in different partings. I will be using the same hair for both of the makeup designs.