Tag Archives: Silver Efex Pro

Belly Dancer/Warner Wetlands Composite Portrait

07 Friday Dec 2012

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USA, Oregon, Springfield, Belly dancer performing, Digital Composite, MR (Rick A. Brown)This image was very important to my recent updates to my portrait portfolio and I’ll begin this entry with an explanation of why.

I have been trying to find a model for the “George Hurrell inspired glam shots” that I have been envisioning for a very long time (I’ll tell you more about these images in the next blog post.) It has been quite the challenge since I’ve been working with friends on a TFP basis because of limited budget. I’ve had models cancel on me, potential models go from friends to certainly not friends before I asked them, etc. Thus, I have been constantly on the lookout for someone to ask to do this.

So along came this event that a friend of mine asked me to photograph for the Emerald City Rollergirls, the flat track rollerderby league of Eugene, Oregon. The event photography consisted of photographing the various people as they came through the room where I was setup to get an image of themselves in their cool costumes. When Jenny (the girl in the photo) came through, she made an effort to introduce herself and when I found out she was a belly dancer, this image popped into my mind and I got very excited about making the image. Furthermore, there were some women who had the look I felt was right for my aforementioned, George Hurrell inspired shot, so I went about setting up a shoot with several of the women from the group.

For this particular image, I was looking for a light and airy feel. I picked an old image I had of the Warner Wetlands at the base of Hart Mountain in Eastern Oregon. I was playing around with many different ways to prepare the background image and all of the came close, but none were exactly what I was looking for. That’s when my Google+ friend Monico Havier suggested I try the blending a black and white image with the color for the B-17 image that I have written about here recently. Now, this is a method I knew how to do already, but it wasn’t dawning on me to try it on the B-17, until Monico mentioned it. Well, I loved it and so did a lot of other folks. That got me to thinking that maybe this was the proper approach to this background image.

I opened the background image in Photoshop and opened the Silver Efex Pro2 plugin. I ran the Fine Art – High Key preset and turned off the border and brought the blacks down. This gave me a good black anchor, while still giving me that creamy look I wanted through the water, etc. Then I double clicked on the background to convert it to a regular layer and moved it above the Silver Efex Pro2 layer and changed the blend mode to soft light. At this point I saved the background for when I made the portrait. (I was overly excited about this composite and was messing with the background long before the portrait shoot was scheduled.)

For the actual shoot, I was looking for a little softer look than I usually do for my composites. So, I positioned a strip bank directly to one side and a speedlight in a softbox to the other. Above and in front of the blocked spot was a beauty dish with a diffusion sock. My Dad was there as an assistant, so I had him step in and we established our lighting ratios. The two lights to the side I intended to illuminate the model just slightly darker than pure white. The fill light in front would be just slightly less than that. This is where the setup differed significantly from my normal as I usually set the front light to considerably darker. When Jenny arrived we readjusted the lights a bit as she is considerably shorter than my Dad, but the power settings were already dialed in. After that, the shooting was pretty easy, at least from the photographer’s perspective; told Jenny I wanted eye contact in the shot and she did her dance poses.

Then came post processing. I started with some basic Lightroom stuff with a slight darkening of highlights, slight brightening of shadows. After this I opened both this image and the intended background as separate documents in Photoshop. Then I selected the dancer using quick select and then refine edge, exporting the result as new layer with layer mask. This selection actually worked unusually easily and only required use of the refine edge brush along some of the fuzzy costume accessories. Then, even if there was a mistake there, no one would probably be able to tell unless it was pretty major. Next I dropped in the background and moved it in the layer stack until it was beneath our dancer. After this, I duplicated the dancer layer and opened the bottom one in Silver Efex Pro2. This time I did not run the High Key preset, but instead made it a contrasty image. My aim was to make the skin tones look like they received the High Key treatment, while still keeping the darker tones nice and rich. Once this was done I changed the blend mode of the top layer to soft light. Then it was time to unify the two elements. The color saturation was now low enough that there was no apparent mismatch in the color. Thus, I went to the background layer and opened it in Color Efex Pro4. I ran the Fog filter here and made the fog pretty intense. I then brushed it in just behind her and along the horizon but fading away as I got further from her. Next I stamped all the visible layers on top, the old [shift] [ctrl] [alt] [E] shortcut and opened that in Color Efex Pro4. I ran Tonal Contrast on balanced mode and then ran Glamour Glow on it. This pretty much finished the post.

Please take a closer look at this image and my portrait portfolio.

 

B-17 Photo – Technique Overview

24 Saturday Nov 2012

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Collings' Foundation B17G Flying Fortress, Nine O Nine. (Rick A. Brown)

This image of the Collings Foundation B-17 has been one of the most popular in my catalog since I posted a link to it on Facebook and Google+ last week. My initial post contained a brief synopsis of how I did the post processing; some of my followers said this method sounded too difficult, so I thought I’d write this post here with some along the way images to illustrate. I used this image of Tillamook Air Museum’s P-51D Mustang. Admittedly, the effect doesn’t look as great with this Mustang image as it does with the B-17, but it still works great for educational purposes. (Small disclaimer, Copyright notices on in-process images should be on the image, not the interface portion. My portal service places the notice automatically and I can’t control its location on a per image basis.) This is the beginning image with just some basic tweaks in Lightroom 4.

(Rick A. Brown)

To start I right click on the image go to the Edit In option and choose Adobe Photoshop. Once there, I open Silver Efex Pro2. I apply the High Structure, Harsh preset and then tweak the settings to taste. My primary goals in this tweaking are to create interesting structure in the aircraft and adjust for the fact that shadows tend to block up in the successive steps. One tweak that I almost always do and I did in this image is to apply the yellow color filter, this tends to separate the aircraft from the sky.

(Rick A. Brown)

After creating the Black and White layer, the next step is to merge this with the original color image. To do this turn the Background layer into a real layer by double clicking on it. Then move it above the Black and White layer and change the blend mode to soft light. (An alternative is to leave the layers in their original order and change the blend mode on the b&w to luminosity. Try both, the luminosity method makes the effect a little less extreme.)

(Rick A. Brown)

At this point, you will probably notice that some areas need lightening and perhaps some need to be darkened. To do this, stamp the visible layers into a single layer at top; this is the infinitely useful [shift] [ctrl] [alt] [E] shortcut. Personally, I use this so often that I have programmed one of my keys on my Wacom tablet to do it. Change the blend mode on this layer to screen, you’ll see the whole image get much lighter. Create a black mask by holding down the alt key while clicking on the create new mask button. Then paint in the areas with white on the mask that need lightening. Finally, adjust the opacity of the layer to blend in this effect. If anything needs darkening, repeat the process with a layer set to multiply blending mode. The image below shows me painting in the mask, for some reason the brush didn’t capture in the screen capture.

(Rick A. Brown)

For the next step, stamp the visible layers to the top again. Then open Color Efex Pro4, here we are going to do the method that I detailed in an earlier blog post. Essentially, this is a recipe I created applying Tonal Contrast and Detail Extractor to the image.

(Rick A. Brown)

After applying the recipe, I click on the Brush button. This opens Nik’s masking app. I paint this effect onto the plane, then adjust the opacity of the layer to taste, I set it to approximately 75% in this case.

Now it’s time for the finishing touches. First off I stamp the visible layers on top again. Then I open Color Efex Pro4 again and apply the Darken/Lighten Center filter. I put the center on top of the plane and adjust the shape and size of the center to taste.

(Rick A. Brown)

Finally, I clean up dust spots and do any other tweaks that look desirable. In this case it was just the dust.

(Rick A. Brown)

I would never claim to be able to come up with all of this on my own. Many techniques in this method I learned from NAPP, with some of my own innovations added in. My Google+ friend Monico Havier encouraged me to try this method with the B-17 and now that it worked so well there, I am really watching closely for other places that I might be able to apply it effectively; very anxious to apply it to some air to air images.

Please take a look at my aviation portfolio, or my full Collings Foundation gallery. Remember most of these images are available to be prints to hang on your wall.

 

Aviation Post Processing

29 Friday Jun 2012

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Today, I thought I would use the three images that I added to my Aviation Portfolio to illustrate my three favorite methods to post process aviation photos. All three of these methods utilize plugins from Nik Software. The two color methods I have made custom recipes for in Color Efex Pro4. The B&W process is close enough to one of the presets, that I just go with it.

We’ll start with this image of a B-17G.

Collings' Foundation B17G Flying Fortress, Nine O Nine. (Rick A. Brown)

This photograph uses a recipe that includes Pro Contrast, Detail Extractor and Darken/Lighten Center. The first filter applied is the Pro Contrast and here I use the Dynamic Contrast preset included with the plugin. Next Detail Extractor is applied with the default preset, I use control points to make sure that it is only applied to the aircraft itself. Finally, I apply the Darken/Lighten Center filter with the default preset. I use the place center button to assure that it is precisely where it looks best.

This is the starting point for this image.

(Rick A. Brown)

Next let’s discuss my B&W method.

Collings' Foundation TP51C Mustang Betty Jane. (Rick A. Brown)

Here I use Silver Efex Pro2. This is one of the greatest plugins anywhere in my opinion. I start with the High Structure – harsh preset and then do some tweaking, usually concentrating on using one of the color filters. The idea with a polished aluminum aircraft is to enhance that sheen on the plane. Then I applied the lowest level of Sepia toning and applied a vignette – very slight. This is just about the simplest of these three methods.

Here is the before image.

(Rick A. Brown)

Finally, there’s my Bleach Bypass method.

Collings' Foundation B24J Liberator, Witchcraft. (Rick A. Brown)

This recipe starts with the Bleach Bypass filter, then applies the Detail Extractor, and finally the Darken/Lighten Center. I start with the Bleach Bypass filter with the default preset. I control the contrast carefully here to make sure shadow detail is retained, I want the shadows pretty dark, but not all the way to black. Next, I apply the Detail Extractor on the default preset and like before, use control points to make sure it is only applied to the aircraft. Detail Extractor and Bleach Bypass together really makes out of focus foliage take on an appearance I don’t like much, but obviously I love the look on the aircraft. Finally, I apply the Darken/Lighten Center and as before place the center precisely.

Here is the before image.

(Rick A. Brown)

Take a look at the rest of my Collings Foundation photos.

The Importance of Nik Software Plugins

29 Thursday Mar 2012

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(Rick A. Brown)

Today, I thought I’d tell you a bit about the importance of Nik Software plugins, to my new portrait portfolio.

Nik plugins played a part in every one of the images in this portfolio, to varying degrees. For example the image above had a great amount of Nik plugin work involved. To begin with the background image was shot as a three image HDR and merged in HDR Efex Pro and tone-mapped to create a grungy, exaggerated detail look. Then the portrait image was shot in the studio with gridded lights behind and to the side of the subject and a beauty dish above and slightly ahead. Then the image was imported into Lightroom 4 and the shadows were brought up a lot, the highlights got taken down almost as much and the clarity got around a positive 40. Then both images were imported into Photoshop CS5 and composited according to the techniques found in Matt Klaskowski’s Photoshop Compositing Secrets. At this point, I used Color Efex Pro 4, and applied Tonal Contrast to the portrait to give it a similar grungy look to the background and Bleach Bypass was applied to the entire thing to help them look like one image and desaturate the image as well.

(Rick A. Brown)

Then there’s an image like this one, where Nik plugins received much less of a workout, but I still used Color Efex Pro 4 for the Lighten/Darken Center filter. I felt the image needed a vignette, and this produced what I felt was the best looking one of the various methods I had available to me.

Megan Points playing cello (Rick A. Brown)

Finally, there’s an image like this one. The initial use of Nik plugins was just the Lighten/Darken Center filter, but then I moved it into Silver Efex Pro 2 and processed it using the Low Key 1 preset  and toned it with the copper toner.

In general, you can see that I think the Nik plugins are very valuable. I am eager to use them in this sort of imagery.

Monochrome Critters

04 Friday Nov 2011

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Today I thought I’d discuss a bit about the post processing techniques behind my new portfolio.

The first step is choosing the right photos. For the high-key shots it is necessary to have a mostly light photo with some detail on your subject being dark and just the inverse of that for the low-key shots. I find that this leaves a fairly wide selection for the high-key shots, but I could only get side-lit shots to work well for the low-key.

After choosing the photo comes the fun part. In Lightroom, right click on the photo and choose edit>edit in Silver Exex Pro2. For the high-key shots I start with the fine art high key preset. I immediately delete the border, I’m not a big fan of borders being hard-baked into my image files. Then I apply one of the white border vignettes. Then tweak the settings to accentuate the overall light feel to the image, while making the detail in my animal adequate. This might mean amplifying the blacks or often a little localized editing using control points. For example, place a very small control point on the eyes and increase contrast and structure to taste.

For the low-key shots, I use one of the lens-falloff vignettes. Tweak the image to get a mostly dark image with some part of your subject light. If detail falls too dark on the subject, use a control point placed on the dark side of the subject and increase the structure. This brings out the detail on that side without lightening it too much. You then might decide to increase the brightness as well, but I typically don’t. This increasing structure on the dark side works similarly to detail extractor in the new Color Efex Pro4 plugin – my favorite filter in that plugin.

Another very important thing to remember is your choice of the color filter to use in Silver Efex Pro 2 has a big influence on this effect and can get you a long way to where you want to be in just one click, remember to experiment with them.