Before & After - Nic
So approaching Christmas of 2010 a family approached me to take pictures for the holidays. They were really happy with the pictures, but the parents of the couple asked if they could use one of the images for their church newsletter?
Of course I had no problem with this but when they said, "well we'd really like just us in the shot with our grandson", I realized this meant some heavy photoshop post production. Removing people who are standing in front of a christmas tree covered in decoration with light reflections etc. Not to mention the couple standing behind have their hands on their shoulders, etc.
This is where my golden rule of location shooting always comes in to play. TAKE SHOTS OF THE SCENE WITHOUT ANYONE THERE!
So now I could use that original subject-less shot as a background and put the grandparents back in after they had been isolated and masked out. After that it was solving the challenges of removing hands, shadows, etc.
There was original post production work done to the first originating whole family portrait which included color correction, some reshaping, tonal adjustments and some gentle painting.
To match that quality I couldn't start back at the raw file level for this add-on to the project.
Strobist info: Shot with a Nikon D2X with a 50mm f1.8 lens, SB800 mounted on a boom to the overhead right and a 2nd SB800 mounted 30° left of the subjects about 10' back. Gold reflector clamped above for some feathered color.
Before & After - Nic
So approaching Christmas of 2010 a family approached me to take pictures for the holidays. They were really happy with the pictures, but the parents of the couple asked if they could use one of the images for their church newsletter?
Of course I had no problem with this but when they said, "well we'd really like just us in the shot with our grandson", I realized this meant some heavy photoshop post production. Removing people who are standing in front of a christmas tree covered in decoration with light reflections etc. Not to mention the couple standing behind have their hands on their shoulders, etc.
This is where my golden rule of location shooting always comes in to play. TAKE SHOTS OF THE SCENE WITHOUT ANYONE THERE!
So now I could use that original subject-less shot as a background and put the grandparents back in after they had been isolated and masked out. After that it was solving the challenges of removing hands, shadows, etc.
There was original post production work done to the first originating whole family portrait which included color correction, some reshaping, tonal adjustments and some gentle painting.
To match that quality I couldn't start back at the raw file level for this add-on to the project.
Strobist info: Shot with a Nikon D2X with a 50mm f1.8 lens, SB800 mounted on a boom to the overhead right and a 2nd SB800 mounted 30° left of the subjects about 10' back. Gold reflector clamped above for some feathered color.