Kris Bentham Photography

Lens flair removal

I was asked to remove the lens flair from this image as they wanted to print it fairly large.

so theres a few things to things bout when removing the flair;

removing the green tone
applying to texture where the flair has 'blown out'
adding realistic tones
blending the contrast as the flair would give very soft detail.

I started with the image in photoshop, duplicating the layer as a way to preserve the original file i then used a hue and adjustment layer to remove the green tones.

This has left me an area with no colour. To add colour I added a selective colour adjustment layer, this allowed me to add colour to the nuetral tones while keeping the structural detail in the whites and blacks.

The selective colour adjustment layer works with he CMYK colour principle so form the research I did for the 3 layer effect understanding the relationship between these allowed me to quickly select the right tone to blend in with the trail. To help the tones blend i applied it to areas not effected by the flair as well as the colourless patch.

Now i need to deal with the loss of detail due to the blowing out caused by the flair i used the clone stamp to add some more grass around the bike tire, I then used a combination of burning, dodging, curves and contrast adjustment layers to blend the tones below the bikes bottom bracket

I then saved the file and brought it in to Lightroom where I cleaned the images up removing some more of the green tone on the bike and adding clarity to the rock as well as some cloning.

The process worked well, has the flair covered the bike it would have been an near impossible task to remove due to the detail be lost not being easily duplicated.

sRGB

Adobe RGB

Colour Profiles

Im very pleased with the outcome of the image it has a realistic look and tone.
I originally exported the file as Adobe RGB as that the colour profile I use, this resulted is the colours looking a little washed out, tones are slightly off and the shadows are brighter than the original. By keeping the colour profile sRGB as the image was shot I have kept the deep shadows and vibrant orange of the sunset

original image by Andrew Meth-cohn

Kendal Warriors Vs Newcastle University

My friends play in the local basketball team the Kendal Warriors, While I was up in the Lakes they had a match vs Newcastle Univercity which i decided to go shoot.

The fixture was at the new sprots hall at Dallam school, this gave me fairly good lighting for the game, this allowed me to shoot at a lower ISO than I have use in other sports halls keeping the image quality. The shutter speed was kept quick due to the action, this required me to use a wide aperture.

For the shoot I use my D610 with the 70-200 ƒ2.8 lens shooting at ISO 2500, 1/340 -1/500 and ƒ2.8. I set the white balance to auto due to the mixture of natural and artificial light.

I used 3d focus tracking, this is a continuous focus tracking system that actually predicts the motion of the subject to stop loosing focus in the split seconds the camera opens the shutter. This is the first time I have used focus system and it worked great giving me constant sharp images.

Workflow

As a photographer time is money, developing systems to cut down your amount of work is vital to become a profitable photographer and freeing up time.

over the past few years I have developed a work methods to make myself more productive, although these is a big improvement over how i worked when i first started there are areas i could improve and develop.

Heres my current workflow:

1. Lease with client to create a plan, preparation before the shoot can save time in the post. discuss what they want and research any techniques or circumstances your not familiar with. proper set up of the shoot can result in hours saved in post or the possibility of a reshoot

2. During the shoot I will evaluate the images as I go, I will delete images in camera this frees up disc space as well as time when filtering the images later. I use the dual card slot on the d610 shooting on to 2 SD cards give me pice of mind that i have a backup copy of the images should one of the SD cards fail.

3. After the shoot I will upload the images in to Lightroom, changes the files form nikons raw format to DNG to allow me to open the files with more programs. during this process I always rename the images giving them a name more relevant to the job/image.

4. I then filter the images using the Lightroom pick feature this allows me to quickly evaluate which images I want to use.

5. once the images are selected I move to the develop module and apply edits using the adjustment sliders, presents and sync buttons. I try to keep apple the same editing techniques to all the images making them look like they belong together. any complex editing i take to photoshop and then bring the edited file back in to Lightroom to keep them together.

6. Once I am happy with the edit s i look thought them before I export them, changing them to jpg.

Areas that I could improve on my work flow would be:

Working on my camera techniques would allow me to get more sharp well composed images resulting in less images to filter. I have been working on my focusing and playing with the different settings as well as using the cameras beep to know when its in focus.

File structure by using Lightroom I have become lazy letting it structure my files, recently i have started renaming the files and changing there location but this could have more structure making me more organised.

Flash guns on location

During our recent trip to Brighton Biennial we took the opportunity to demonstrate the use of flash guns on location.

I wanted to use the flash to separate the background and subject so I had a 1.2 ND filter to allow me to open the aperture while keeping the shutter speed inline with the sync for the flash gun giving a very large bokeh but sharp subject. I also shot with my lens fully extend to 70mm to use the compression of the lens to add to this effect. this did mean i needed more power from my flash gun as i was further away.

ISO 100 70mm ƒ5 1/100s flash fired

ISO 100 70mm ƒ5 1/100s flash did not fire

I used a ITTL cable with my flash to have more control over the light and give more depth to the lighting, I tried to give it a butterfly feel in this image but due to me begin quite far way it was quite a soft light by the time it reached the subject. the flash gun has been used as a fill light in this instance removing the shadow from the left of the image while keeping the natural highlights on the left.

The same effect could be achieve with a reflector and assistant, as this was a very cloudy day there was a very soft light so the fill light isn't as important as it would be on a sunny harshly lit day.

I wanted to be more creative with the flash gun to really show its potential so decided to use it off flash. there are various methods and accessories to this but used Nikons commander mode which allows you to alter the settings of the flash remotely with in the camera. this is very handy as you don't need to more about and can add subtle adjustments.

to find the Commander mode you need to go Bracketing/Flash > Flash control for built-in flash > Commander mode. For here you have control over the the built in flash and 2 slave units. You can set the flashes to TTL or manual, there are 3 separate channels meaning that you can use the feature in one channel while other photographers work in another with out interference.

on the flash gun set the flash to Slave mode and and set the group and channel.

on location I placed the flash gun on a tripod left to the camera, I tried to keep the look realistic looking so had it positioned it hight. off camera flash gives the image more depth and more interest, it also allows you to shoot at lower flash powers requiring less power and recharge time. all images shot at ISO 160 70mm ƒ5 1/100s

The backgrounds on the images could been brighter by using a longer shutter speed, with the use of the flash you can use a longer shutter speed as the flash will freeze the motion.

Off camera flash is something I want to play with more to get to know how and when to use it. it can seam scary at first but it is very systematic and once you get a feel for your gear it becomes second nature

The colour with in.

Its possible to create colour images form black and white film by using RGB filters and creating 3 images, this gives you 3 tonally different images and this is the key to adding the colour.

In Photoshop add a new layer and fill it will;

Red - cyan

Green - magenta

Blue -yellow

Then change the blending mode to screen.

Merge each image and its colour layer the stack all the merged layers. Change the blending modes of the top 2 layers to multiply.

I never acomidated for the reduced exposure due to the filters so my image came out dull, with a exposure lay I managed to boost the colours to look realistic.

To understand how this works you need know the relationship between RGB and CKYM.

RGB comes from projected light by mixing the 3 colours you can produce white

CKYM comes from print by combining Cyan,Yellow and magenta you produce black

They are Also contrasting colours so the red filter only records the red shades on to the negative, when converted to positive the colour is also inverted giving Cyan.

hollywood promotional portraiture

Hollywood promotional portraits where used to created interest in a actor or actress during the golden age of Hollywood. The characteristics of these portraits had hard blow out shadows and highlights to create a interesting dramatic contrast. This was contrasted with soft focus drawing your attention to facial features.

Posing the model interesting angles where used to try and differentiate and make their portrait standout.

This image of Lauren Bacall is a prime example of this lighting style. It stood out for me due the use of a shallow depth of fields and the contrasting lines with in the robe jawline and shadow cast on the background.

To recreate this image I will start by setting up a red head to the left of the model high up to get he butterfly lighting effect as well as the highlights with in the hair. This has been stopped up to blow out the skin

A second light can be used to create the detail on the background but this may have ]to be created separately and applied in post due to the over head position of the light.

I started the shoot by setting up the camera and model, this allowed me to position the lighting knowing the framing would be correct. the key light was set up to left of the camera. as these are constant light i could see its effects as i set up the light.

as we didn't have a boom to position the rear light above head i could not create the same background positioning it to the side created a similar detail but i could not achieve the blown out white intensity that was present in the original.

once I have my image I started by applying a crop of 8x10 to replicate that of the large format. in Photoshop.

I then in the black and white panel altered the tones of the image to resemble that of the original, there is a lot of contrast yet little detail held with in the flesh tones suggesting the image is slightly over exposed. As I over exposed this while shooting I altered used the tone sliders to adjust the feel of the skin, starting by upping the whites to give a nice glow for the skin tones. I used the clarity to smooth out the skin removing contrast in the mid-tones and then added contrast to put depth back in to the image occurring for reducing the clarity.

To make Karens hair stand out similar to the Lauren Bacall's I have used the brush adjustment and reduced the shadows, this is a subtle adjustment to compensate of the darker hair type.

I next moved the image into Photoshop, I did this in colour as Photoshop has gives you more control over how your b and w images will come out.

In photoshop i started by applying a gradient map this gave me a much stronger contrast between the black and white tones with in the image, to replicate the soft feel of the original image i used a Gaussian blur applied to a copy of the original image and then used a faint brush on a black layer mask to reveal the smoother tones.

Now when I compared this image next to the original it didn't quite work for me; The key lighting was right with the shadows casting at a similar angle. There could be more fill light on the hair but I feel this is simply darker due to Karan having black hair a and the original has deep shadows in this area. The skin tone has more of a grey tone to it this could be because of my use of over exposing or simply Bacall has a different tone of skin.

The thing that wasn't working for me was the depth of field, I shot the original image ƒ/1.8 but the use of a prime lens has left me with a relevantly sharp image. on close inspection the original looks to have the blur applied by other means;

This area suggests that an alternative process has been used to achieve the shallow DOF even if the hair had been protruding form the face on a different plane in a quiff style the scalp is also blurred while the back of the head is sharp.

To rectify this I merged copied the background and skin smoothing layer to create a duplicate I could apply a field blur too, i chose to used this method as it would allow me to alter the intercity of the blur while having th different levels of blu merge together seamlessly. where i felt the blur was too much i used the layer mask and brush to remove it.

As an attempt to rectify the skin toning I changed the gradient map form black to white to black to grey this in tern gave me the grey tones while leaving the total image dull. so to rectify this i added a exposure layer which brought up the brightness again and leaving more greys in the mid tones.

This gave me the idea to use the same technique on the background to boost the whites. i created another gradient map and paired it with a exposure adjustment layer then masked out the facial area.

This project was fun, having to reverse engineer a shoot shows a knowledge of how things are achieve, its something I hope to do again to put myself. while i happy with my key lighting and the background was a case of not having the correct lighting stands and limitations of the project had we been able to use speed lights this could have easily been achieved. I need to work on my direction and detail, while Karen was a good model i could have payed more attention to the little details such as how tight the robe was and brought the back shoulder round to match the original.

Flashguns the basics

Flashguns can be a scary bit of kit to get to grips with, but with a little bit of knowledge and practice they can be one of the most important tools you have. First you need to understand the flashguns anatomy, what the buttons and flashing lights actually do.

As flash guns varry in design layout i will be talking about my SB700 a lot of the features are interchangeable with other makes and modes the method is likely to be different.

Modes

The SB-700 has a handy mode slider on the side of the screen the remote and master are deslected ont he no off button.

ITTL - Intelligent through the lens, in this mode the camera meters the image through the lens to determine the power of the flash. The benefit its you do not have to think about your setting its automatic. The down side is it will quite often over power the flash, resulting in you batteriesdying faster and the recharge rate being longer. This mode is useful in situation you need to think fast or you have varying light. there is also a flash exposure compensation allowing you to quickly adjust the power output with a range for +1 to -3 stops this helps ensure the flash is not too harsh.

Manual - This setting allows you to input the power output. the power is rated in fractions with each stop halving the intensity of light (The SB700 alters the stops in increments of 1/3 allowing you to really fine tune the power). This is the mode i use most it allows me to know what the flash is doing exactly and control it.

GN mode - you set the subjects distance with in the flashgun to determine the power. This is a feature I have not used.

Master and Remote- The master mode allows you to trigger 3 separate flashes independently controlling there power output, the receiving flash guns are set to remote mode and can be run in manual or TTL.
This is a fairly complex triggering method having 3 channels to allow 3 different sets of masters and remote to work in the same area with out triggering each other. The master flash can be triggered before the shutter removing it form the image.
I have not used the master mode on the flash but my D610 allows the pop up flash to be the master flash. the benitfit of this was not having to carry any extra triggers and batteries, the draw back is the flash has to have a line of sight with the remote meaning its likely to be in your image.

Zoom.
Flash head zoom refers to the spread of light. this can have a large effect on your images appearance even thought it dose not change the flashes out put. 24mm is the widest on the SB700 this will give you a large spread of light giving a soft glow. where as at 120mm the light is focused in to a smaller area giving a harsh light. I like to this of this as a running tap at 120mm and the same tap with a shower head attached at 24mm, its the same rate of water but just spread out, if you put your hand under the shower you'll get damp but if you put it under the tap you'll get wet.

The best way to understand these features is to play about with them see what works and how.

Lens flair removal

Kendal Warriors Vs Newcastle University

Workflow

Flash guns on location

The colour with in.

hollywood promotional portraiture

Flashguns the basics

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