Keep in mind this was a quick and dirty test with some quick and dirty results but just playing around with it has given me reason to explore HDR a bit more than I have done to date. The first image was about 2 stops under what the good old matrix metering in the Nikon suggested. The 2 stop under image held the highlights and color that is the sun way better than the “normal†exposure did. So that was my starting RAW file for the 30 seconds worth...
White backgrounds are very popular for just about every kind of studio shot that might come along. Fashion, beauty, headshots, etc, etc, etc. So knowing how to do a white background properly is pretty basic stuff. So how did I screw that up you might ask. I’ll give you the answer in a second. To do a white background it’s pretty simple. Get a roll of white seamless paper, white foamcore, whatever and make sure that you light it so it turns out actually white. The easiest way to...
First off, never ever ever use a beauty dish on someone that is not beautiful, go with something bigger. Second beauty dishes produce more contrast and zip than boxes do, they have a more specular quality to highlights they produce. Third they have a very different falloff pattern than soft boxes or umbrellas do. Fourth, the good ones that have a glass or plastic translucent center diffuser have a hot spot in the center portion of the light pattern that they throw. In my opinion these are the reasons...
Ahhhh, white balance. Where should I start? There are so many millions of how to technical info-mercials out there I will dispense with starting at the beginning and just jump right into the thick of it. If you shoot RAW you can do anything you want to WB in post, most of what I am going to talk about regarding white balance assumes that you want to be efficient when it comes to corrections and enhancements when it comes to post with a couple of exceptions towards the end....
Update – This post was the original post from a discussion I had in the Apple support forum a long long time ago. I did put a free PDF together that was downloaded about 10,000 times. I had so many suggestions and questions that I decided to make a much larger more comprehensive version. It covers far far more and provides a ton of useful work-flow tips and examples on how to be extremely efficient. Even if you have been using Aperture for years you will probably find a...
