That’s my oldest son, who likes to wear Christmas pajamas any time of the year (but not exclusively of course…that would be ridiculous).

I’m testing a very inexpensive ring flash from DIY-Lighting (link, and I don’t make affiliate commission of this). $29.99 plus $9.99 for a bracket to mount it, which is optional but I highly recommend.

First off, a little background on what a ring flash is. Traditionally it has been a curved flash tube that wraps entirely around the camera lens. They were first used in the medical profession, usually for small objects at close range. The benefit to using a ring flash is their ability to provide almost shadowless light. Because the light originates from every direction, in relation to the camera lens, the subject receives light from every direction (at least on the front of the subject).

Ring flashes were adopted by the fashion industry because of this very even light, and have come and gone with photographic trends a few times. The traditional curved-flash-tube type has been very expensive though, and currently range from $500 to several thousand dollars. However over the past few years, the convergence of powerful small strobes, and cameras that are more sensitive to light, has created an opportunity. Several companies have designed reasonably sturdy devices that allow the photographer to use a small strobe, which fires sideways into a ring around the lens. These ring flashes, made of plastic for the most part, range in the $100-300 range.

There has always been a do-it-yourself crowd however who builds these sorts of things out of pie tins and sealing wax (or whatever). The quality is as good as the builder, unfortunately. Enter DIY-Lighting: the kit delivers a well-designed, reasonably efficient and even ring flash kit, which is folded and assembled by the user. Cheap materials, easy to ship, and not very durable. But not very expensive either.

So what’s it like? Pretty rockin’, if the first test images are any indication. The light is very even, all around the ring. All of these small-strobe converters lose a lot of light as they turn a straight beam into a circle of light. And this one is no exception. You’d never use this outdoors as your main light, unless you found a really nice patch of shade. The light output can’t compete with direct sun. However it works very nicely indoors, and would also provide a nice fill a la David “The Strobist” Hobby.

The combination of bendy vinyl and cardboard, and a flimsy flash bracket make for a slow-moving shoot. You simply can’t run after a bride at a wedding with this on your camera, for instance. But that’s probably true with any of the small-strobe devices out there, and even a ‘pro’ ring flash is a pretty bulky thing. But for controlled situations, this is well worth the money. The even lighting is pretty darn gorgeous! I consider the bracket  to be a ‘must have’ though, because otherwise you’re forced to hold your flash in place with one hand, and your camera with the other. Heaven forbid you actually have to manually focus or anything like that! So get the bracket.

I don’t see myself using this for outdoor family portraits, because of the bulk and the fragility of it. It would not, for example, hold up well on a windy beach (never mind the fact that the strobe output would be too low to be useful). But this would be a lot of fun taking candid portraits at a wedding reception as a main light. And it would serve nicely as a shadowless fill light for actor headshots, or corporate/business headshots.

The image above was taken with a Nikon N90s, 50mm f/1.4 lens, on new Kodak Portra 400 film.

Ok so first off: a camera strap? I’m excited about a camera strap? Yeah sounds a bit stupid. I needed a camera strap for a little-used camera, and decided to put it on my Christmas list. I’d heard about the “R-Strap” from Black Rapid, and figured hey since I’m not paying for it, might as well ask for something a little nicer than a basic strap.

I had a camera with me when I opened my gifts at the in-laws, and as soon as put it on, I knew. I knew this was The Strap For Me. It was a real “oh yeah!” moment.

The strap slings over one shoulder like you might carry a courier bag, and the camera hangs down at your side when not in use. This is much easier on your neck over long periods of time. Yes you can do that with a regular camera strap, but you don’t normally because it’s inconvenient to actually shoot that way.

But there are two main advantages compared to slinging a regular camera strap over your shoulder: one, the camera attaches to the strap via the tripod thread on the bottom of the camera, so it hangs upside down at your side, with your lens usually pointing backward. This keeps the camera out of the way. Also, since it connects to the tripod socket, you can swap cameras out relatively quickly, and might only need one strap in your camera bag.

And two, the camera attaches to the main strap by means of a loop that slides up and down the strap. So to bring the camera up to your face, you don’t have to slide the whole strap around your body. The strap stays in place, and the camera, tethered by a loop, slides freely up and down. There is a clasp at the bottom that acts as a “stop” for the camera, so it doesn’t swing too far backward. The action is almost like picking your camera off a table, it’s that frictionless. But when you set it down again, it’s still attached to your body.

I was really surprised at how much lighter my camera felt when using this strap, because the weight is distributed differently. This was really my ‘surprise gift’ of the season, even though I had requested it!

The strobe heads are incredibly small and light. The battery pack is incredibly small and light. The power output is incredibly large (for the size) and puts out a lot of…light. This is the perfect walk-around-and-shoot set up.

With one exception: purchasing this system would make my wallet incredibly small and light. $2200 street price for two heads and the battery pack. Sheesh. Or 30 years of waiting to get these at a reasonable price on ebay.

But hey, there’s always the rental option.

So put on your nerd hat, and let’s dive in.

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I tested my Norman 200B, a single Nikon SB-28, and a pair of SB-28s ganged together. I also tested a shoot-through umbrella, a regular silver umbrella, hard light with no modifier, and a Lumiquest Softbox III (for the single SB-28 only).

The first surprising thing I found is that my Norman doesn’t work properly! It has settings for 200 watts, 100 watts and 50 watts (i.e. full, half and quarter power). But the 100 and 50 settings both output the same amount of light. Not sure if that’s a defect…well it’s gotta be a defect, but I don’t know why. This flash unit could be 30 years old though, so I’m not alarmed.

Another thing I learned was that, at least in my particular circumstances, a 45” shoot-through umbrella was equally as efficient as a 45” silver umbrella (and sometimes better). It had been my understanding that shoot-through umbrellas ate up a lot of light, but they made up for it by allowing the user to position them closer to the subject. But for my particular circumstances, at the same distance, the two types of umbrella are very similar. Since I can position a shoot-through closer to the subject, and it tends to make a softer lightsource than a ‘hard’ silver umbrella, I’ll be choosing the shoot-through even more than I already do.

And the third surprising thing I found is that zooming a hotshoe strobe has very little apparent effect on lightsource softness (contrary to the prevailing wisdom), but can give you up to a half-stop more light output. This was most significant using the Lumiquest III, where the softness was least effected by zoom. So when in doubt, zoom!

First, some details on how I measured. I used a light meter for all this, with a tape measure on the floor to keep the distances accurate. I measured everything at 3ft, 5ft and 7ft. This was done indoors, in my living room, so there might be some bounce fill from the walls altering the data a little. But I don’t think it was significant.

When measuring the distance from the silver umbrella to the light meter, I measured from the rim of the umbrella. For the shoot-through umbrella, I measured from the tip of the umbrella. This was under the theory that those two points were the closest one could get to the umbrella without being inside it, or beside it as the case may be.

I always tested several pops with the light meter to make sure I was getting an accurate reading. My light meter reads in f-stops and tenths of an f-stop. So in the charts below, if you see “f/4.0-6”, it means f/4 and 6/10ths of a stop. If two successive pops were within 1/10th of each other, I recorded the lower of the two readings. If they were further out (on a misfire perhaps), I would test again until I had two readings that were within 1/10th of each other.

SHOOT-THROUGH VS. SILVER

The data doesn’t always line up as one would expect, but keep in mind these readings are from multiple pops and therefore aren’t random errors. The numbers are very close to each other on all the strobes when comparing shoot-through vs silver, with the exception of the single SB-28 zoomed to 85mm. here the shoot-through umbrella was actually more efficient. Conversely, the Norman showed a slightly higher efficiency using the silver umbrella—up to 1/2 a stop at some distances.

Note the three rows in each table are for 3 foot, 5 foot and 7 foot measurements.

Norman 200B:

shoot thru            silver

200w       100w       200w       100w

f/11-0     f/8.0-3    f/11-5     f/8.0-9

f/8.0-1    f/5.6-4    f/8.0-3    f/5.6-6

f/5.6-4    f/4.0-7    f/5.6-6    f/4.0-9

Single SB-28 (half power)

shoot thru            silver

35mm       85mm       35mm       85mm

f/4.0-6    f/5.6-2    f/4.0-7    f/4.0-8

f/2.8-7    f/4.0-2    f/2.8-7    f/2.8-7

f/2.8-0    f/2.8-5    f/2.0-9    f/2.8-1

Dual SB-28s (half power)

shoot thru    silver

85mm          85mm

f/5.6-8       f/5.6-9

f/5.6-0       f/4.0-9

f/4.0-4       f/4.0-2

Conclusion: Silver umbrellas are not the automatic choice when you need the most efficiency. They control unwanted spill in the studio better, since you’re only lighting half the room instead of all of it. But the benefits of a shoot-through umbrella will often be the deciding factor for me.

TO ZOOM OR NOT TO ZOOM

Now take a look at the data again, but this time compare the 85mm “telephoto” setting, vs the 35mm “wide angle” setting (the strobe will go wider, but this is what I tested). First, you’ll notice that I didn’t even bother testing the wide angle setting on the dual SB-28s. Why? Because I came to the conclusion that I would never set it to wide, ever again, unless it was being used as a ‘hard’ light! That, and having two strobes next to each other made the wide-vs-tele measurements a little confused anyway. Do two SB-28s set on telephoto equal a wide angle? Who knows? Who cares?

But look at that efficiency increase from wide to tele: for the shoot-through, it’s half a stop difference! Yet the “softness” of the light doesn’t seem to change very much at all (see images below). On the silver umbrella however, the change in light output is negligible. Why? No idea.

And then on the Lumiquest (see below), it’s the same thing. At least half a stop difference. And yet no change in softness.

Lumiquest III

35mm       85mm

f/8.0-0    f/8.0-6

f/4.0-7    f/5.6-3

f/4.0-0    f/4.0-5

Conclusion: when in doubt, zoom. At the very least, nothing will change. But you might gain half a stop of light.

Note in the gallery below, you can tell which were the tele and which were the wide settings when viewing the actual umbrella. But the effect on the subject was hardly noticeable. In fact, I’m not sure which image is which for all the self-portrait test shots I took. So I didn’t bother posting them.

Also, while I didn’t measure the 35mm setting using dual SB-28s with the light meter, I did take a shot of the umbrella at the wide-angle setting.

Edit 02/25/09:

I just got an Alien Bees AB800 today, and tested it. I was initially disappointed that the hard-light measurements were less than my ancient Norman 200B! But with an umbrella, it’s matched with it. The Norman drops 3-1/2 stops with the umbrella added, whereas the AB800 only drops 2-1/2 stops. I think this must be due to the different type of reflectors on the units. The Norman has a 5″ shiny reflector, and the AB800 comes with a 7″ ‘pearl’ finish. The AB800 has the added benefit that it will shoot all day, and has a modeling light. The Norman 200B is good for about 150 pops at full power, and then you’re done (or have to charge it for 45 minutes or so).

I must admit, I was expecting something with “800″ on it to be massively more powerful than something with “200″ on it.

While I won’t bother to add the images, I did shoot the umbrella to see the coverage of the AB800. Wow, what a difference! The speedlights essentially light the top half of the umbrella. The AB800 lights the whole umbrella very evenly, and thus is going to be a softer light. I didn’t shoot the Norman, so I don’t know how it compares.

One of the ways I market my photography is by using ‘photobooks’. I make arrangements with local coffee houses, doctor’s offices etc to host my book. It’s a very ‘ambient’ style of marketing (and not the only thing I use), but people stumble across it and it’s been a very effective way to show people my work. It’s time to do a new one, and I decided I would shoot something specifically for the cover this time, rather than use existing material. The contents of the book will be updated to reflect the last six months or so of new clients (which I still have to put that together!).

Read on for lighting diagrams and info on the shoot.

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I arranged with a friend to photograph her kids for the cover. So as to be minimally invasive—I was, after all, going to haul a bunch of equipment into her house—I did a practice shoot with my kids. I ended up putting one shot of my son on the cover too, because it worked better with four images.

Doing a dry run is great when you have the opportunity. It allowed me to fine tune the set up, and I realized I needed to add the on-camera flash to really get the images where I wanted them. I’m glad I didn’t wait to discover that during the actual shoot! I also had batteries in all my strobes and everything prepared, and took only what I knew I needed into the house (with additional gear in the car if necessary). The set up took about ten minutes, and shooting was probably twenty? I did straight shots and silly shots, and ended up picking the silly shots.

As you can see from the lighting diagram, it’s pretty simple. A 4×4′ foot panel of bright white foam insulation (1.5″ thick, which I often use as a reflector), propped up against a chair. I used Nikon SB-28s for all three strobes. The background light was on a cheap tripod rather than a light stand, because none of my lightstands would go low enough (and I’m loathe to buy a miniature light stand…waste of money!). The subjects’ bodies hid the tripod and light.

When I did the dry run with my kids, I used a 45″ shoot-through umbrella on a boom, instead of the small 20″ silver umbrella I used in the actual shoot. The reason I switched? because I had trouble getting the shoot through low enough for pleasing facial shadows, and still be able to shoot beneath it. My two year old’s shots turned out pretty horrible as a result, so you won’t see him here! (See, dry runs help!)

The on-camera fill was used to fill shadows and add a catch light. In retrospect I should have put a mini softbox on the fill flash, to bring down the intensity and soften it a little. I found that the minimum fill setting was slightly more than I wanted, and “off” was not quite right either.

Another thing I’d do differently: notice the shadows under the neck of the boy with the red shirt. There appear to be at least three of them. I thought at first these might be bounces from the walls, as this wasn’t a big room. But when I examined the catchlights from the umbrella in his eyes, I think I discovered the problem: rather than being an even circle of light, the umbrella was reflecting multiple versions of the strobe in each of the umbrella’s panels. Because it was silver, it was acting less like a large light source, and more like multiple point sources. i think this was the source of the multiple neck shadows. Check my son’s picture at the bottom: the neck shadow seems to be only one there, where I used the shoot through umbrella. I’m still pleased with the result, because the expressions on these kids really shine through. It’s just one of those little things that I’ll fix next time…small white umbrella rather than silver would have been ideal. Or even better, I should probably use my ‘brolly box’ (a softbox that collapses like an umbrella).

And now for the individual images, and larger. You’ll notice I tweaked the pink-y elements in the girls dresses so that they matched the red of the boy’s shirt. It makes the cover more cohesive. Below are the untweaked colors.

I used to shoot with a combination of digital and film (although it’s mostly just digital these days). I would typically mount the large, heavy medium-format camera on a tripod, and hold the digital SLR in my hands. But I began to notice that my film shots, which were usually a small percentage of the total shots taken, seemed to have a much higher ‘hit ratio’ in terms of the subjects’ expressions and emotions. More real smiles, etc. I’m pretty sure this was because the film camera was mounted on a tripod!

The reason is not because the tripod steadies the camera, which of course is its primary purpose. It’s because if the camera is on a tripod, it’s not in front of my face. If clients can see my face, they can interact with me better, I can make jokes and they take cues from my smiles, and the result is a better image. Even when I shoot hand-held, I tend to focus and compose, and then move my face around the side of my camera slightly so people can see me. But with a tripod, it’s even better! I’m not some scary camera-robot with a human torso and legs, which might put some people off.

As an added side benefit, I’m not always worrying about low shutter speeds as the sun sets. The tripod allows me to shoot much longer before having to bump up the ISO (which results in having to change the settings on the lights, etc).

Using a tripod is most beneficial when your subjects are stationary, and you are shooting a more formal, composed image. Tripods are not much use when you’re trying to shoot small children running around on the beach for example, or when models are doing model stuff.

So lately I’ve been making an effort to use the tripod for many group shots. I was missing out on an aspect of tripod usage that wasn’t so obvious: that it’s a great client relationship tool.

So even if you’ve got the latest anti-vibration camera and a lens that opens up to f/1.4, I still say give it a try. Your clients deserve tripods!

Just a little family-fun posting here, along with some nerdy technical lighting. Yes, that’s right, I bring joy to Christmas by hiding small flash units around the living room. My wife barely gave me a look this time…she’s used to this sort of thing by now. But hey, a little lighting takes even snapshots to a new level. For this impromptu group shot above, I even got the dog to look at the camera. A first!

A high-tech lighting diagram, and more family fun follows. And by the way, this is all out of the strobist handbook. I didn’t invent this. I just have a cuter family.

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While my youngest son was taking his nap, I grabbed two strobes and remotes, and placed them in the living room. I picked locations that would mostly be out of frame, and that didn’t involve setting up light stands. I just stuck the flashes on the piano and the fireplace mantelpiece (red circles). I appear to have spelt “mantel” incorrectly in my diagram. There’s no spellcheck when freehand drawing in Photoshop.

I shot mainly in two directions, indicated by the blue arrows. Both flashes were just aimed up at the wall/ceiling join, for some soft light bouncing around the room. And the ambient sometimes entered the equation, as seen in the lead shot (with the mid-afternoon sun outside). The location by the mantelpiece seemed to yield the nicer lighting, and allowed for profiles of the kids as they put decorations on the tree.

The two below are of my oldest son. He insisted I take the shot of the ornament with his picture on it.

My youngest, in a pensive moment. Main light here is the Sunpak 333 on the piano, with the SB-28 on the mantel acting as a hairlight.

The individual family members, hanging ornaments…

Now here you can see where I caught the flash in the background (The SB-28), bouncing off the wall. Doesn’t matter, it’s a cute shot. Lighting can’t be perfect every time, and sometimes takes a back seat to a emotive image.

And this one taken by my wife, as we put the star on the top of the tree.

Well I’m no David Hobby, but a couple of weekends ago I conducted a small-strobe off-camera lighting seminar for a professional organization I belong to, Channel Islands Professional Photographers Association (CIPPA). I had originally planned to conduct it in a city park, so that I could demonstrate the use of ambient sunlight and balancing flash. But it rained that weekend, so at the last minute we moved it to the Mystique Studio. Thanks Leanne and Brenda for letting us use your space! I don’t remember the exact number, but we had roughly 10–12 attendees.

We also had two models help us out for the seminar. Cassie and Laura were very gracious and professional, even though there was a fair amount of sitting around while I talked. Much thanks to them as well!

All of the shooting was done with one or two lights. I started out with a single hard light (below). Hard light like this gives a very 40′s movie-star portrait look.

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I believe this next shot of Cassie (below) used a small silver umbrella. The light is a little softer, but it’s still pretty hard. Right here I was demonstrating that if you get your light in close, the difference between subject and background is much greater. The background here was a light tan, and the room was small. But dialed down and in close, the subject is properly exposed while the light-colored background falls dark.

I switched to a 53″ shoot through umbrella to shoot Laura. The light is much softer and the shadows fill in a bit more, even with just a single light. The shoot-through does tend to throw light around the room more, which can also account for some of the shadow fill.

I had originally planned to shoot ‘tethered’, so that the images would appear on a laptop (my wife’s laptop that I had borrowed). However for some reason I couldn’t get it working during the seminar, and decided to forge ahead. So I ended up showing everyone images on the camera display. Not the best way to demonstrate lighting techniques! If this were a bigger production, I’d shoot tethered and put up a projector so that people could see what I was doing. And then of course I’d have to charge money for it. Here I am, showing Cassie the results on the back of the camera (below). Note that giant softbox in the studio. It wasn’t used, but the little umbrella in the foreground was.

A shot of Laura posing while studio co-owner Leanne shoots. Whoever shot this (there was much sharing of cameras) managed to catch the strobe going off. Cool, huh? Note the main light is the umbrella to camera right (Leanne’s camera). The actual image was shot on a wide lens, so the umbrella is closer than it appears. That’s an SB-28 doing the hard work in the umbrella. The big glare behind the model is a Sunpak 333 with a cardboard snoot, for a hair light.

At one point the discussion turned to lighting large groups. I mentioned that I’d much rather light a large group indoors than outside, and someone didn’t believe me. I decided to set up the shot and show how to do it.

Here’s the problem: outdoors, in the sun, you’ve got a couple of choices. Point the group toward the sun, and watch them all squint and squirm and get dark shadows everywhere. Or you can put their backs to the sun and use the sun as a hairlight. But then you have to light their faces with strobe. And a big group requires distance from the camera, which means your light needs lots of power to cover the distance and still get even coverage and remain out of frame. All the while you’re managing your aperture against your maximum shutter sync speed with the sun. End result: lots of firepower needed.

But indoors, you can bump your ISO up to compensate for strobe deficiencies. Outdoors you can’t, because the sunlight is an ever present hassle. Indoor situations also often include free diffuser panels (i.e. walls and ceilings) that you can bounce your strobe off, which is better than any softbox or umbrella for a large group. Below I shot three of our attendees, Lisa, Bonnie and studio co-owner Brenda. I bounced the SB-28 off the light tan backdrop we’d been using with the models. I think my ISO was 800 on this. The result: nice, soft even lighting.

Photographers don’t seem to like having their pictures taken, for some reason.

This is a skin retouching technique called “degrunge”. I think I first read about it on retouchpro.com, and am elaborating on that technique. I did not invent this, but this is how I use it.

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First, we start at the end. I was asked by the local newspaper to provide an ‘environmental’ portrait of myself for a story they were running. I guess they figured they’d save money and not send a photographer out to shoot a photographer. So I scrambled to make a self-portrait that actually had me holding a camera! Here’s the finished product:

Now here’s the image before using the ‘degrunge’ technique. I’ve made level and saturation adjustments, cloned some leaves, and done some other things just to get the image ready.

Now zoom into the image at 100%. Here you can see all the unsightly wrinkles, blemishes and the fact that I needed a shave.

Now type shift-option-command-E (or the PC equivalent) to ‘stamp the layers’, making a new layer from combining all the other layers. I’ve renamed this “degrunge layer” below. The actual image won’t change, since all you’ve done is combined everything into one new layer.

Next, select Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur… and start with a radius of 1 pixel. What you’re trying to do is select a blur amount that nicely obscures the details you want to remove, without being so much that all detail is lost. Note that you will NOT hit ‘OK’ after this step. You’re just looking for the proper blur radius for later. If you see below, 1 pixel is not enough. The unwanted flaws, such as wrinkles and deep pores, are still apparent.

Increasing the amount to a 3.2 pixel radius, you’ll notice that the forehead wrinkles are almost completely obscured, and so are the deep pores. This is a good number to use (and I’m sure 3.0 or even 4.0 would have worked just as well). Remember this number. NOW HIT CANCEL. Don’t hit ‘OK’!

Now multiply that number by 3. Why 3? I dunno. That’s how I learned it. Seems to work well. Don’t mess with success etc. Or experiment…but it’s a good place to start.

Select Filter/Other/Highpass… and enter that blur-value-times-three, which would be 9.6 pixels in this case. Select OK. Here’s how it looks.

Now go back to Gaussian Blur, and enter your previously-determined blur number. In this case it was 3.2 pixels. This time you should hit ‘OK’. And it looks like the image below.

Now Invert the degrunge layer by selecting the proper menu item, or just hitting command-I. Which will make the image look like this:

Now go to your layers pop up menu, and instead of ‘normal’, select ‘linear light’. See the image below, in the layers menu on the right, if you don’t know where this is.

Your image will now look horrendously frightening. Like someone has slipped something in your drink. Don’t worry, just put on a mask!

Option-click the ‘create mask’ button at the bottom of the layers palette, and all will look normal again. And you’ll have a black mask for the layer (see below).

Now you’re going to paint in the mask where you need the effect. Select white for the color (I’ve still got black selected in the screenshot below). Make a brush big enough to easily paint wide portions like the forehead. Pick an opacity of 70%…you don’t need to be timid here, because you’re going to dial back the layer later. For now, you’re spraying on the “ten years younger” as much as you can. Pick a flow amount to your taste. I use around 60 or so. Below are my settings as I am about to spraypaint my way back to youthfulness.

Just reveal the skin part of the layer. Don’t unmask eyes, hair, clothing etc. Reveal the effect on wrinkles, but don’t brush in major skin folds, such as those around the mouth. Sometimes I’ll use this on lips, but usually not. The edge of the lip can present problems. I might make a very tiny brush and just paint the center of each lip. But usually not.

Right now you might be worried you’ve created a wax dummy. That’s ok! We’ll fix it.

But first, some things to avoid that I mentioned above. Note what happens when I paint over the ‘smile’ folds in my face. It looks really fake and weird, and makes me look fatter.

Also, avoid edges of high contrast, or saturated color. You get weird ghosting if you get too close. Here’s an example of where I painted too close to the collar of my shirt. Notice the purple that bleeds over the border onto my skin. Avoid this too.

Now zoom back out to assess your image. You’ll want to adjust the opacity so it looks more natural. Somewhere around 50% usually looks best (see below).

Go have a cup of coffee, and come back later. If you’re shocked and horrified about how fake the skin looks, you need to reduce the opacity of the layer further. If it looks natural, toggle the layer on and off. If you don’t notice a difference, then the opacity is too light. It’s a matter of taste of course. But you don’t want your client’s first impression to be “eeeuw, I’ve been retouched!”

Now here’s a comparison, zoomed back into 100%. At a 50% opacity, the fully zoomed image might look a little too much. But that’s probably just right for making a print.

And comparing it with the degrunge layer turned off.

Degrunge is good for blemishes and wrinkles. It will also get rid of glossy, sweaty highlights. If you’ve got a giant shiny spot, you can even do a separate degrunge layer with larger values, and you can smooth out the highlights that way. It will also to some degree remove stray hairs. Although some cloning is usually necessary to finish the hair removal. If you have some deep shadows, sometimes large values will allow you to smooth the transition areas. It’s all dependent on your particular image situation.

If you work with the same types of images a lot, you can set up some Actions to use common values. The necessary values are dependent upon size of the skin area in pixels. So a headshot like the one above requires larger numbers than a family of four, with correspondingly smaller heads. I have a ‘headshot’ Action and a ‘small head’ action, that takes care of about 90% of my images. I just have to paint in the masks properly.

This is not a click-and-go technique, obviously! It requires manual labor, and good taste on your part. If you overdo it, you images will look horrible. But used properly, it makes skin look nice and smooth. And it retains texture at the same time, unlike techniques that simply blur the skin selectively.

For those of you who have been waiting for me to post this tutorial, you can see why it took me so long! I hope it’s been useful. Feel free to post questions if you have them.

Here’s a more in-depth tutorial on the “Highpass/Hard Light” look. By the way, this probably has a better name, but no one’s ever told me it if there is.

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First the lighting: This is shot in my living room. There is a piano behind me, as well as a beige wall. Where’d it go?? I set my shutter so that the background fell almost to black. I tried to balance it so there was perhaps a little ambient fill in the shadows on my face, but that has probably been negated by processing. The main light is an SB-28, set to full power, through a homemade grid (aka grid spot or honeycomb grid). I made it using drinking straws and a plastic gutter accessory. But that’s a story for a different time. The rim light is a Sunpak 333 with a “window green” gel on it, set to (I believe) 1/4 power. I set the flash to wide angle, and aimed it at the back of my head. Both strobes are triggered using cheap ebay wireless triggers.

But hey, this post isn’t about the lighting! It’s about the Photoshop.

So here’s my starting point. I exported the RAW file from Lightroom, made some super secret retouching steps to make myself look pretty (yes, this is me). I’ll go over those in a future post. As you can see, a handsome model but the image is very normal.

The first step is to hit shift-option-command-E on your keyboard, if you’re using a Mac. If you’re using a PC…well do we really need to get into that? Go buy a Mac, I’ll wait here.

This key command merges all visible layers to a new layer. See below for the result, which is a new layer that looks remarkably like the original. You won’t see a change to your image just yet, since the merged layer is just a duplicate, sitting on top of your existing layers.

With this new, merged layer selected, select Image -> Adjustments -> Desaturate. Your new layer will now be in black and white.

Now go to Filter -> Other -> Highpass. Enter a value of 100. Why 100? Because it seems to work. Feel free to experiment with other numbers, for different effects. Click OK. You should see something like this:

You can see above how the highpass filter has brought out some detail in the background (over my right shoulder) , that otherwise was not very visible. I mask that out later, along with the green rimlight (see below).

Now go over to your Layers menu, and with the merged layer still selected, choose “Hard Light” in the pop up menu above the layers.

The end result is what you see below. You could stop now if you wanted, but realistically you’re going to want some adjustments. The effect has a tendency to emphasize edges in weird ways, so you’ll probably mask some of that out. You might want to back off on the effect when it comes to skin, as it can make people look a little ugly sometimes. Sometimes I’ll paint out the skin but leave the eyes and everything else effected.

You’ll notice my screenshot (the image before last) includes a Hue/Saturation layer as well. This is an optional step, but it seems to go well with the general look. In this case, I didn’t desaturate everything. Rather, I left the green at normal saturation so as to retain the edge light effect. (See more on that below.) I did this by selecting all the other colors besides green in the Hue/Sat window, and reducing them by about -40.

If I were doing a family portrait, I would use a mask to remove this highpass/hard light effect from the faces and skin of the subjects, as well as remove the desaturation. Leaving only their clothese and the background effected. With something more commercial in nature, such as the Keith Clark or Model Portfolio shoots I blogged about recently, I’ll keep the effect on the skin but perhaps mask some of it out. In the image we’re working on here, I left it set to 100% for educational purposes, but then I masked out the green rimlight area. The effect can sometimes blow out color on edges of things. Below is the mask I created for the highpass layer.

And the final result, cropped so that my head is partially chopped off (just the way I like it). Some brightness/contrast adjustments too.

I should have shaved before taking this self-portrait. Ah well. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section.