What do you do in These situations?

[jgaddy]

The images I am posting are for exposure examples only - They were shot for asking exposure questions only. No rule of thirds, pose, etc....comments, these are just exposure examples:

I fight with candid snapshots and lighting/exposure. Do most of you in this style of shooting expose only for the subject and let the background fall where it may? Or do you hold all the highlights> If I hold all the highlights, some shots become so terribly dark that post processing becomes a nightmare.

To give you a small example of what I am talking about: Here is a straight forward snapshot:



I deliberately held all the highlights but the outcome is very dark. Or should I have shot to expose the subject and let the background fall where it may?

Here is same shot that was exposed for the facial skin-tones with a calibrated incident meter:



The face falls exposure wise exactly where I think it should but at the cost of some serious highlight burnout, not only on the background but on the clothing as well. The whites and colors on the clothing are lost in order to get the face exposed properly.

I am hoping someone can use this example to and give some details on how these situations are to be handled. Understand, even if we are not dealing with hgihlights in the background and I am exposing for only the lady, white and bright colored clothing become and issue if I am wanting the face to fall at proper exposure.

With or without fill, The clothing/face exposure still become and issue.

let me know if you want more examples or info..

Thanks for the help

[AlexMorse]

I assume you're shooting digital?

Generally if I can't get an exposure that fits in the full dynamic range of the scene, I will give priority to the subject. When shooting digital you can recover a lot of data by shooting raw, and exposing to the right without blowing highlights, and then recovering shadow detail in photoshop. Lacking that I would expose for the subject and then use photoshop to make the blown background less distracting.

I think your first exposure with some shadow/highlight adjustment in PS would be just fine.

[jgaddy]

Good info and thanks.....But tell me, in the example I have posted, how would you have set exposure? Would you have let the background go?

Even then, I have white and bright colored clothing that blows before I can get the face exposed where I want it. Letting the clothing blow does cause a significant distraction on the whites and colored clothing.....I have never seen how blow of clothing and whites could be repaired....

Thanks

[jgaddy]

Remember, just exposure....


Here is the question for anyone that is willing to help:

The girl being the main subject:

1) Do you consider this image over-exposed?
2) If so why?
3) How would you have specifically shoot this image any differently?



For sake of understanding, please open in PS so you can give some specifics....

Thanks for your help!

[johnastovall]

Take the raw file and make two exposure layers and then mask them and brush in the background to darken it in Photoshop.

See Kelby's The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digitial Photographers pp. 74-77.

[jgaddy]

John,

If that is the way it is, then I will have to accept that....The thing I can't seem to get my arms around is what does the wedding or event photog do with 1000 images? I can do the math with time per image and see quickly that making these kinds of corrections after the fact would be horrible for business workflow....

I would love to hear from high volume photogs and their opinions about this.

Like I said, If this is the way it is then I can accept that....

I appreciate the help and info!

Originally Posted by johnastovall

Take the raw file and make two exposure layers and then mask them and brush in the background to darken it in Photoshop.

See Kelby's The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digitial Photographers pp. 74-77.

[jgaddy]

No clipping on either ends:

Is this what I should be expecting out of the camera?

Very very dark....Once again, getting the face to the expose level that it needs to be will still cost me some blowouts.....show my why it will not....

Or, if you think this is right on the money, let know

[johnastovall]

Originally Posted by jgaddy

John,

If that is the way it is, then I will have to accept that....The thing I can't seem to get my arms around is what does the wedding or event photog do with 1000 images? I can do the math with time per image and see quickly that making these kinds of corrections after the fact would be horrible for business workflow....

I would love to hear from high volume photogs and their opinions about this.

Like I said, If this is the way it is then I can accept that....

I appreciate the help and info!

Fill Flash....

[AlexMorse]

Yep, the wedding photographer will bbe using fill flash everywhere he doesn't have time to set up and meticulously position people for optimum exposure.

The images you're posting and talking about being dark, do look a tad underexposed, but not much. Is your monitor calibrated? Mine is not, and it may just be that it's rather brighter than average. Open up the advanced settings in the Shadow/Highlight tool and play around a bit. If you haven't experimented with that already, I think you'll be pleased with how quickly some of your "almost" images become what you want.

[johnastovall]

Originally Posted by AlexMorse

Yep, the wedding photographer will bbe using fill flash everywhere he doesn't have time to set up and meticulously position people for optimum exposure.

The images you're posting and talking about being dark, do look a tad underexposed, but not much. Is your monitor calibrated? Mine is not, and it may just be that it's rather brighter than average. Open up the advanced settings in the Shadow/Highlight tool and play around a bit. If you haven't experimented with that already, I think you'll be pleased with how quickly some of your "almost" images become what you want.

My monitor is calibrated and they do look underexposed. I would like to see EXIF information on those shoots and were they jpg's out of the camera and what was it set for if they were.

[jgaddy]

John,

Play along with me here as you can confirm that I am wrong.....

Please open the images that you are sayign are under-exposed and tell me how exposure can be increaed without clipping?

Now, I agree with you that they look dark and "appear" to be under-exposed but, maybe I am not understanding key fundementals since if exposure is increased on these, clipping will start immediately as the white poinnt is at the verge of clipping.

Please explain.....Thanks

Originally Posted by johnastovall

My monitor is calibrated and they do look underexposed. I would like to see EXIF information on those shoots and were they jpg's out of the camera and what was it set for if they were.

[johnastovall]

Originally Posted by jgaddy

John,

Play along with me here as you can confirm that I am wrong.....

Please open the images that you are sayign are under-exposed and tell me how exposure can be increaed without clipping?

Now, I agree with you that they look dark and "appear" to be under-exposed but, maybe I am not understanding key fundementals since if exposure is increased on these, clipping will start immediately as the white poinnt is at the verge of clipping.

Please explain.....Thanks

1. I don't worry as much about histograms and clipping as geting the image to be like I visualize it.

In raw (at least with ACR 3.3) you can change the exposue by + or - at least three stops. You can also play with brightness, contrast and shadow detail. Have you read Fraser's book on CS2 RAW?

So I make one with the back ground like I want it. Then I set one with the subject the way I want it and let the back ground blow out all over the place. . Then merge the two images with the move tool in and add a layer mask. Set the forground to white and start brushing the areas I want darker.

What I want is my print to look like I want and could care less about clipping and histgrams. But I only print about 1% or less of my shoots and may work at post processing only 4%. Example I was up at 6 this morning to shoot horses and wild flowers for 2 hours with the early light. I shoot about 380 images. From my first cut I'll post process about 10 or 12 and may print 3 or 4.

What are you using for post processing?

[AlexMorse]

In the second shot of the girl where it is dark/underexposed the only area I see that would be clipping is a small splash of sun behind her to the left. In this case I would definitely expose for subject as the background is not only unimportant, but the area that would clip is a very small percentage of the image. In cases where there's say a broad expanse of sky, and that's going to clip I would try to save it, maybe taking multiple exposures quickly, maybe just underexposing the subject and later correcting with photoshop.

That is assuming I don't have my flash with me.

[jgaddy]

Originally Posted by johnastovall

1. I don't worry as much about histograms and clipping as geting the image to be like I visualize it.

This is what I agree with but know is technically wrong in digital - I find that if I shoot for shadows on the 5D the shadows and mids look great but of course at the expense of killing highlights. If I shoot to preserve the highlights I can't ever seem to get the image to look proper in PP....Look at my first example.....

In raw (at least with ACR 3.3) you can change the exposue by + or - at least three stops. You can also play with brightness, contrast and shadow detail. Have you read Fraser's book on CS2 RAW?

Yes, I have read this book as well as many others....Many regard Frasers book as the RAW Bible but there are issues with it. For example: the brightness and contrast sliders are not supposed to move the white and black points....They do. The brightness slider seems to wash out the images very easily. We are not talking auto settings here....

I have found a starting point of setting all sliders to 0 as the best. After setting the WP with the exposure slider and the BP with shadows, seems to me that the brightness slider is hardlt needed but if it is, very little. Contrast is somwwhat uselass and the BP and WP control contrast better but contrast may be needed for a little bit of tweaking on the quarter-tones....Not much though..... Just my thoughts......I feel I am PP as one should with not just ACR but Bibble, DPP, etc...The same problems arise in eash which makes me beleive the problems are ultimately coming from the capture itself.

So I make one with the back ground like I want it. Then I set one with the subject the way I want it and let the back ground blow out all over the place. . Then merge the two images with the move tool in and add a layer mask. Set the forground to white and start brushing the areas I want darker

I agree with you that this works, just not in a higher volume environement....What is the wedding photographer doing.....Now, you had indicated using fill....I agree. Now, we are both on the same page that if you are going to avoid intense PP, you have to capture the image as close as possible to what is going to be prnted. I understand that not all PP can be avoided, but cutting the time per image down can from what you are doing at the time of capture. This is what I want to know...

What I want is my print to look like I want and could care less about clipping and histgrams. But I only print about 1% or less of my shoots and may work at post processing only 4%. Example I was up at 6 this morning to shoot horses and wild flowers for 2 hours with the early light. I shoot about 380 images. From my first cut I'll post process about 10 or 12 and may print 3 or 4.

In regards to not caring about clipping - How would you handle shooting a bride in a white dress and wanting to get skintones where they should be? I think there are 2 schools of thought out there: 1) get it as close to possible in the camera or 2) fix everything in PS. The second, I would assume, would put a wedding photog out of business fast.....I am wanting to know how to get it write, in the camera....or as close as humanly possible.

What are you using for post processing?

ACR, CS2, Bibble, DPP...and whatever else I have trying to figure this out....

Thanks for the help!

[jgaddy]

Originally Posted by AlexMorse

In the second shot of the girl where it is dark/underexposed the only area I see that would be clipping is a small splash of sun behind her to the left. In this case I would definitely expose for subject as the background is not only unimportant, but the area that would clip is a very small percentage of the image. In cases where there's say a broad expanse of sky, and that's going to clip I would try to save it, maybe taking multiple exposures quickly, maybe just underexposing the subject and later correcting with photoshop.

That is assuming I don't have my flash with me.

Alex, This is good.... Let me grab some more example and tell me how you would handle them.....

Thanks