LITHIUM PICNIC studio

this question may very well not be a question at all but poor editing on my part, feel free to tell me if that is the case.

I've noticed the great deal of texture and detail in the deepest of darks in nearly all your images, and I hope you dont mind but I had a look at them in photoshop and as far as I can tell the secret is not just looking at my histograms.

I have tried sharpening, twisting of levels, adding texture with brushes, Layers and Layers and Layers, out right higher exposure and all the same any large dark area seems boring and well flat to me. I KNOW there is lots and lots of detail there, but bringing it out the only way I know how ends up with brightening it all together.
everything looks like a bad print of it's self with too high color saturation in my shaded areas.

shooting with a 5d Markii, editing with CS2...still...

Okay I'm not Philip but perhaps I can help.
If you've underexposed something and lost the detail there pretty much is nothing you can do to gain that detail back. If it's gone into the far left of the histogram it's probably going to stay there. You can recover a little if you shoot raw but I'm guessing your problem is more that you want to keep the rest of your image as is and just bring out some of the detail hidden in the shadows?
Have you tried "painting" the details using your dodge and burn tools?

If you have an example of what you're done and what you would like to do I can give you more specific advice.

oh the data is there alright its not underexposed, its more a matter of keeping it looking dark with some variance. fabric texture, hair texture (black hair) skin texture in shadowed areas, because its all very fine detail I dont think its a matter of just dodging the detail out either. the contrast I'm looking for isnt much either, just SOME texture to break up the heavy shadows.

I dont have any finished products of my own with this showing in them because well I cant get the effect I want but here is an LP image that shows it well:

http://modelmayhm-1.vo.llnwd.net/d1/photos/070224/08/45e03af610a46.jpg

now I know there is a lot of lighting work going on there, I can spot that, because even with the subjects staggered like that they would would be blocking eachother's light without some fancy lighting, but what I'm seeing is a very dark image that does not give the impression of being underexposed and retains a healthy amount of detail even in the background. I mean look at that backgound, its fucking glowing, its got rich texture, healthy colors, its perfect, and all the while it still looks very dark. If its being hit by a light I do not see where from, it doesnt seem to have all that great of a reflective quality, and yet there it is. HOW?

4 lights... one main diffused 5ft softbox right over and in front raining down on them drops the shadows under the noses and gives the drama... two hard edge lights from behind at 45's defining and separating the edges... and a 3200ws light on the background to bring it up...

Sorry for the delay in reply I've been on the road and preparing for a move across country...

I don't pay too much mind to histograms other than minding the clipping limits.

It starts with good light and a clear idea of your objective.

Good RAW conversion helps with the mids the new adobe RAW converter is great for adding a touch of fill if needed and shooting RAW in camera gives you about a 2 stop leeway with exposure latitude.

I tend to shoot a bit on the flat side with the intent to capture as much data as I can in the mids etc... You can always push contrast later but it's hard to go back.

P

Mallorie Nasrallah wrote:
this question may very well not be a question at all but poor editing on my part, feel free to tell me if that is the case.

I've noticed the great deal of texture and detail in the deepest of darks in nearly all your images, and I hope you dont mind but I had a look at them in photoshop and as far as I can tell the secret is not just looking at my histograms.

I have tried sharpening, twisting of levels, adding texture with brushes, Layers and Layers and Layers, out right higher exposure and all the same any large dark area seems boring and well flat to me. I KNOW there is lots and lots of detail there, but bringing it out the only way I know how ends up with brightening it all together.
everything looks like a bad print of it's self with too high color saturation in my shaded areas.

shooting with a 5d Markii, editing with CS2...still...

There you go... from the man himself.
I would have guessed a similar lighting set up but wouldn't have had a clue on the power of the lights so ya can't do better than finding out from the person who took it!

There are a lot of clues about the light if you look closely.... the lit faces and dark necks indicates the main light is high and above and the criss crossing leg shadows give away the source of the defining edges on the shoulders that help cut them out...



Mallorie Nasrallah wrote:
oh the data is there alright its not underexposed, its more a matter of keeping it looking dark with some variance. fabric texture, hair texture (black hair) skin texture in shadowed areas, because its all very fine detail I dont think its a matter of just dodging the detail out either. the contrast I'm looking for isnt much either, just SOME texture to break up the heavy shadows.

I dont have any finished products of my own with this showing in them because well I cant get the effect I want but here is an LP image that shows it well:

http://modelmayhm-1.vo.llnwd.net/d1/photos/070224/08/45e03af610a46.jpg

now I know there is a lot of lighting work going on there, I can spot that, because even with the subjects staggered like that they would would be blocking eachother's light without some fancy lighting, but what I'm seeing is a very dark image that does not give the impression of being underexposed and retains a healthy amount of detail even in the background. I mean look at that backgound, its fucking glowing, its got rich texture, healthy colors, its perfect, and all the while it still looks very dark. If its being hit by a light I do not see where from, it doesnt seem to have all that great of a reflective quality, and yet there it is. HOW?

If I were to have hazarded a guess I would look at the intensity of light on each person.
That would place the main fill high and above the middle guy (and slightly to the right of the image, so almost inbetween the middle and the fourth guy). Very high but possibly it was in shot and painted over in black where the writing is now.
Then on the two guys at the left hand side you can see that bright edge esp. on the front guy so I would say the light is closer to him/hitting him more directly and angled towards him from behind judging on the shadow of his legs.
For the right hand side the side light seems to be further back as it hits the fourth guy's hair the strongest. and leaves not barely a shadow at all which means he is blocking a lot of the light and it is perhaps higher up. (there is no glowing rim on their legs like there is on the left hand side).

And then for the back I would have guessed between one and three small lights quite far back angled slightly towards the camera and up at the ceiling. (The orange-white-orange striping would have confused me as I'm guessing there were some lights in the room anyway so I don't know what was there and what was set up... again I'm guessing the stripes of light up the walls were from light sources that were simply just there).

thank you so much, I think I'm guilty of blaming slack lighting on my part thus bad results on my rough photoshop knowledge. I've been looking at that shot for the better part of a year and I honestly thought all the light / texture on the background must have been put in somewhere in post.

your replies are much appreciated and I'll kick myself in the butt next time I think "fuck it i can just bring it back in post".

oh and no worries about the tiny delay I honestly wasnt sure if you checked these boards very frequently at all, so a reply a all was a pleasant surprise, I'm readying to move CA myself so I 100% sympathize.