Tried something new today

[Rocco]

Decided to try something new today. I've seen these in the past, and today I saw a friend who had posted some from an engagement shoot without any photoshop work done. Also wanted to try the "hiding behind a basketball pole" shot too, but I lost the light. I did this on the side of the house (hence the chain link fence in the shot), and made a rough job of my layer masks but I accomplished what I wanted to and have a feel for what some really cool shots like this would take.





What do you guys think about these, cliche? Anyone ever do these with clients? What was their take on it? Did they respond well?


I'm pretty photoshop savvy so I could go one further, rather than just lowering the exposure, clarity, and sharpness like I did, I could make it look like a painted canvas of.. whatever, and have the painted effect/texture decrease the more he comes out of the frame, blah blah blah. Whether or not it's marketable, I had a ton of fun doing it, and the editing on this one took all of five minutes.


If any of you have any like this, I'd like to see them.





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ALSO, I'd really like to know how the skin tone looks to you guys on here. It's no secret my laptop's monitor completely sucks and brightness/color accuracy just isn't there. Looks fine on my end but I'm worried that he may look orange due to some of the global adjustments I made. Any input that way would be very usefully. I have to do a lot of guess work when it comes to my editing.

[Dr Croubie]

To me, he does look a tiny bit orange, my monitor

[Steve U]

I'm sorry about your leg, but you seem to have adjusted well.


[]


Oh and I also like the effect, good job.[]


Hope I manage to post this before Daniel does.

[Rocco]

To me, he does look a tiny bit orange, my monitor's factory calibrated but because i'm on linux, god knows what my desktop is doing before it gets to the monitor. Still, not an unnatural orange, i've seen fake tan in real life that looks a lot lot worse. In short, looks good to me. (it's winter here so i'm used to seeing pasty-white faces everywhere atm)


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As for the whole effect (any effect, really), i'm sure if you overdo it or see it everywhere, it would become a bit cliche, but i haven't seen this effect before (i do tend to live under a rock sometimes though)


Just for reference, it looks like you've down the portrait wide open, and the background a bit narrower F, was that intentional? You definitely need a bit of distinction between the 'framed' background and the 'actual' background like you've got (otherwise it'd just look like a guy holding a frame), but i think the actual background is a bit bright and distracting, especially behind his head. maybe reverse it? high DOF in the frame, low DOF outside the frame? not sure if that would look better or worse.


also, is the vignetting intentional, or you have an efs 15-85 too? i'd dial that back a bit, but then, i don't much like anything with vignetting, my personal preferences will be different to the next guy.


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one idea i just had when you mentioned weddings, would be the groom standing outside, with his hand reaching through to the bride in the 'frame'. or maybe it's been done already, not sure...


still, i can't even process 1 raw shot in 5 minutes, this is a lot better than i could ever hope to do...

It was shot wide open @2.8. This was a test shot without much thought to lighting/environment. Didn't really care too much on this one, just wanted to get them into photoshop asap. Pretty much told him to stand there with the frame, took my shot, switched the lens to MF, took my second shot with him out of the frame and called it good. The vignetting was intentional, but in a complete fly-by-the-pants sort of way. Just threw the slider back and called it good. Shot it using my efs 17-55mm f/2.8 IS if you care to know.


With the DOF and focus being the same in both shots it was easier to apply the layer mask. Just had to paint black over his leg, clone part of the frame to cover his fingers, and the rest didn't require any additional work. Just copied all adjustments from one frame and pasted it into the other in Lightroom.


I'll be doing a few more of these just because of how fun they are. I'll pay attention to the important stuff with those. I've been trying to think of a way to do a shot like what you mentioned with bride and groom, but with the frame being mounted on a wall. Seems challenging. I would probably have to take the first pic with the frame mounted and maybe green screen inside, then take a separate shot elsewhere and try to reproduce the lighting, then photoshop the two of them into the first image. I've been dipping my toes into strobism a bit (just purchased The Hotshoe Diariesby Joe McNally) and this seems like it would be a good way to tackle a lot of the concepts I've been reading about.


Any suggestions there? Looking to Sean Setters here. []

[Sean Setters]

The important thing to do when doing these types of images you