Editing My Final Images - Black and White

Today I also chose my black and white images and opened them in Adobe Bridge to edit them.

So I chose my images and opened them all up, in Adobe Bridge I opened one of the coloured ones in raw and started my editing process, they are in colour firstly because I shot them in colour and I have to change the settings to black and white.

Firstly I went down the column on the right and started editing using the sliders one by one and changed the colour to black and white so I can see what part of the image I need to change to define the skin or the structure or something else in the picture.

I didn't want to change the image so much that it was unrecognisable I just wanted to change the brightness maybe soften the skin a little bit.
I changed the exposure, brightness, blacks, high lights, the clarity, vibrance and saturation too, most of the sliders were only changed very slightly.

I had to change the settings a little more in these images compared to the colour images because in black and white the dark jumper next to the dark hair wasn't showing up that they were separate. I changed the blacks more in these images so you can see the detailed material of the top compared to the hair strands.

I then clicked done when my image was how I wanted it and I also cropped the image very slightly.
I went back in to Adobe Bridge and right clicked the image I just edited, then I copied the settings from that image and pasted it on to the two other chosen coloured images.
The settings looked really good on all the images because the lighting and the model was all kept the same in the studio. The only thing I had to change on the images separately was the blacks again. To get the definition between the hair and the jumper.

I then opened up my images in to photoshop and edited them very slightly. I used the spotting tool to remove any little hairs i thought were un necessary, and any little lines or wrinkles around the eyes. I also removed some of the hair off the top she has on. I then used the dodge and burn tools to hight light some areas and add some contouring to the face.

These are the before and after images.






As you can see there isn't any major differences as my model is perfectly beautiful any way with the strong brows which are perfect.

Editing My Final Images - Colour

Today I got my final images and I edited them using the programme Adobe Bridge.

So I chose my images and opened them all up, in Adobe Bridge I opened one of the coloured ones in raw and started my editing process.

Firstly I went down the column on the right and started editing using the sliders one by one.

I didn't want to change the image so much that it was unrecognisable I just wanted to change the brightness maybe soften the skin a little bit.
I changed the exposure, brightness, blacks, high lights, the clarity, vibrance and saturation too. most of the sliders were only changed very slightly.

I then clicked done when my image was how I wanted it and I also cropped the image very slightly.
I went back in to Adobe Bridge and right clicked the image I just edited, then I copied the settings from that image and pasted it on to the two other chosen coloured images.
The settings looked really good on all the images because the lighting and the model was all kept the same in the studio. The only thing I had to change was the crop on one of the images because the image was closer up any way, so  I left the image as it was.

I opened up my images on to Adobe photoshop and did to more changes to my images. i used the spotting tool to remove spots, lines and little wrinkles around the eyes. I then used the burn and the dodge tool to contour and highlight slightly.
I didn't edit or change the images too much in photoshop either as I personally think my images look good, my model has lovely skin and apart from adding little things to enhance the image a little more, I didn't think it needed much work.

These are the before and after images.




As you can see there isn't any major differences as my model is perfectly beautiful any way.

First Set Of Images - Black and White

Today I did a shoot with my friend to produce some beauty images, these images are going to be changed in to black and white.
These images haven't been edited yet so they are the natural images taken straight from the camera.

The set up I used for this shoot was, using low key lighting, I used a lamp with a large soft box, the light was right above me as I was stood underneath the light with the light shining on the model.
I used a silver reflector as well in most of my images to get some shine and reflection from the lighting on to the models skin.
These are some of the images I have taken

I was really happy with the outcome of these images, I loved taking them of some one who is totally different to my other set of images.
I got in to the studio and everything worked fine this time, the lighting was really good and it looked lovely on my model. I wanted her hair to be soft and have the braid to add something different to the hair. Her make up was kept soft with her big defined brows and her dark lipstick.

I was really happy with the images but if I was to do it again I would ask the model to do more things with her hands. I did get a few images but I wasn't keen on the look of them.

Over all, I'm really pleased with these images and I cant wait to edit them and make them black and white so I can see the proper images  that will be handed in.

Final Mood Boards

For my final images I have two models for my two different images. One model has blonde hair, olive skin and beautiful features and my other model has long dark hair, gorgeous thick brows and wide eyes.
They both have very different looks and so I want to create two different moods.

The first model with have a pink colour scheme, bronzed glow skin with pink lipstick. I wanted to create something girly yet fashionable and soft.
My second model will have a purple colour scheme, contoured skin, thick brows and a deep purple lip stick shade on the lips, these images will be in black and white too. I wanted to create something grungey yet fashionable in these images.

I produced my mood board in Photoshop, collecting large images from Google and adding, cropping and moving the images around the page to create a board the represents both of the looks I want to create.
Here are some of the inspirational images I found which I might use on my mood board. I chose images in which would relate to the final images I want to produce and the colour scheme, skin texture and all around look of the image.

Guy Bourdin

Guy Bourdin was a French photographer, he was very well known for his provocative fashion images and set the stage for all the new fashion photographers out there. He found his inspiration
from another photographer called Man Ray, he went to meet him when he was only 22. Man Ray was very impressed with Bourdins work, that he agreed to write him an introduction to his exhibition.

Throughout his life he went up and up making the covers of Vogue, Harpars Bazaar and shooting campaign for Chanel, Gianni Versace and Bloomingdales. He had his first ever retrospective exhibition in the Victoria and Albert Museum and then he went and toured over in Australia and France.

These are some of his most iconic photographs.

Rankin

I'm Rankin is a British photographer, he first made it in to the publishing world when himself and Jefferson Hack founded a monthly magazine 'Dazed and Confused'. It was a great platform for new and upcoming designers, stylists, writers and photographers.

Rankin himself has worked with huge global brands and charities such as Dove, Nike, Swatch and Breakthrough Breast Cancer. As well as that he has had covers on German Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, GQ and Rolling Stone.  He also ran Doves 'Real Women' campaign, Rankin makes himself stand out from the crowd with his creative fearlessness.

As well as doing cover shoots he is well knows for his celebrity portraits, photographing people from the Queen of England to models and bands.

In 2011 Rankin made a film production company, focusing on music videos, commercials and short films, one of his films even won a grand jury prize at Salento International Film Festival.

Cecil Beaton

Cecil Beaton got his first glimpse of a 'photograph' when he was in his mothers bed looking and watching her open her letters. There on the bed was a post card with Miss Lily Elsie on the front, he was totally dazed by the picture and 'caused his heart to leap'. This is where he got his inspiration from to be a photographer and he even started to collect picture postcards of his favourite heroine.
As well as photography he was a very keen stage and film designer, a writer, a very keen gardener on his own estate and a 'grand marshal of high society'.

These are some of the iconic images that Cecil produced and gave him his big name in the photography industry.

http://rankin.co.uk/biography/
http://www.wiltonhouse.co.uk/exhibitions/

Post Production

Retouching images started as far back as the 1860's, they would develop their images and retouch them by hand! Some thing that no one would do now with all the modern technology we have.

Every image in every magazine, billboard and newspaper has some how been retouched, even if its just a slight bit of spotting. The main things that people like to change to improve the look of the image is the brightness, contrast, some spotting on the skin too.

This image of Joan Crawford taken by George Hurrell is a perfect example of what photos looking like and how much they were edited to give the appearance of silky smooth skin which no one has!

Post production gives everyone, especially young teenagers and women, this image in their head what they should look like. It gives the wrong impression on society, we are all perfect as we are with our imperfections. I know companies want to sell their products to their target audience but sometimes I see images and I think wow she looks beautiful but look at all the work they've done to the image to make her look that beautiful. I haven't seen an image yet where the image is just natural, no matter what they say, little things are always changed that not every one will notice.
A lot of images edit the face to remove bags and lines under the eyes. Bags can be corrected by telling your model to keep herself hydrated before the shoot by drinking plenty of water, lines are more tricky because you cant help those but they add character to the face so why would you want to take them out and make the face look flat?

Who knows if its the model who wants to look perfect or if its the photographer who wants to produce these images and change the total image of the model, is it what society expect? We see all these perfect images around so when we see something more natural we think it looks bad. The model could have bad patchy skin, lines, wrinkles, dull complexion and we think that doesn't look nice, when really its the natural image of that person.

I found this recently on social media, a model showing how upset she is that someone manipulated her body to something she isn't. 

A term - Uncanny Valley, is used when edit pictures, there is a point where you have a perfect I'm age and you change it slightly and then you get to the point where the image is totally changed and you have ruined the image by using too much post production. The model will look odd and strange looking and definitely not real looking, this gives the photographer a bad name not the model as they are in change of the post production.

There are campaigns where the natural un touched images have been released and seeing and comparing those images makes you see how much post production is actually used. The model looks the same but the skin is always smoother and brighter, sometimes things are made bigger or smaller and the image over all does look different. Even though the image which has been edited does look better, you still look at the un edited one and think oh no she looks awful.

 

I some times think to myself that I am just like everyone else, judging all these people on how they look when they haven't had any post production on the image, but then I think to myself this person is beautiful in both images why am I judging her on what she looks like naturally when we should all be embracing this natural beauty.

Week 3

This week we was in the studio shooting again, what we did was we used different lighting techniques in the studio to see which ones we liked the best, what worked and what didn't work and what kind of looks we liked on the camera.

On the Depth of Field post I wrote about different lighting and how the image came out, what we did on this lesson was reproduce those images but shoot them and practice doing them ourselves.

Firstly we used a large soft box and in each shot we did today we used a beauty lens on the camera.
Then we changed it a little and did some hair wafting, some turn around shots and beauty shots.

The other setting we wanted to practice a few images on was having the hard light reflecting off the back ground and having two white reflector boards in front of the model with the camera in the middle of the boards.

The images came out really well and I was really pleased with our practice session for the final looks we wanted to produce.

I think I know what compositions I want to use now as I feel I have done a few different things and I know which set ups I like the best too.

Adobe Bridge

To edit our photos we use a programme called Adobe Bridge. 

This is the first time I've ever used this programme and so using it the first time was confusing but the second lesson I had on using this programme I got the hang of it and really liked using it. 

You can upload your pictures to open on to the programme and down the left you can select what images you want to view such as 'raw images' which is the photos I want to edit. 

The raw photos are best to edit as they are taken straight from the camera and changing the exposure, contrast and other settings, the photo edits really nicely. 

Once I have selected the photo I was to edit I open it up in raw, another screen pops up and my photo opens with all the settings i can change down the right have side column. 

At the top of the column is a histogram which shows how much black and white is in the image. Under that is a a colour number or red, green and blue. When you hover over the image the numbers will change which shows how much of that colour is in that spot of the image. 

The other sliders underneath the histogram will change different things in the image. Contrast, high lights, blacks, exposure and so on. 

You need to change around these sliders to get the image to how you want it to look. If you want it brighter then change the brightness but you will also have to change other aspects of the image to even it out. 

You can also use the crop tool if you need to make the image smaller or just crop out anything uneccessary from the image. 

Once the image has been set to how you want it the settings automatically change and save. When you press done that image disappears and Adobe Bridge is still open and another image has loaded which is the one you've just edited. 

If you want to put those same settings on to other images it's really easy to exchange the settings. 

Right click the image and click on develop settings. Copy the settings. 

Highlight the image or images you want to add those settings on to and right click over them. Click develop settings and paste settings, this will then exchange the settings on the the images exactly the same as the image you just edited. This is really helpful if you have a few images nearly the same so you don't have to edit them all seperatly, you can always go in to the image and change them slightly if they need any more adjusting too. 

Considering this is the first time I have ever used a proper programme to edit images instead of the phone apps you can purchase or get for free, I really liked it. It looked tricky the first time I used it but the second time was much easier and I got the hang of using the different tools. 

The only thing I don't like is how tricky it was to use and all the different buttons and sliders made it looks hard to use. But once I knew what to do it was much easier. 

FaceTune

There are so many apps on phones and tablets these days and on computers to change and edit your pictures. I think sometimes there really cool to have a good play with seeing how you can change how you look, the filters and flipping them round. 

In class we got an app and we all took and picture or used a picture of a selfie we had which was untouched. 

I used the FaceTune app which I got from my App Store. I've never really edited my photos before apart from maybe changing the filter but I've never changed how I actually looked.  I don't want people to think I look a certain way and then see me and think "wow, she looks different". 

I used this photo on the app

I then went through all the different things on the bottom of the screen to choose which edit option I wanted to use. 

The options are - 

Canvas - rotating and flipping the image

Whiten - whitening teeth or eyes or anything you want to make look brighter 

Smooth - softening the skin or hair to remove pores etc 

Details - enhancing little details on the face such as eyes - making them pop

Reshape - reshaping, refining or resizing something on the face like the lips, nose, eyes, ears 

Patch - if you have a spot or little red area you can patch that over with another part of the skin and it will blend in 

Tones - you can pick a tone and go over the area you want to change the tone of 

Red eye - this removed red eye from an image 

De focus - de focusing or blurring an area of the face 

Filters - changing the lighting, texture, lens and the tones in the picture 

Frame - using a frame around the image 

At first I changed myself slightly because I didn't want to change how I actually look but then I thought I would experiment properly. 

First I used the whiten edit and whitened the whites of my eyes to make them look brighter.

Using the smooth edit I went over all my skin that was showing and my hair too.

The details edit I used on my eyes to make them pop out the picture.

This is where I started to change my face using the reshape edit. I changed the size of my nose to make it look smaller, my eyes bigger and my lips bigger. Changing these I had to arrange my chin back into a normal shape too. 

I didn't use the patch edit as I didn't have anything I wanted to patch up, but I have used it on a different image and it worked really well.

I didn't use the tones edit on this image as I had already got the highlighter and contouring on my face so I didn't want to add anything else or it could look too much. 

I didn't need to use the red eye edit because I didn't have a flash on when I took the image. 

I also didn't use the de focus edit either, or filters or frames too. 

The first image is the unedited, the Middle was half way through and the right is the edited finished image. 

I think I liked the subtle changes to my image but I thought the last one was far too edited, I didn't look like me and I looked really fake too. 

Some people use these apps and their images can look good but they don't really look like that. I want people to see my flaws and who I am. Not someone with unnatural skin, and a changed face. 

I thought it was very interesting using the app, it was good to see the change in myself and my features but I don't recommend people to go too crazy on them. 

I can see it being very easy to use apps like these all the time because you can make yourself look perfect and I bet it can become addictive but it isn't for me. 

I don't edit my pictures to perfection, I edit them I give the lighting a better look or a slight colour change in the tones of the picture. 

Mood Boards

Today I had to create a mood board based on a work that I had to randomly pick from a dictionary.

I got the word - PALPUTATE

I thought I had picked the worst word ever as I couldn't think about anything apart from heart palpitations so that's where I started.
I made a brain storm of all the different things I could think of which eventually gave me my final idea on what I could produce.

On the brain storm I wrote things down like heart palpitations, heart problems, children, elderly, open heart operation.
Then I have been hearing that energy drinks are really bad for you if you drink in large amounts, I saw a gruesome video on Facebook of some ones heart palpitating and so I wrote that down too.

After I had thought about all the different things I could produce, I wanted to produce a look where there is a lady in red on an operating table, blood on her chest but wearing some really expensive high fashion clothing. The nurses who would surround her would be wearing different materials in blues. Like sequins or felt or leather, they would be in high fashion clothing too with black leather gloves on.

I created my mood board including the make up look which they would all have, the clothing, the accessories and the shoes. Then we had to change one part of it!

So I thought in my 'scene' the lady would have died from heart palpitations caused by drinking energy drinks. She would be on the bed dying and the nurses would be stood around her. But the model on the bed would be posed in a way where she looks like her arm and shoulder are hanging off the bed, her legs are posed perfectly one bent and one straight and her eyes would be open as if she was looking to the side of her in the distance.
When I had to change an aspect of the look I thought the nurses can be changed in to black clothing very dull and 'death' like.

On my mood board I changed the nurses in to smart, tailored clothing, in all black and a little white. Black shoes, black outfits, kept the black leather gloves and the make up changed to be a little more darker too.

I enjoyed doing this mood board because I thought my word was really boring and I wouldn't be able to think of anything too exciting to go with it. But in the end I was pleased with what I had managed to create in my head and the mood board too.
When we had to change it I thought oh no what am I going to do. I thought about the look I wanted to create and so changing the nurses in to black clothing was a good option for me as it would make the scene look darker more serious and death like.

Mood boards are a great way of thinking about ideas and putting different things on a page together gives you an idea if it will work or not before you've even started. You can see the colour schemes clearly, what kind of ideas you have on there, high fashion or budget clothing, dark or vibrant, young and youthful or the older generation. Is the theme on clothing or is it on interior design.
A mood board does exactly what it says, it gives you and others the mood of what you want to produce.
When you have to change something you can edit the pictures, change the colour scheme or what the models are wearing and thinking of new ideas can be hard when you already thought it was perfect but change is always good and things can only get better if you change the right things in the mood board.