In this video I'm going to show you my
Basic Beauty Lighting setup.
Hello I'm Gavin Hoey and you're watching AdoramaTV
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store that's got everything for us
photographers and in this video I'm
going to show you my Basic Beauty
Lighting setup.
Now beauty lighting in a
small home studio is a great technique
because it doesn't need much space you
are just shooting a tight
head-and-shoulders shot. There's lots of
variations you can do with it. Now the
basic idea is going to extend to the
lighting as well in this case it's a
single one light setup this one right
here the Flashpoint Explorer 600 and I
like using this one because it has a
built-in LED modeling lamp which just
makes the whole thing a little bit
easier to set up but I could do exactly
the same shots if I switch this for a
Speedlight for example. I need a couple
of other things as well I need a
reflector and a background and that is
it, really basic, really simple so let's
get the light set that's going to model
in let's get shooting so to help me out
today it's great to have Beth back in
the studio. Now we're going to do a Beauty
Lighting setup and the first thing we
need to do is sort out the light. This is
going to be a single light setup now I've
got the light overhead which is kind of
where you want it for a beauty setup but
whether that's the right overhead we'll
see in a minute but what's really
important is the light stand, now if
you've got just a standard light stand
it's going to be right in front of your
model and that's going to cause you
problems with framing so having a boom
arm is a really good idea
and if you're going to use a boom arm make
sure you carefully balance it. I've got
the lightweight remote head for the
Explorer 600 that's not too heavy. The
heavy bit is down the bottom counter
balancing the whole thing,
safety first you don't want to drop this
on your model. Next thing to do is to
work out the exposure, now I've got my
camera set to f/4 and I want this light
to produce exactly the same amount of
light, so I've got my light meter and I'm
just going to pop this underneath Beth's
chin. I’ll press the test button and I'm
getting a reading of f/5.6 so it's
actually going to be a little bit too
bright. If I took this shot now it would
be overexposed by a stop so I'm going to get
my exposure and I'm going to drop it down
which I can do using the remote control
here. Let's just check that again and now
I'm getting f/4 so the light matches the
camera but is the light the correct
position? Well that's where you find out
by taking a test picture, okay Beth here
we go you're going to look towards the
camera and well there we go,
the picture is indeed correctly exposed
but that is not the correct position.
Beauty lighting although it is lighting
from above, it is not directly overhead.
It gives very, very hard contrasting
shadows across the face, if you do that
and it's not the look we're going for
here, so what I've done it is I've moved
the light back and angled a little bit
as well so it's still hitting Beth in
the face but it's still elevated and
above and this is kind of where I like
to put my Beauty lighting. It doesn't
matter whether you're using a beauty
dish or a softbox, I like to have it
elevated and a little bit further away
than it was before. Now because we've
moved it, we need to check the metering.
So let's get the Flash Meter, pop it
underneath Beth’s chin press the test
button and I'm getting f/2.8 so I've
lost a stop of Lights by moving it back
again, I can do and stop more by
adjusting the power, here let's do that
and I'm back to f/4, so I'm keeping this
light, producing the exact amount of
light that I'm after to match my camera
setting. Okay let's take this shot and
see how it compares to the last one. Here
we go Beth, this time we have a much more
light in Beth's eyes we can see the
catch lights which are up at 12 o'clock,
which is the position I'm looking for,
for Beauty lighting although there is
still some shadow in it and there's
quite a bit of shadow underneath Beth's
chin, so to fill the shadows underneath
Beth's chin I'm going to use a reflector.
Now reflectors come in different sizes
and shapes and colors. Now this one has
white on one side and on the reverse its
silver now they give different looks and
which one you use is up to you. I'm going
to use the white one first and let's pop
that in underneath Beth,
so we're going to get that in nice and
close and tuck it right underneath and
have it ever so slightly angled up as
well, so there's a little bit of an angle
going on there and we'll take that shot.
Here we go Beth the end result is very
different. It's a much flatter light in
as much as there's less shadows, the
shadow underneath the chin, well it's
still there but as you can see it's
greatly reduced as a classic beauty
lighting and when you look up close
you'll see there is a reflection of the
reflector in the eyes as well as the
light above, so the white side is great.
If you're going to get the reflector really
close, now if we were to use the silver
side would get a very different result.
It would look much harsher with much
more light bounce-back from our key
light above, whether you like that look
or not is entirely up to you, however
there is a time when I will use the
silver side of the reflector. So it makes
sense that the white side of the
reflector is going to bounce less light
into the shadows then the silver side, so
when do I use the silver side well I use
this when I want the reflector a little
bit further away but still want the fill
light and this is a perfect example. So
we got Beth's at a little bit lower down
and I've done that because I've got a
board that I'm going to put the reflector
on, so I'm going to put the silver side on
this board like that. Now the reason I've
done that is to help with the modelling a
little bit because before Beth was
fairly static, what we've done here is
we've given her a solid surface that you
can actually lean on. She can lean into
it, she can lean on it and it just helps
to give you a range of different poses.
That's a lot more difficult if you don't
have a solid surface, it's a bit further
away than it was before
hence I'm using the silver reflector
rather than the white reflector and
because Beth's lower down I've had to
lower the light as well.
Now I've already metered this out I know
it's ready for f/4 so let's take a few
pictures like this. See how it looks
are you ready Beth?
Those pictures look absolutely fantastic,
even on the back of the camera but
there's always a bit of room for
post-processing, so let's get one of
these pictures into Photoshop and we're
going to do that right now.
So we've looked
at my basic Beauty Lighting, now it's
time for my very basic beauty editing
this is quick, it's simple, it works best
when you have a model with great skin
and makeup let's see what I'm going to do?
So I've got the picture into Photoshop
and I'm just going to have a close look, so
let's double click on the zoom tool and
we have a move around with a hand tool
and I'm just looking for any problem
areas, any spots or anything that I want
to remove, now as you can see Beth's got
really great skin and we have the help
of a makeup artist which makes this even
easier but there's a few little areas
here and there that I might just want to
touch up. So okay, so once I've done
that the next thing to do is to take
this image out of Photoshop and into a
third-party plugin. Now it's called Nik
software it's made by Google, owned by
Google. It’s free and at the moment it
currently works but that won't last
forever, so get it whilst you can and use
it, whilst it works. Once you've installed
Nik software into your Photoshop or
Lightroom, I’m going to go to filter and
then down to Nik collection and the one
I want is color effects Pro. For now Nik
software is getting on a little bit now
and it's not the quickest piece of
software to work but it gets there in
the end, just a bit of patience required
once I'm in color effects Pro 4, I'm
going to go to the top left corner and
choose the portrait option and from here
I'm going to use just two of the
standard filters. The first one I'm going
to use is glamour glow so I'll come down
and click on glamour glow and on the
right hand side I now have a panel of
options for glamour glow, the only one I
want to change really is the saturation
which I'm going to put back to zero so
that's my first setting done. The next
one is going to be add filter so click
on the add filter button and then I can
come back over to the left side and this
time I'm going to choose dynamic skin
softener, so I press the dynamic skin
softener, go back to the right hand side
and I can make a few changes here. The
first one is to sample the
skin color, so I need to click on the
little eyedropper tool and then click on
some Beth's skin just sort of a
middle-of-the-road skin color something
like that.
Now back onto the right hand side I'll
leave the color reach alone. That tends
to work pretty well at 25 but I'm going to
change the small details. I actually like
to keep this nice and low I'm going to go
for 10, the medium details I like to go
for 20 and the large details I'm going
to go for 30, nice easy numbers to
remember. Now remember these are my
starting numbers of course you can go
and change your mind and do anything
else. A good idea is to go in nice and
close and then you can really see how
these work as you change the numbers.
Once I've done that I just need to click
on the OK button which is just dropped
off the bottom of the screen and that
will apply this as a brand new layer on
our image and there we go it's finished.
Now it is quite a strong effect. Now if
that effect is too strong for you, not a
problem just jump over to the opacity
and what I normally do is to bring the
opacity down to around about 70 percent.
That gives a nice combination of the
original skin and the NYX software
softened skin and there you go there is
my basic Beauty lighting shot completed.
This may have been just a basic
technique but the end result is really
great and of course you can always take
the basic idea and expand it in so many
different ways and I'll be looking at
some of those in a later video.
Now if you've enjoyed this video, don't
forget to leave me a comment below and
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thanks for watching.