So over the past couple of years or so, I've been looking to make the kit
I use much more portable, quick to set up and convenient.
If it's portable, quick and convenient, the more I do.
Now I recently did these portraits and this is the kit I used.
So I thought in this video I'd show how I did them.
And I've got a great tip at the end for getting the best expression
out of your subjects using a reflector.
Okay,
so let's break this down into three parts.
The kit, how I set it up and finally, how I edited the pictures.
And let's start with the kit.
First of all, there's my camera, my Sony
A7RIV along with the 85mm G Master.
The two of these together are pin sharp and just great for portraits.
Then there's my speed light.
This is the new SJ 80 II from Wescott.
It's a round head speed, light, 80 watt seconds and touchscreen
LCD and gives 500 plus full power flashes per charge.
Then there's the FJ-X3 remote trigger, and this works with Canon
Nikon, Sony, Fuji, Panasonic, LUMIX and Olympus.
There's the Rapid Box Switch Beauty Dish; I use it with the diffusion panel on.
I've got reflector silver side up and then there's the x drop
pro background with my signature vintage gray canvas material.
So that's the kit.
Now let's look at the set up, which is really simple.
So here's the camera settings I used, but obviously these will vary
depending on what the light is like where you are.
But what you're looking to do ultimately is to remove all of the ambient light.
For me to do this in my friend Ian’s studio, with my camera in manual,
the settings ended up being ISO 100
F 5.6 and 1/125 of a second.
So without turning the flash on, this is what I got.
So now I have the camera settings, I bring in the flash.
I set it into TTL with zero flash compensation added.
I could have used manual.
With the speedlite fitted into the beauty dish, I position it in front
and directly in line and above of the person I was photographing
and aimed straight down to the reflector that they were holding
or is being held by someone else and that was positioned
just under chest height with the silver side up.
If I needed more light then I'd just increase
the flash compensation using the remote trigger.
And if I want more light on the background,
I'll just angle the beauty dish a little bit towards it.
As for this kind of shot, I often do this on my own holding a beauty
dish and flash in one hand and reaching over to the camera with the other.
I also use a cable release from time to time when doing this.
With the eye autofocus as good as it is in cameras these days,
I can 100% trust my camera
to nail it every single time.
And that's it. But wait.
How come there's no reflection of the light in the glasses?
Well, now we're talking angle of incidence and angle of reflection.
So with the light high up and pointing down
as it goes off, the light would hit the glasses here.
This is the angle of incidence.
Then the light would reflect in this direction, the angle of reflection.
Now my camera is here, not within the angle of reflection,
but if my camera was somewhere here, then you would see the light.
hitting the glasses.
But this is the kind of photo that you end up with.
Now let's run through the edit in Lightroom and Photoshop.
First of all, in
Lightroom I’ve made a few minor adjustments to this photograph.
You can see in the basics panel that I've increased the exposure just a little,
and I've also added a small amount of contrast.
I've also reduced both the highlights and the whites,
and that's mainly to reduce the light on this.
I've also increased the blacks to take the picture from this to this.
I've added a tiny amount of texture and clarity.
I'm going to use a technique in Photoshop to really give the portrait
some punch anyway.
Now I'll just add a little bit of sharpening at this stage.
I'll take the amount down to about 25
and then hold down the option key on Mac or Alt key on windows and drag the masking
slider over to the right to limit the sharpening to these areas of the face.
I then go to the lens corrections tab
and put a tick in the enable profile corrections checkbox.
Now before I send this image into Photoshop,
I do want to mention something about the profile choice.
You can see here at the top, I'm using Adobe Color,
and that's because I like the warmth that this gives to the portrait.
If we look at others like portrait and standard,
they look too flat for what I want.
I use them in different styles of portraits, but for this one, I'm
sticking with Adobe Color.
Next thing I'll do is crop this image to how I want it.
I'm going to go with a 4:3
and position it around about here.
And with all that done, I'll send this into Photoshop
to do things in there that can't currently be done in Lightroom.
Now, I'm not fussed about making all these settings editable
and using a smart object, so I'll just go to edit
in Adobe Photoshop CC 2023.
The first thing I want to do is to enhance the eyes.
So I'll grab the elliptical marquee tool and whilst holding down the shift
key to maintain a perfect circle, I'll drag to resize it
and then hold down the spacebar to position it over one eye.
I'll then select the other eye by holding down the shift key.
To make this second selection a perfect circle,
I quickly release the shift key and then press it down again.
I can then resize it and position it over the other eye.
Now to brighten both of the eyes I'll use a blend mode,
but so that I can do that, I need to add an adjustment layer.
It doesn't matter which one I choose
because I only want it so that I can use a blend mode.
So I'll choose a levels adjustment layer.
Then I'll choose the linear dodge blend mode
and you can see how much that brightens the eyes.
I can now use a soft black brush on the layer mask
that came with the levels adjustment to only show the brightening
on the eyes.
I'll also brush around the outside
to soften that down, and then I'll lower the opacity of this layer
to around 70%.
Next, I'll add a blank layer and name this sharpen.
From the toolbar on the left hand
side of the screen I'll choose the sharpen tool and
in the options bar at the top,
I'll use a strength of about 30%.
And because I'm using an empty layer, I need to have a tick in the sample
all layers checkbox and also protect detail.
Now the Sharpen tool is a great way to add sharpening into certain parts
of the picture.
Protect detail is great because it means you can add more sharpening
without breaking down the image.
But the way the sharpen tool works is kind of like a spray can.
Once you press down or start to use it, if you don't lift off
every time you go over the same area, it just adds more sharpening each time.
I'll reduce the size of the sharpen tool using the left square bracket key
and then brush over one eye without lifting off.
I'll go round and round a few times.
One, two, three, four,
five, six and seven.
I'll now repeat that on the other eye.
So that's the eyes done.
Let's put these layers into a group and call it eyes.
So this is the eye adjustment off
and on, off and on.
Now I'll do some dodging and burning.
I’ll hold down the Option key on Mac or Alt Key on Windows.,
and click on the new layer icon.
I'll name this layer dodge and burn.
I'll then choose soft light
from the mode menu
and then put a tick in the fill with soft
light neutral color checkbox and click Okay.
I'll then choose the Dodge Tool from the toolbar.
In the options bar at the top of the screen, the range is set to mid tones.
It doesn't actually matter
what's in there as we're dodging and burning on a 50% gray layer anyway.
Exposure
I'll have at 10% and I'll make sure that protect tones checkbox is ticked.
Always best to choose that option.
Now when dodging and burning, I'm looking to give the face a bit more life
because at the moment it's a photograph and it looks kind of flat.
But if I darken the darker parts and brighten
the brighter parts, it completely changes things.
Now, when using the Dodge Tool, I can also hold down the Option key on Mac or Alt
key on Windows to switch to the burn tool and use the same settings.
Once I release it, it goes back to the Dodge Tool.
So I'll just speed through this bit and then show you what I've done.
Now that I'm done, if I turn this layer off and on, off
and on, you can see how the dodging and burning is affecting the portrait.
And if I show you the gray layer on its own,
you can see the areas that I've worked on.
Next, I'm going to do
my 2010 technique, which really brings portraits to life.
I’ll add a merged layer by holding down the shift option
command and E keys on Mac or the shift
alt control and E keys on windows
and I'll rename this one 20.
Then I'll go to filter > sharpen
> unsharp mask.
I'll set the amount to 20
and the radius to 20.
The threshold remains at zero.
Then click okay.
Now I only want the sharpening on the face.
So now I need a black layer mask by holding down the option key
on Mac or alt key on windows and pressing the layer mask icon.
This hides the sharpening, so to reveal it,
I'll use a white brush and paint over the face.
If I press the backslash key on my keyboard,
you can see this is the area that has been sharpened.
Next I add another merged layer
and I'll rename it 10.
I go to filter sharpen unsharp mask.
This time I half what I applied before,
so now it's 10 for the amount and the radius.
The threshold stays at zero.
Then click Okay.
I add a black layer mask and then with a white brush
reveal the sharpening only on the eyes,
the nose and the mouth.
I'll now put both of these layers into a group
and call it 2010.
And if I turn this group off and on, off
and on, you can hopefully see what that's done.
Now, just so that, you know, if I was maybe doing this technique on
a female portrait, or just a portrait that I wanted it not to be so punchy
in general, I would just reduce use the amounts that I used.
So instead of maybe 2010, I'll probably go for 12 and six or ten and five.
Now to add some fake depth of field,
I add another merged layer and rename this one blur.
Then I go to Filter,
Blur, Gaussian blur.
I'll use a radius of 20 and click, okay.
Then I add a layer mask and grab a soft black brush.
I then brush a few times down the center of the face.
If I want, I can
then reduce the opacity of this layer to get the desired amount of blur.
So I'll take this one to around about 70.
Now my ears in this picture, look a little bit
too red, so I'm going to reduce that next.
I’ll add a hue and saturation adjustment layer.
And from the master's menu, I'll choose reds.
But as I don't know if the Reds Photoshop is giving me
are the correct ones for my ears, I'll bunch all of these markers together.
Then I'll grab the plus color sampler and drag over my ears to sample the red.
We can see now that these markers have moved apart
to say that the color between them is the red that I dragged over.
To finesse this further, I'll just temporarily increase the saturation
to 100%.
Then I'll click and drag in the middle of the markers
so that the saturation is mainly over my ears.
When it is, I'll put the saturation back to zero,
then I'll just use the hue slider to add in the opposite color to red,
which is cyan to reduce it.
There, that's better.
Here's before and after, before
and after.
Lastly, in Photoshop I’ll add a small amount of glow
which also gives the skin the warmth that I'm after.
I add one more merged layer and rename it glow.
Then I go to Filter, Blur, Gaussian Blur.
I'll use the same 20% that I
used before and click, okay.
Then I'll change the blend mode to soft light
and reduce the opacity of the layer to 20%.
This also works great on landscapes.
Okay, let's take a quick look at what we've done in Photoshop with a before
and after, before and after.
Now I'll save this, which then updates Lightroom
so that I can head back there just for some final finishing touches.
Now in Lightroom, I just want to finish off by shaping the light.
I'll go to the masking section and click
to add a radial gradient.
I'll zoom out to 25%
and then click in the middle and drag outwards.
I’ll drag it over a bit to the right as that side of the picture
is slightly darker.
So doing this will even it out a little.
Then I click on Invert
and reduce the exposure.
Now I don't want the darkening
on the subject, especially as they have a dark top on.
So I’ll go to subtract and subject.
We can now see when I hover over the mask, that the real gradient
is not affecting the subject.
Lastly, I'll add another mask and choose a brush.
I'll brush over the middle area of the face
and then increase the exposure
and that's it.
Let's take a look at the photo now before I send it into Photoshop,
and this is after
and here is my original edit
along with the others that I did of my friends
Ian, Anthony and Gez.
Now I've got just a couple of things to mention.
Firstly, when I reduced the red in my ears, I did brush on the hue
and saturation layer mask to bring back the red in my lips.
Also, all of the techniques I use in this, I've actually got other videos
on my channel where I go into them in a bit more detail.
So I’ve added links to those
in the description along with links to all the kit I used.
But what about that tip?
One thing I've found is that if you give people something
to hold, it can help soften the expression.
With the portraits of my friends, I didn't want smiles,
but if you say fold your arms, it seems to immediately make people tense up.
But if you get them to hold the reflector, it creates an open posture with the arms
and that creates a definite noticeable difference in the face.
So give it a try and see what you think.
But there you go, a longer video than normal, but
I wanted to make sure that I got all of the information for the photoshoot
and for the edit into the video, because when I posted these portraits online,
they just seemed to be really popular and received lots of likes and comments.
So thank you so much if you did that.
But as always, I'd really appreciate a thumbs up and click on subscribe
if you haven't already done so because that really, massively helps this channel.
If you've got any questions, drop them below.
But that's me. I'm done.
I'll see you in the next video.