Chat Thread Golden Oldie 22nd - 24th January 2010

[matt wilson]

we are discussing .........from what I read some are discrediting others entries and doubting their authenticity .

Carry on discussing .

[flake]

Originally Posted by Delamanda

@Flake - sorry, but the more I think about this, the more miffed I'm getting as to why you would think that I wouldn't take a picture of a texture over the weekend.

For the avoidance of doubt and before I get hauled up in front of the head for cheating, the original is on my Flickr Photostream, so the school prefects can go and check the EXIF data.

Sorry Delamanda I'm not having a go at you, but those who decided last week that all parts of an image needs to be taken the same weekend. The reason I chose your image was because it was a similar look I had in mind, and of course it used a texture.

It's my belief that the time the texture is taken is of no relevance to the final work, because it only serves to give a different look to the main part of the image. It is the original photo and the skill in Photoshop which hold the value, not the texture/s, and that is why they have so little importance.

Some images require 4 or more textures.and it's impractical to take a key first shot + 3 - 4 textures and then work on them all in photoshop over the course of a weekend.

[flake]

Originally Posted by matt wilson

we are discussing .........from what I read some are discrediting others entries and doubting their authenticity .

Carry on discussing .

Matt - lighten up no one is trying to discredit anyone, you simply miss interpreted what had been written.

[matt wilson]

Originally Posted by Delamanda
@Flake - sorry, but the more I think about this, the more miffed I'm getting as to why you would think that I wouldn't take a picture of a texture over the weekend.

Flake I was obviously not the only one to read it that way.

However I also apologise for the way I reacted .

[oggalily]

Yowsa! I think we all need a little diversion so I thought I would post a tutorial explaining how my picture came together.

This was something I had wanted to try for a while and it came together surprisingly quickly.

Props and Location
I got some ideas by poking around the Commons over on flickr. I managed to find a few antiquey looking things around the house (the eagle-eyed will recognise the clock from previous comps) and arranged them as I thought an old photo would look. My daughter's dress was actually the blouse from a durndl over a normal party dress. Her shoes aren't quite period but I couldn't find anything better. The clock unfortunately has a modern window next to it (see below) but I figured I could remove it in post-processing.
I spent maybe 15 minutes arranging the props, and carefully worked out roughly where I needed to take the picture from by looking through the view finder on my camera and working out focal length.
I didn't use a tripod as I like to move around and try different things, so I find it limiting for this kind of work.

Lighting, other gear, and settings
I have a cheap studio kit, which has served me really well and does everything I need, called the Interfit EX-150. It retails for about £200 and has two heads with stands. I had one on on either side of the camera. One has a shoot-thru brolly (a white opaque umbrella which diffuses the light), and the other has a reflector brolly (with a silver lining on the inside so the flash is actually pointed away from the subject and bounces off the inside of the brolly).
The shoot-through was the main lighting source. The reflector was postioned a bit futher back and higher, the idea was to fill the room with light.
I triggered it with a remote wireless trigger called the Yongnuo RF-602 that you can find on eBay for £15. I have tried infrared triggers but they are less reliable and no cheaper. You can also use cables that come with the kit but I find they get in the way.
I used my 50mm prime (fixed focal length) lens as it is sharper than my trusty 18-200 lens. This meant I had to stand quite far back (crouch near the floor in fact).
As for the shooting settings I used Manual, f8, 1/125. This is a good default setting for a still subject with studio lights.

Model
The model was my daughter, who refused to sit still and scuppered about 3/4 of the shots! A typical example is below. When photographing kids it's useful to have a "wrangler" (my better half in this case) to entertain them and hold their attention.



Post-processing
All PP was done in Photoshop.
I decided that I would get everything right on the base image before I started aging and distressing it. The main changes at this stage were straightening the image and cloning out the window.
The cloning was much more complicated than I expected, very time-consuming and tedious, and not realistic-looking enough for me. Next time I try something like this I think I will address the problem in-camera, for example by putting lining paper or a sheet on the wall.
Once I was happy with the picture I took another picture of a wall in our house where the kids had left fingerprints, scuffs etc. I added this as a Screen layer with 25% opacity to introduce some subtle texture and aging. Any more than that would have overblown the effect.
I added a small bit of vignetting, again very subtle to maintain realism. An easy way to create a vignette is to
- create a new layer
- Select All
- Select / Modify / Feather 250 pixels
- Select / Modify / Feather 250 pixels (again)
- Select / Inverse
- Fill the selection with the black paint bucket
- reduce opacity to taste

Finally I added a Black and White Layer. I played around with the Red and Blue sliders a bit until I found an effect I liked. The Black and White layer tool has a Tint option, I added some subtle blue toning as I prefer this to Sepia. Picasa has a very effective Sepia tool but I avoided this because I thought it was too obvious - it reminds me more of the "Olde Tyme" photos you can get when you dress up at theme parks than actual old photos.

Et voila! Just don't look at the shoes...

Feel free to ask if you have any questions.

[jinky]

Nice stuff and explanation ogga. If I`d realised quite how much you had put into it you would have got my vote even . I think I needed at least 3 votes this weekend to back what I thought were really good images.

[matt wilson]

Thanks for that .........the interfits are something I have considered .I don't think I would use lights that much but for that price I don't think you can go wrong.

[HinFrance]

Thanks ogga, very full explanation there. Yep, I did recognise the clock. And you did get my vote.

jinky, don't think that getting the Femme Fatale shot didn't require a lot of work; most of it I admit in the 'aw, go on' and 'no, your legs don't look fat in this' areas. And it took me ages to find the BB gun. I knew I had it somewhere . .

If you look at my shot flickr you will see that a similarly cheap lighting kit was used - this one from ELEMENTAL currently retailing at £213.54. I've had my kit nearly a year now and found it utterly reliable (it'll probably go bang next time I turn it on now). It comes with a PT-04 (800mhz) radio trigger which is not as reliable as the RF-602s (2.4ghz) that both Ogga and I use now.

I had three goes at getting the 'right' monochrome look. In the end I gave up on photoshop and used Serif Photoplus which for some reason I always end up using when I want a decent mono conversion - imho it is the best app out there for monochrome work - that I've seen anyway.

I'll do my before and afters when the voting has closed.

[jinky]

Yeah I know you put a lot into that lighting too H - that`s what made it so difficult to vote. Loved wattsy`s low light effort with the edges and the title too though and went for that - then wondered if I should have gone for yours, then maybe oggas or maybe carol`s which is still holding off the stiff competition as I look. No doubts that those 4 are the clear winners!

[Sarasocke]

Wow, Ogga - superb description !

That is something similar to what I meant in my posting a couple of pages back. To be honest, before these discussions, I wouldn't have thought twice about using a texture supplied with the basic PSE. I really do think that we can go deeper and deeper and still not be clear. I entered a photo a while ago of a chap with an accordeon (theme was "making music" I think). The frame was from PSE, but it was quite an elaborate thing - possibly something which had be photographed by somebody at some time. It never occured to me that I may have been breaking the rules.

My suggestion was that we stick to the all elements to be taken over the weekend, but add an explanation in the poll and entry threads to how the shot was put together. Ogga's work is brilliant - I'm sure if this kind of explanation is considered in the voting decisions it would make a difference. The voters can choose what is important for them, excellent work in photoshop, the effort put into the shot, or even whether the shot is more or less straight out of camera.

I love entering thes competitions and it's really interesting to read how others put their shots together.