Chat: "High Key" Weekend Comp 20th-22nd Jan

[deena]

Originally Posted by Reinardina

I took a series of shots of some flowers, and two I uploaded in the chat thread I think.

I wasn't aiming at high key photos, but experimented to see of I could get there.

I can tell you some of the things I did. Not all, because I spent a full afternoon playing around with textures, filters and other things, and I have forgotten what I did exactly.

For a start I had the camera on manual. The exif you can probably find on the site somewhere. I did use a light tent with white background.

I whitened the background further with the paint bucket tool; then I converted it to black and white, and in Elements, you have several possibilities of which I chose 'vivid landscape.'

I probably played a bit with saturation, levels and 'lightness' as well.

That's all I can remember. Does this help? (As I'm not in the competition, I thought I might as well let the cat out of the bag now; even though it is probably only half a cat. If that.)

I really liked your shot Reinardina. And I was disappointed that you didn't enter it

[Reinardina]

Originally Posted by deena

I really liked your shot Reinardina. And I was disappointed that you didn't enter it

Thanks Deena. I was quite pleased with it as well, and your suggestions would have made it even better.

But, there is something about this particular competition, that goes straight to my head; I get so totally engrossed, that it becomes almost like an addiction. I cannot get away from it. And that's why I regularly take a break and stay away. Or, at least, don't enter. I normally pop in every now and again, with some nonsense remark, or even a serious observation, and that I can do, without becoming addicted again. I do like to stay in touch.

It's strange, because I don't have these problems with other competitions!

I bet Sigmund Freud would have something to say about it! And I think I know what it is, or at least in which direction he'll look for an explanation.

[donoreo]

No need to wait until after voting is done is there?

Mine was in a light tent, I used two small lights on one side (daylight colour temp around 5000K) and on the other a large clip on work light with metal reflector with a daylight colour compact florescent light in it. I dialed in some exposure compensation (at least I think I did on the photo I used, I did on some and not on others).

I shot in RAW. I then followed as I normally do: I cropped it a bit. I choose a camera profile (I think I chose Camera Standard). I adjusted the white balance (I cooled this one to make the white whiter). I adjusted the exposure up a bit more. I did a levels adjustment to "strong contrast" and then tweaked the whites up even more. Normally I would "fix" anything locally like spot healing, etc, but there was nothing to do in this one (you can differ - please let me know!). I used the clarity slider to sharpen things up and bumped up the vibrance. I made no adjustment to the saturation.

By default when I import into Lightroom I have it apply "lens corrections" since I do not have high end lenses so they could produce various effects. The Adobe profile for my lenses seems pretty "on".

[DigiDiva]

Wow, impressive technical stuff! I basically used a white background, regular room light and an off camera flash! I boosted the 'white' by using the eye white dropper in curves. Basic brightness, contrast and saturation was about it.

[TwinnieE]

Wow, can’t believe I won this one..
Although myself and hedgehog chose this theme I found it really
difficult.

Big thanks to hedgehog, jimmyosram, karenoliver, kerbside, SieSmith, wavemachine for your votes , much appreciated.

Well done to clickin girl for “My Sweet Boy” you came a very close second and a much deserved runner up.

My vote went to DigiDiva with “The Flower”
I really liked the way the light shone through the petals and your composition was very strong. I loved the green vibrant colour too. Well done.
I was pleased everyone had a go at this and all the entries were really good.
Well done to pea24 on his Self Portriat, hope you didn’t get too wet!
Reinardina, after all that work you should have posted your entry.
I was disappointed you didn't enter it.

Up: kezpock with “High Key Cake”
Great shot and clarity, the cake really popped out, I felt I could eat it there are then! Liked the texture and framing too. The only down side for me was I felt it needed more cakes in the background. Maybe I’m just greedy!

Down: Cutter with “Hearts of Glass”
Excellent creative capture, wouldn’t have looked out of place in a magazine.

This is how I achieved my image,
I always shoot in RAW goes without saying, so much easier to change white balance and over exposure without ruining the original image.
I used a Canon 40D with a tamron 18 to 270 mm lens.
Exposure 0.067 sec (1/15) Aperture f/5.6 Focal Length 142 mm
ISO Speed 800 Exposure Bias +1 EV
I used a white board as the background, the type you write on with a felt tip and wipe off. £5 from tesco! I also used a chiffon scarf with pink flowers on for the tablecloth.
For lighting, I used an upright lamp and a desk lamp on one side with daylight coming through the window on the other.
Upping the EV by 1 stop helps to make the image lighter.
In adobe elements I slid the saturation slider down a tad to create a softer pastel colour. I cropped the image to help the composition.
Then chose the white eye dropper in Levels, this picks out the white making the overall pic much brighter.
Then I ate the cupcake! Nom Nom...

I will post a new theme tonight, and I promise it will be easier!

My competition corner theme is “Letters”, best pic wins a prize.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/competition_corner/

[donoreo]

I should have picked something I could eat. Eating a shoe would not be so good. I think mine needed a sense of scale. The girls hitop Converse shoes are much cute when you see them and they are only about 6 inches long

I voted for The Flower - great shot, I could see it hanging on the wall.

Up - Clean Light - Nice, different, take on a high key portrait. I did not really like the through the wet glass thing though. Nothing I can see wrong with the photo though, well done.

Down - being last ,that takes me to first White Roses - Nice composition, but needed something else, the red is great, but something missing. I know that does not help much.

[kerbside]

Congrats to TweeniE, I wanted to be there with that cup cake and tea. Got my vote, thought that it was a great shot.
As for me, i was obviously way off the mark.

[Reinardina]

TwinnieE you've done it again! Congratulations!

Clickin Girl, you and your little boy made a stunning entrance to the competition scene!

My vote went to Kezpock, because I immediately wanted to go out and buy one.

My second choice was Mark's collection of stolen hearts: brilliant shot as usual.

[Cutter]

Congrats AGAIN TWinniE on a stunning entry, I loved the composition everything was so perfect with the shot, a great softness. But my vote went to clickingirl My sweet boy!I just loved the crop and how everything blended into the high key look. You must be very proud of your boy, I expect he will break a few hearts when he gets older.

Down:Wavemachine High Key RoseA very well taken image', if I had a minor crit I would have tried to make the rose a bit reder but hey thats only my opinnion.

Regarding my image, I put the jar and the hearts on a white peice of board on a table.Then fired a flash at the wall behind on a high setting to blow out the background.
I used an on camera flash bounced off the ceiling to expose for the jar and the hearts.
That gave me a brilliant white background and a well exposed jar and hearts, although this gave me a greyish piece of white card that they were on. So to fix that prob I used the dodge tool set on 10% with protect tones unchecked and painted away all the grey.
To finish with I duplicated the image and made it more white using levels, then used a layermask to bring back the hearts and the egdes of the glass and the lid that were underneath.

[clickin girl]

Wow! Congrats Twinnie! I really like your composition and the pastels, made for a beautiful image! I voted for Mark's Jar of Hearts however because the red in the hearts against the white background just jumped out and grabbed me. Plus, I love strong colors! Wonderful image Mark!
Thank you to all who voted for me and my kiddo! I was so pleasantly surprised to get second! I thought all the images were very good and everyone deserves a "well done"! For my image I just used natural light, a white sheet for the background, over exposed +3, and used my on camera flash. I then just brightend the whites up a bit and sharpened a tad.