Class Outline April 28th (week 4)

Shooting Demo: Shooting with Off Camera Flash

• Use Commander mode if your camera does that or use a cord from your hotshoe
• Afforadable lighting kits with umbrellas are available at B&H: bhphotovideo.com

Portrait Retouching Cont’d

• Skin Softening: make a duplicate of your retouching layer and call it “softening”. FILTER > BLUR > GAUSSIAN BLUR. Choose a radius of about “1”. Make a Mask of that layer by hitting the “layer mask” icon at the bottom of the layers palette (3rd from left). Invert mask (command i). Paint with a soft white brush wherever you want softness to appear. Decrease layer opacity to minimize overall effect.
• Sharpening: Click the layer on the top of the stack. All at one time press “Command Shift Option E” on a mac. This creates a new merged layer encompassing everything below it. Name this layer “sharpening. Go to  FILTER > SHARPEN > SMART SHARPEN. The numbers you choose will depend on how big your image is, but try these numbers: (Amount: 100 to 200) (Radius 1 to 2) (Reduce Noise 10-20). When done, hit OK. Make and invert a mask (see above) and paint with a soft white brush just over areas you want sharp (like the eyes/lips)

Adjustment Layers

• Black & White conversion
• Enhancing one color (via Selective Color or Saturation)
• Curves (S-Curve)
• Levels (Bring “carrots” close to histogram on either end)

Masking for Composites

Double Processing a RAW file for exposure

Printing: If you'd like to make some prints for our last class meeting on May 12th, you may think about ordering them in the next week or so. Bay Photo usually has a quick turnaround.

Bay Photo www.bayphoto.com

Adorama www.adoramapix.com

Crop Tool: W x H x Resolution

• this can be good when preparing to print, say, and 8x10 or 5x7 image. Most photos coming off our cameras are not exactly those sizes. Better to be in control of the crop than let the lab decide what areas to crop. Save as a duplicate JPG before printing.

Homework: Email me “problem” images, Think about Printing for week 6, take a night photo (using a long exposure and a tripod outdoors).