This image is in a series of which it is ‘Flash Composite #5’. Although the path I have taken has been inspired by the work of Joel Grimes (www.joelgrimes.com/Artist.asp?ArtistID=12191&Akey=P7F… ) I have begun exploring highly realistic looks in which the subject has been composited onto a background which relates specifically to the subject.
The subject is Paul Boudreau (www.flickr.com/photos/41474913@N05/ ), one of my friends from the Bando de Kvar (www.flickr.com/groups/2472126@N24/ ) and a good sport for helping out in my strobist (did you know the term is trademarked?) learning process. Big thank you Paul. The background is Paul’s room at the back of the house in which he exercises his creativity, whether it be related to music, computing, photography, woodworking, or supporting his football (soccer) teams. I was told many years ago that creativity can be a messy process. Paul is very creative.
The image is a composite of two images. The foreground is of Paul shot in a two-flash/softbox strobist setup overlaid on a photo taken late the same day of his room. The learning continues as this is another in a series featuring Paul in various composite strobist images. – JW
Date Taken: 2017-01-12
Tech Details:
This is a composite of two images taken at different times and in different places.
The background image details: taken using a tripod mounted Nikon D7100 fitted with a Nikkor 12-24mm lense set to 12mm, ISO100, tungsten WB, Aperture priority mode, f/6.3, 2 sec. The image of Paul (foreground image) was taken using a hand-held Nikon D7100 fitted with a Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX lense, ISO100, Auto WB, Manual mode, f/6.3, 1/125 sec., ALSO: a second frame was taken about 3 stops darker to capture detail in the two lamps for filling in for the washed out areas during PP. Portrait of Paul/strobist Info: For the image of Paul, two 47 inch octagonal softboxes one camera left and the other camera right, radio triggered flash units, white background, softboxes set so faces were parallel to the axis of the line between the lense and the subject and about 4 feet off axis, facing each other with the rear of the umbrellas about one foot/30cm behind Paul’s face.
Image of Paul: PP in free Open Source RAWTherapee from Nikon RAW/NEF source file: crop off extraneous detail from the left and right edges of the frame, set exposure to slightly (about ¼ stop) brighter than as shot, slightly increase contrast, sharpen, save, cut out Paul from the background (too messy to elaborate here and still learning how to get hair to come out well), but improving with each iteration), save. Image of the room: PP in free Open Source RAWTherapee from Nikon RAW/NEF source file: scale image to 9000×6000, darken exposure about ½ stop from as-shot, boost contrast and Chromaticity in L-A-B mode, boost vibrance slightly, warm slightly from default to restore a hint of tungsten warmth, enable Tone Mapping and slightly brighten the image followed by a further reduction in exposure to get a ‘realistic’ look as in the original scene, sharpen, save. PP in free open Source GIMP: load the ‘normal’ frame and then load the darker frame as a layer below the ‘normal’ exposure frame use a soft-edged eraser to remove the washed-out lamp areas revealing the better/darker areas from the layer below, increase normal layer contrast slightly, load the cutout of Paul as the top layer and move to a suitable location in the background, do some final cleanup of the Paul layer edges and hair blending, some local dodging of eye highlights and also a bit of shoulder brightening, sharpen, create new working layer from visible result, save, scale image to 6000 wide, sharpen slightly, add fine black-and-white frame, add bar and text on left, save, scale image to 1800 wide for posting, sharpen slightly, save.
