Easy Lighting Setups for Glamour and Portrait Photography by Alexander Fox

Author:Alexander Fox [Fox, Alexander]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2016-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

Post-Processing

You’ll find that cranking up the contrast in a glamour image will give you an appealing tonal range, but at the expense of “blowing out the highlights” - losing detail in the bright areas of the image. Not very glamourous. So, one of my favorite post-processing techniques is to lower the contrast and then raise the black levels. This will give you nice, “punchy” dark areas in the hair and eyes, while letting the skin stay smooth and creamy-looking.

By the way, as I mentioned earlier, you should always shoot RAW files. When you’re bouncing light off the wall, as in this setup, the key light will take on the color of the wall, and anything else (bookshelf, curtains, etc.) nearby. This makes it exceedingly difficult to find the exact best white balance in the camera. If you shoot RAW, you don’t have to worry about it, and you can just dial in the optimal white balance later.

When you import your RAW files into your software of choice, it’s helpful to set the file to a “flat” setting first, so that you can see what you’re working with. This means zero contrast, zero vignette, zero color effects, exposure unchanged, linear contrast curve, and camera profile (if you have the option) set to “neutral.” Initially, the image will look somewhat “muddy,” but once you’ve flattened out your RAW file, you can build up the look of the image.

If you’ve used a grey background, you can tell the software to set a color balance based on that grey. This will usually give you a color balance that is pretty close to neutral. In this case, I then bring color temperature down slightly to give a cooler, silvery tone to the image.

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