Silhouettes

[olya]

I wanted to take a few silhouette photos. I don’t have much experience and expensive equipment. I know that if one wants a silhouette image, the lighting source should be behind the subject. I would appreciate if you will extend on this technique or describe other techniques for shooting silhouettes. And I also have some nice b&w photos which I would like to make silhouettes of. So do you know any ways to do it in Photoshop? I will appreciate any information. Probably you know some good tutorials. Thanks.

[jiminyClickit]

olya,

Camera model?

Have you decided on subjects or location? Some complex subjects will be harder to PhotoShop than others, so getting the shot is more important.

Some backgrounds will not provide enough contrast for effective silhouette, so angle is important.

Where you take a light reading can determine success. Practice will show your best shot settings, usually point to anything brighter than subject to be silhouetted.

Lots of answers here:
http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/search.php?searchid=26633

[Nicole]

There is some info on how to take pictures of silhouettes and some tricks and techniques for doing so in this post on Nature Photography (http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/showpost.php?p=14842&postcount=3). Hopefully some of those help :)

[olya]

Thanks Nicole and JiminyClickit. I will check the links you gave. I have a point-and-shoot camera (Kodak dx7440) and i would like to shoot a silhouette of a person. I will try to take some pictures and will share the results.

[yurik]

as a sort anecdotal (see: lazy) advice, I would suggest you set your camera's light metering to centered, aim your camera at the brightest spot of your scene (ie, the light source), half-click it, hold it, recenter your shot so your subject is centered (or however you want it compositioned), and then push your shutter completely. That's basically how I did it with my SD110