..........Bring me back

[Alex168]

Lets start with the set up for the home made studio

Utilities:
-SB 600
-About 6 sheets of white A4 paper
-2 spotlight Ikea lamps (those really strong ones)
-Minature Tripod (about 15cm tall, set to about 5cm above the table)

Set up the a4 papers for reflection, what i did is that i taped some to the wall 2 of them and then just a bit below created a slanting(curved) paper so the image wouldnt get that harsh corner that would appear when the light was lit on the image. Important i had the difuser on the flash beacause i wanted to spread the light, when taking the picture i held the paper above teh flash reflecting even more light towards the image. Gotta love white paper

Click the image for a bigger version (looks alot better )

After: "Bring me back"


Before it turned into "Bring me back"


Here is what i did, i shot in RAW adjusted the WB (white balance) till i liked the effect final outcome, adjusted it costumly think i brought it back to cool and lowered the other slider a bit. I upped the staturation and then open the image.

Second step was to crop the image, copy the background and played around with the curves (i did this over and over again to achive the effect) where i didnt like the effect of the curve i would add a layer mask and paint it away.Cloned away some of the light reflection on the Ipod, tried cloning out the ligh on the sun glasses but didnt really like the outcome of it. Just looked cheap really crappy hehe. After everytime i adjusted a cruve i would flatten the iamge (this is just the way i work) i used some of the avaliable curve option on CS3 as well, just play around with this option till you like what you get. Then final step was to adjust the saturation/brightness/contrast a bit more and flatten the image. Then i sharped the image using the Unsharp mask toool till i liked the effect used some really wierd number i record, had a bit of threshold and a size of 2.5 and a strength of 120 i think. I then added a layer mask to decrease the effect in certain areas...


Shooting Data
Nikon D40X
Lens: 18-55mm F/3.5-5.6 G
Focal Length: 18mm
Exposure Mode: Aperture Priority
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern
1/60 sec - F/5.6
Exposure Comp.: 0 EV
Sensitivity: ISO 100
Optimize Image: Normal
White Balance: Auto
AF Mode: AF-S
Flash Sync Mode: Red Eye Reduction
Flash Mode: Optional, TTL-BL
Auto Flash Comp: 0 EV