Putting a dancer on stage

[LindaOH]

Ok so I've been asked to do the photos for my daughter's dance studio. I asked one of the older dancers to meet me there for a test session. I forgot that I had been taking high ISO pictures earlier and didn't change that so she is a bit grainy in our test shots. I still tried to turn it into something she could set on her dresser and enjoy in exchange for modelling for me.
Here is the before:

One of the challenges that I was trying to overcome was her dark hair on a dark background because I will be using black on the big day and several of the dancers have dark hair. My backdrop will be taller and MUCH wider so I shouldn't have some of the problems that I had here BUT I was pleased with the hair light I rigged and hope it works as well when it is up a bit higher.
I have a few where I just filled in the missing background and darkened it to a truer black but also tried my hand at a background with a shiny floor where I had to make a reflection and this one where I added a shadow.
After:

In GIMP:
I used color adjustment and saturation to fix my sad white balance.
I used the magic scissors to select her form then zoomed in to do a little correction.
I should have been more careful because I can see some of the dark edging now that it is one this light background.
I feathered the selection slightly before inverting selection and cutting away the existing background.
I inverted the selection again and copied it.
I then pasted this into the pink background as a new layer.
I duplicated this layer.
I darkened and lowered contrast on this extra layer so that it would look like a shadow.
I then lowered the opacity and blurred it.
I moved it to the right and down some from the original location.
Then I selected just the bottom of the shadow starting at the location where the backdrop and floor meet and skewed it to touch the toes.
Make sure this layer is below the dancer but above the background and flatten.

Questions: How do I calibrate my screen like I've seen others talk about?
Even when I think my white balance looks less yellow on my camera, it looks yellow OOC. How do I fix this?
Will a lower ISO solve my grainy problem?

Looking to learn and do better especially since people are begging me to take pics for $$$. Eek!

[sybren]

I think the white balance on the original is off - it is way too orange. This still shows in the resulting image. The shadow on the pink backdrop doesn't wrinkle like the backdrop itself does, which makes it look even more artificial. All in all I think you achieved a nice result, but it has many areas for improvement.

Questions: How do I calibrate my screen like I've seen others talk about?
Even when I think my white balance looks less yellow on my camera, it looks yellow OOC. How do I fix this?

First of all, start by selecting the proper white balance in camera. Then make sure you shoot in RAW so that you can manually adjust the white balance in post processing.

The easiest way to calibrate your monitor is with a special device, such as the ColorVision Spyder.

Will a lower ISO solve my grainy problem?

It probably will, but that's hard to say as you didn't tell us which ISO you're shooting at.

PS: linking to a Flickr image page while the photo is set to "private" doesn't do us much good...

Originally Posted by LindaOH

Questions: How do I calibrate my screen like I've seen others talk about?
Even when I think my white balance looks less yellow on my camera, it looks yellow OOC. How do I fix this?
Will a lower ISO solve my grainy problem?

Looking to learn and do better especially since people are begging me to take pics for $$$. Eek!

I think you are asking the wrong question.

I'm not intentionally being an ass here, but the second photo looks very fake. It's painfully obvious that you 'chopped it. Why not just take their pics with the pink background? or turn the background to a pink rather than removing the girl entirely.

The colors aren't the problem here, neither is your ISO or your monitor calibration.

~Eric

[Misty-Bug]

Originally Posted by maxharvard

I'm not intentionally being an ass here, but the second photo looks very fake. It's painfully obvious that you 'chopped it. Why not just take their pics with the pink background? or turn the background to a pink rather than removing the girl entirely.


~Eric

I have to agree. It does look placed. It is a valid attempt (not even one I would try!)

[Saralonde]

I moved this to critique because of the questions. If you could add the exif info for your picture, it would help us figure out the problem.

I agree that shooting in RAW might help you to adjust your WB after the fact, but you can do a custom WB by shooting a sheet of white paper. Check your camera's handbook for instructions.

It is difficult to move subjects onto a new background although I do appreciate the amount of work you did to try and save the image!

[LindaOH]

Since it is almost midnight here, I'll come back and add the EXIF at some other time.

As for some of the comments:
The skin tone in the second picture is pretty close to her actual skin tone unless my monitor is way off.
For the actual shoot, I will have a much larger black background and the final pictures will be on the black background. I won't be placing them on a pink background. I was just playing around and thought my model would like this on the CD of images I will be giving her for helping me.
I will have to try the white paper. I vaguely remember something about that from when I read the handbook which I do need to return to now that I have a little more hands-on experience. Hopefully some of the things will make more sense now.

Off to bed for now.

[LindaOH]

Taken with a Fuji FinePix s1000fd
Exposure Time - 1/100"
Manual
ISO - 1600 (Like I said I had this set for another setting and forgot to change it)
Shutter Speed Value- 6.64 TV
Aperture Value -3.44 AV
Brightness Value- 5BV
Exposure Bias Value- +/-0 EV
Max Aperture Value- F2.8
No flash (Two reflective white umbrella lights at either side of camera and the reflective hair light above and behind model)