How To: Basic Photo that looks Professional

[wannabehorsephotographer]

This is a basic shot you can get with almost any camera - and no expensive lighting equipment.


We were in the middle of town...without a lot clean background choices so we chose to work in the street. The shot needed a little clean up, but it took only a few minutes in PSE. Want to get the shot right in the first place? Here's a great article on choosing the best background.

The big key to this shot is exposure. You are going to need to make sure that you expose for the subject. In a central shot like this, even with your camera in auto, you should be able to lock exposure and focus on the centralized subject by pressing your shutter button halfway. If you are in auto and the subject isn't centered you will run into problems. Want to step out of auto mode? Check out these great tutorials at DPS here.

Setting up the shot:
You will need to make sure the subject is backlit by having them stand in front of a bright source. In this case, the sun (it was about 3 hours after sunrise, but any time before that would work great too). Expose for the subject and click away.
SOOC:


Making the shot pop:
I had a good friend take this shot for me after I set the camera, so I chose to crop tighter and clean up distracting elements in the background. I also increased blacks in camera RAW to add a liitle of the contrast lost to flare. No camera RAW...just adjust the black point on a levels adjustment. I then used the elliptical selection tool set at 250px feather to create a light vignette around the entire shot (on a new layer). I erased most of the vignette that overlapped the subject and used the same color at a low opacity to paint over any other background areas that needed lightening to get this photo here. Finally, I added a gradient map layer set to black and white and decreased the opacity to let a little color show through. I did the same thing with a sepia layer to warm up the shot.
Final Product:


Another variation:
I wanted a second version with a little more grit so I added a texture over the edited version. To add the texture, I opened my image and the texture in PSE. Copy/pasted the texture over my image. Resized the texture to fit by dragging the corners with the move tool, and finally adjusted the blend mode to multiply and decreased the opacity. I did this twice with 2 textures to get the desired results. You can pick up the textures by skeletalmess and pareerica free here:
www.flickr.com/photos/8078381@N03/3817596316/ www.flickr.com/photos/skeletalmess/3331754345/

Final with texture:

You should also play with the blend modes with different textures and images to get the best results. Check out this excellent tutorial on adding texture for a more in depth look and clearer explanation.

This is pretty much exactly what is posted on my blog Photocowgirl
It's pretty much brand new so there's only one other photography tutorial and a few scrapbook pages, but hopefully I'll get some more added soon. Please feel free to ask any questions regarding the process - I'm horrible at explaining things.

[Saralonde]

Nice tutorial, Wannabe!

[hugy789]

Wow, great tutorial, i'll have to try this out some time : )

[DeadJosh]

Hey, thanks for the tips...I went to "CoffeeShop's" site and used some of her actions, and turned some "okay" shots to "great" shots...at least I think they're great!

A couple before-and-afters...

Before:



After:


Before:


After:


I've got a couple more examples in my "Homecoming 2009" album in my profile page if you're interested...and once again, thanks for sharing!

[sarudsum]

Great work .. really informative .. and thanks a lot for sharing ..

[nathanbarlow]

DeadJosh - i like your first manipulation, but think it could do without the 'haze' on the people, just keep it to the background... the girl's arms are a much nice tone in the manipulated photo, and the boring background is spiced up - good job with that!

The second photo looks better as the original, in my opinion. You have this really nice backdrop, with the greens on one side and fading over to an orangeybrown on the other, and then the people really pop out with the 'unnatural' blues and blacks. Im assuming its a candid shot, not posed? If it is posed, it could have done with the girl on the right having her head more turned. Also might have been nicer with a bit more breathing space on the sides and top - would capture some more of the fabulous
background.

Anyways, i shouldnt really be critiquing in the Techniques Tutorial forum :P but thought it was a nice post of yours.

[rifbribri]

Thanks for the suggestion, I wish it had worked.

[sarahdavis]

Thanks! I'm going to bookmark this until I have a good photo to try it with!

[thaoimage]

Really nice technique

[tday01]

I have to commend you for making the most from a poor exposure. However, your post title suggests that you are taking a portrait that looks professional. I would recommend that if this is your intention, "taking a professional looking portrait", that you choose a better location or camera angle to avoid the obvious lens flare in this shot. Sometimes moving just a few degrees to your right or left can reduce your lens flare and improve your image quality. I am not trying to be overly critical, just a constructive critique.