Friday, July 19, 2013

Photo tricks and an outfit

7-19-13a

7-19-13b

7-19-13c
shirt: Old Navy
shorts: thrifted
sandals: Target

Hi folks. So I'm thinking that at least for the time being, you can expect a little photo-speak to accompany my outfit posts. Because half the time, I find the technique behind shooting an outfit more interesting than the outfit itself. Sorrynotsorry.

So I had Matt snap these for me quickly before we left for...uh...somewhere. For the life of me, I can't remember where I wore this. Oh well. Not important. I just turned the camera to auto and he clicked away. I love how even the auto-setting photos on this camera turn out so awesome!

The below shot is one I took just moments before we headed outside for the real photos. I had just gotten my remote and was going a little click-happy. I remember I didn't have time to set up my tripod and do a proper shoot, but I wanted to test the remote regardless, so I plopped the camera on my mantle and took a few snaps. This one turned out kind of cool, so I decided to post it. Dem collarbones. Girrrrrl...

7-19-13d

So this is where the cool photography part comes in. I noticed when I uploaded this photo that if I corrected the exposure to my face/clothes, the windows were completely blown out. But if I didn't adjust the exposure, I was too dark. I remembered reading this tip for fixing the problem, and used that as a guideline for doing my own version of a fix.

Basically, I made two copies of this photo. On the first, I adjusted the exposure to properly display my face/body. On the second, I adjusted the exposure the other way, underexposing everything to bring out the details of the blinds. Then I just used the Magic Wand tool in Photoshop to select the blinds and copied them to a new layer. I dragged the new layer to the correctly-exposed photo, lined it up over the blown-out windows, and adjusted the opacity down of the blinds-only layer to about 80 percent so it would look more natural. Looking back, I could probably have under-exposed the blinds even more in my initial steps, but for a first shot I say this isn't too bad!

7-19-13e
Top photo: Correctly exposed subject with blown-out windows
Bottom photo: Better-exposed windows with under-exposed subject.

So here's my question for you all: Would you be interested in reading tutorials on stuff like this? Or do you find that process a little dull and would rather read what I have to say about the styles/trends themselves? Or do you find both interesting?

3 comments:

  1. nice! Obvs I'm up for both!! I do really like that shirt on you, so cute! Ahhh I'm so excited FOR you, getting a big girl camera is the bessssttt

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oooh cool trick! I've never really worked much with layers, but it's neat how precise you can get with it!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I *love* reading about photography and learning new stuff. Plus, it's good for bloggers to talk about whatever is gripping us at any moment and you're in a major photo-mode right now. So it's good for everyone for you to pepper your posts with photo tips.

    ReplyDelete

Hello, awesome commenter! I love feedback and try to respond to all comments (especially ones with questions) if I can find an email or blog address.

Thaaaaaanks for reading!