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We did an amateur photo shooting for a new clothing brand but had some lack of good lighting.

Some pics can be seen at www.tahara.es

What kind of retouching could be recommended on Lightroom or PS?

Thanks!

Michael C
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samyb8
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2 Answers2

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So, looks like the photos had lights with different temperatures. Looks like a cool light source on the left and a warm light source on the right.

A straightforward approach would be to take it into Lightroom and apply a gradient with a countering color to cool the colors down from the right or warm up the image from the left, so that you have an equalized image.

Which way you go depends on how you want the final image to look.

EDIT: So, a quick workflow

  1. Import into Adobe Lightroom
  2. Apply a gradient, reducing the color temperature

Gradient applied descending from right to left, dropping color temperature

  1. Then, reduce the "orange" in the scene a bit

Color Slide showing a drop in "orange"

  1. To brighten the background, I would use LR's "white" or "highlight" slider:

enter image description here

This takes the original from:

Original Image

To this more balanced image:

LR edited image correcting color imbalance

To the background lightened image:

white background made more white

Wing Tang Wong
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  • Yes, could have been ambient light, or maybe it was a strobe and a gold reflector? If so use a white or silver reflector instead. – MikeW Apr 16 '13 at 10:00
  • Yeah, definitely agree, if the OP can re-shoot.

    For post processing, the gradient tool has worked well for me in LR.

     – Wing Tang Wong Apr 16 '13 at 16:12
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Next time I'd move the models away from the background a bit - there are some harsh shadows in a few shots. Put more light on the backgrounds so they're white. And make sure you illuminate the product as much as you do the models' faces. The faces are pretty well lit, but the hats/scarves are not.

In post processing, I'd blow out the background to pure white so it blends with the white background of the web site. You can do that with a curves layer and some masking.

Given the product is worn on the head, I think you've cropped too close at the top, and I don't think you need to see so much of the model's torso. I'd crop much closer, as I did below, and leave some headroom at the top.

I would also use curves, levels or exposure adjustment (adjustment brush in Lightroom or an adjustment layer in PS) and brighten up the product a bit. I dabbed a soft brush on the headscarf, brightened the background, and also cropped to show the product a bit better - here's a before and after.

enter image description here

Edit: curves layer for background. Moved the white slider at the bottom to the left. Then added some anchor points on the shadows and midtones, and then raised the highlights, so it should only brighten the lightest tones. You might have to mask out some other areas if it affects eyes, teeth or other brighter parts of the subject.

enter image description here

MikeW
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  • This is a great answer! How can I achieve the white bg the way you did? – samyb8 Apr 16 '13 at 10:15
  • You could probably do it in LR, using adjustment brush and raising highlights. I did a curves layer - will add it above to the answer. – MikeW Apr 16 '13 at 11:33
  • Google "Photoshop curves". It's an amazing tool. I suppose it's present in every image retouching software nowadays. Play with it for a while. It takes some time to get what you want at first, but once you have learnt... Though, note that it degrades the color palette. Apply it several times in a row and you will see what I mean. Ideally you should do this correction only once, and before converting (from RAW) to an 8-bit/channel format (like JPG). – comocomocomocomo Apr 16 '13 at 11:33
  • On the curves tool and how it works: http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/21376/what-is-a-slanted-s-in-a-curves-layer/21397#21397 – mattdm Apr 16 '13 at 12:58