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Indoor photos, my nightmare! Can you do some wonders?

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Rui Pinto

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Hi all,





LARGE
http://img101.imageshack.us/i/img2041g.jpg
http://img522.imageshack.us/i/img2043i.jpg

I've taken this photos, and I wanted to capture the ambient light, but that made me use ISO400, and resulted in a image with lots of noise.

With the flash, the light it's too harsh.

So what I want you guys to help ( teach ) me with, is:
  • how would you crop
  • in the flash triggered image how can you make the overall colors seem more balanced
  • how to remove the windows from the photo
finally
  • the noisier image, can it be enhanced.
Play with them, but if possible give some details of what you've done.

Thank you

--

Diagnosed @ 29 years, with colon cancer, 03/2007, tumor T3N1Mx, chemo finished 12/2007 ( 12 rounds FOLFOX + 5FU) NED since 12/2007.
 
Thanks for correcting the links, was going to do that now!
--

Diagnosed @ 29 years, with colon cancer, 03/2007, tumor T3N1Mx, chemo finished 12/2007 ( 12 rounds FOLFOX + 5FU) NED since 12/2007.
 
Quicky with CS2
BTW, why were you a mile away when you took photo?
.

1) Cropped to 4x6 format, standard snapshot format. Could work better other formats.

2) Layered copied in "Softlight" and opacity changed to please. This basically just increased contrast a little.

3) a lot of "burning" around outside image edges and on red sofa to darken so to not distract from girl. Old school trick, sometimes automatic with lens vignetting :-)

4) using blur tool blurred the lamp, plant and windows so as to not distract from girl. Cloning out the two windows could also work nicely and easy to do.



.
.
I'll leave it to someone better than I to turn it into "Rembrandt" lighting :-)

cary
 
Here's a attempt to give it more light but I'm no expert. I did the following:

cropped, levels, curves, color balance (Not sure what the lighting looked like), blur some background for some DOF, denoise, usm.

 
Here are your two photos.

Color:



B & W:



The ISO 400 with so much noise was difficult to correct as you can see. I would probably make a B & W out of it. In this case I made it look like an old, grainy sepia toned photo in Lightroom. I decreased the exposure, put in some fill light, adjusted the blacks, increased the vignetting. I think the windows work well in this rendition although it could use some additional cropping.

Next time, use a higher ISO with exposure compensation.

The flash photo



Cropped to get rid of the awkward foot angles and focus more on the subject. In Lightroom: Adjusted exposure, added fill light, increased darks, added vignetting to focus on subject. Spot treated face.

In Photoshop: Filtered face to smooth shadows. Adjusted teeth, to get rid of the light bounce and lightened them. Sharpened eyes, blurred background.

Regards,

Photologist
 
Rui Pinto said:
I've taken this photos, and I wanted to capture the ambient light, but that made me use ISO400, and resulted in a image with lots of noise.
With the flash, the light it's too harsh.
So what I want you guys to help ( teach ) me with, is:
  • how would you crop
  • in the flash triggered image how can you make the overall colors seem more balanced
  • how to remove the windows from the photo
Click to expand...
A quick play, combining the two:



had the 'ambient' one on top (with some curves), aligned the two and masked out the lady on the ambient one.

One can play with the opacity of this layer to get another mix of the color effects, in this example I did not.

For the windows I painted with a large, soft brush on a new layer. Stole the color of the wall nearby (alt-click) a few times. Masked to be visible only where the windows were.
Did not do any thing (yet) with the grain.

Now for flash and ambient light, I often use Av, because my camera will assume 'fill in flash' then. You can soften the hars light of the flash too by bounching the flash.

--
All in my humble opionion of course!

If I seem to talk nonsense or you can't understand me, it's probably my English :)
 
this is blending the two together
try this with your flash. read the overall room for expsoure.

set camera to manual 1 stop under exposed. remember the slower the shutter speed the more natural light you let in. this is what you need to do when under exposing the picture. Called dragging the shutter

set up a white or silver reflector out of frame to your left or right and bounce the flash

Set flash on ettl and play with the + or - to control the power so you do not over power the natural light

If you have a zoom head flash zoom take it to like 100 mm or smaller to get a tighter bounce

 
Any special reason to keep the lamp and plant in the picture? They seem a bit distracting to me. I would paint them out and leave a plain background behind the sofa.

I would also be inclined to change the bright red sofa. Maybe just all muted warm tones, so there are no bright colors competing with the subject.



--
~ Peano
http://www.radiantpics.com
 
Really liked what you've done, and thank you for the tips.
I've done a similar using your steps. :)
cary smith said:
Quicky with CS2
BTW, why were you a mile away when you took photo?

cary
Click to expand...
The room was "small", so I thought it was better to keep myself at distance, to not cut the legs.

--

Diagnosed @ 29 years, with colon cancer, 03/2007, tumor T3N1Mx, chemo finished 12/2007 ( 12 rounds FOLFOX + 5FU) NED since 12/2007.
 
Don't ask me why?! Really!

I just like what you did, it made think if with the right retouching the "noisier" image couldn't be turned into a kind of paint.
kener said:
Here's a attempt to give it more light but I'm no expert. I did the following:

cropped, levels, curves, color balance (Not sure what the lighting looked like), blur some background for some DOF, denoise, usm.

Click to expand...
--

Diagnosed @ 29 years, with colon cancer, 03/2007, tumor T3N1Mx, chemo finished 12/2007 ( 12 rounds FOLFOX + 5FU) NED since 12/2007.
 
Photologist said:
B & W:



Next time, use a higher ISO with exposure compensation.
Click to expand...
I like the contrast between the brighter area on the left side with the darker side.
Thanks for the tip!
Photologist said:
The flash photo



Regards,

Photologist
Click to expand...
Enhancing minor details like the eyes made such a difference! really!
Will try to replicate your steps!

--

Diagnosed @ 29 years, with colon cancer, 03/2007, tumor T3N1Mx, chemo finished 12/2007 ( 12 rounds FOLFOX + 5FU) NED since 12/2007.
 
It turned out a really clean image, with the changes you made!

Could you explain how you did remove the windows. I'm learning!

Thanks
limeyg said:
Removed windows, power cord etc brought up the warmer tone of the lamp plus many other changes.
Geoff

Click to expand...
--

Diagnosed @ 29 years, with colon cancer, 03/2007, tumor T3N1Mx, chemo finished 12/2007 ( 12 rounds FOLFOX + 5FU) NED since 12/2007.
 
I really like the result, a instant favourite!

How did you change the sofa color, using color range?
Peano said:
Any special reason to keep the lamp and plant in the picture? They seem a bit distracting to me. I would paint them out and leave a plain background behind the sofa.

I would also be inclined to change the bright red sofa. Maybe just all muted warm tones, so there are no bright colors competing with the subject.

Click to expand...
--

Diagnosed @ 29 years, with colon cancer, 03/2007, tumor T3N1Mx, chemo finished 12/2007 ( 12 rounds FOLFOX + 5FU) NED since 12/2007.
 
I'm guessing you shot horizontal?

You could have turned the camera vertical, to match your vertical subject, then zoom / move in closer, to make a better in camera crop, not wasting so many pixels on stuff you don't want. (Note using flash while vertical can be a problem on a camera like yours.)

Also, it looks like you took the picture standing over your subject, it probably would have helped if you were seated so the POV was a bit more level with subject's eyes.

Also, this might have helped the non-flash picture figure a better exposure, since more of the frame would have been your subject.

Without flash, the main light in your picture was behind the subject, creating a natural silhouette situtation - you needed better lighting on your subject and not the background. I am surprised the flash shot at -2 EV came out so washed out. This may be related to the large expanse of light colored wall in the overall picture.

--
EOS 50D, 20D, 10D, 630, A-1, FZ28, SD1000
-- Please remove the Quote option!
-- Why can't you edit more than once???
-- How about switching to real forum software?
 
NetMage said:
I'm guessing you shot horizontal?
Click to expand...
Yes
NetMage said:
You could have turned the camera vertical, to match your vertical subject, then zoom / move in closer, to make a better in camera crop, not wasting so many pixels on stuff you don't want.
Click to expand...
Never really thought about this: "...not wasting so many pixels on stuff you don't want." It makes perfect sense!
NetMage said:
(Note using flash while vertical can be a problem on a camera like yours.)
Click to expand...


Could you please explain why? ( i'm learning! ) It has a pop up flash like a dslr.
NetMage said:
Also, it looks like you took the picture standing over your subject, it probably would have helped if you were seated so the POV was a bit more level with subject's eyes.
Click to expand...
I was seated, but the camera was not at the eye level with the subject. ( thx for the tip )
NetMage said:
Without flash, the main light in your picture was behind the subject, creating a natural silhouette situtation - you needed better lighting on your subject and not the background.
Click to expand...
I see, it's like having the sun behind a subject, it will underexpose your subject unless you use the flash to fill. i'm i right?
NetMage said:
I am surprised the flash shot at -2 EV came out so washed out. This may be related to the large expanse of light colored wall in the overall picture.
Click to expand...
The shot at -1 came out too "white"!

Thanks for the tips, always learning!

--

Diagnosed @ 29 years, with colon cancer, 03/2007, tumor T3N1Mx, chemo finished 12/2007 ( 12 rounds FOLFOX + 5FU) NED since 12/2007.
 
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