Photographing wedding dresses

Hello All.

In many of my attempts to get a good shot of a person in all white like in a wedding dress, I have had problems with over brightness. Kind of similar to picture problems with photos in the snow.. Now, this has usually been with a flash being used.

Any suggestions on how to improve photos of people in white, and will this be easier when I have my Alien Bee lights and I am able to take a true reading of what light is being given off.
--
Michael Harvey. North Carolina, E-10

Michael Harvey said:

Hello All.
In many of my attempts to get a good shot of a person in all white
like in a wedding dress, I have had problems with over brightness.
Kind of similar to picture problems with photos in the snow..
Now, this has usually been with a flash being used.

Any suggestions on how to improve photos of people in white, and
will this be easier when I have my Alien Bee lights and I am able
to take a true reading of what light is being given off.

Click to expand...

The exposure should be the same, though with digital, you have to be careful of shiny white material, as the specular highlights may be very large, and can look bad.

A basic note on lighitng: to make dark things look dimensional, you have to use the highlights, as a shadow on a black object is simply black. Contrariwise, to make light things look dimensional, you have to use the shadows, as a highlight on white is simply more white.

Shoot with the light in such a way as to create the shadows you need. If you light from in front, there won't be shadows to speak of, and the whole thing will look 'flat' (which is true for most on-axis lighting, but especially so for white subjects.)



In this example, there are a bunch of 'blown highlights', but that's technically correct--the satin was mirroring the light, which is pure white. (I'm not crazy about the results, but it's the best I've been able to do with white satin and digital; negative film is a bit more graceful there.) Two lights on subject; main (33" beauty dish) at about 30-45 degrees to camera left, fill (45" umbrella) just above camera.

space and light ...



just done a 40 page catalogue ....
and no .. I do not use a light meter ...
I shoot tethered and meter all critical spots in photo shop
the corrections I make with the lights would not register
with the meter ...

Have fun
gmd

Kevin Connery said:

Michael Harvey said:

Hello All.
In many of my attempts to get a good shot of a person in all white
like in a wedding dress, I have had problems with over brightness.
Kind of similar to picture problems with photos in the snow..
Now, this has usually been with a flash being used.

Any suggestions on how to improve photos of people in white, and
will this be easier when I have my Alien Bee lights and I am able
to take a true reading of what light is being given off.

Click to expand...

The exposure should be the same, though with digital, you have to
be careful of shiny white material, as the specular highlights may
be very large, and can look bad.

A basic note on lighitng: to make dark things look dimensional, you
have to use the highlights, as a shadow on a black object is simply
black. Contrariwise, to make light things look dimensional, you
have to use the shadows, as a highlight on white is simply more
white.

Shoot with the light in such a way as to create the shadows you
need. If you light from in front, there won't be shadows to speak
of, and the whole thing will look 'flat' (which is true for most
on-axis lighting, but especially so for white subjects.)



In this example, there are a bunch of 'blown highlights', but
that's technically correct--the satin was mirroring the light,
which is pure white. (I'm not crazy about the results, but it's the
best I've been able to do with white satin and digital; negative
film is a bit more graceful there.) Two lights on subject; main
(33" beauty dish) at about 30-45 degrees to camera left, fill (45"
umbrella) just above camera.

Click to expand...

--
More time would make me even happier.

As already mentioned the angle of the light is critical for creating shadows. See the thread on posing for suggestions on posing. In summary you want to use short lighting with the shoulder on the key light side pointing more or less in the direction of the key light to get good cross light and detail in the bead work. If the front of the dress is flat relative to the key light you'll have flat lighting on the dress, even if the face, which is turned in a different direction, is short-lit.

You don't mention how you are determining the exposure on your flash shots. Shoot in manual mode and bracket exposure via f/stop until you get highlight detail in the dress. Totally blown highlight detail is something you can't add in Photoshop, but you can selectively darken the dress or lighten skin tones via multiply and screen layers. To darken, dupe the background and change mode to "multiply", add a mask to the multiply layer and fill it with black. Then, with the mask layer selected use the eraser with a soft brush and pressure of 15% to erase the mask in the areas of the dress you want dark. You can lighten the skintones with a similar technique using "screen" mode on a second dupe layer.

One of the toughest things to photograph is a bride and groom together wearing a white dress and a black tux. The aforementioned screen and multiply techniques are very useful for these.

Chuck Gardner

Michael Harvey said:

Hello All.
In many of my attempts to get a good shot of a person in all white
like in a wedding dress, I have had problems with over brightness.
Kind of similar to picture problems with photos in the snow..
Now, this has usually been with a flash being used.

Any suggestions on how to improve photos of people in white, and
will this be easier when I have my Alien Bee lights and I am able
to take a true reading of what light is being given off.
--
Michael Harvey. North Carolina, E-10

Click to expand...

Thank you all for your suggestons. The photos that you attached were well done. I will be working with my two new B's this next week, and will challenge the white problem.

Michael Harvey

Chuck Gardner said:

You don't mention how you are determining the exposure on your
flash shots. Shoot in manual mode and bracket exposure via f/stop
until you get highlight detail in the dress. Totally blown
highlight detail is something you can't add in Photoshop, but you
can selectively darken the dress or lighten skin tones via multiply
and screen layers. To darken, dupe the background and change mode
to "multiply", add a mask to the multiply layer and fill it with
black. Then, with the mask layer selected use the eraser with a
soft brush and pressure of 15% to erase the mask in the areas of
the dress you want dark. You can lighten the skintones with a
similar technique using "screen" mode on a second dupe layer.

One of the toughest things to photograph is a bride and groom
together wearing a white dress and a black tux. The aforementioned
screen and multiply techniques are very useful for these.

Chuck Gardner

Michael Harvey said:

Hello All.
In many of my attempts to get a good shot of a person in all white
like in a wedding dress, I have had problems with over brightness.
Kind of similar to picture problems with photos in the snow..
Now, this has usually been with a flash being used.

Any suggestions on how to improve photos of people in white, and
will this be easier when I have my Alien Bee lights and I am able
to take a true reading of what light is being given off.
--
Michael Harvey. North Carolina, E-10

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Michael Harvey. North Carolina, E-10 http://www.harveyphotography.net