Chuck Gardner
Forum Pro
I don't iron and hang the towel smoothly, I bunch it up so the folds create some highlights and light shadows.
It's pretty simple, so don't try to overthink it. The key thing is like WhiBal or any other target you have a reference highlight value -- the same one - in all your test shots.
Well, being a old darkroom guy nailing the shot 100% in the camera usually isn't my goal. But I do know the boundaries of what is possible in Photoshop and will include them in my previsualization of a scene.
More like an understanding of the underlying technology. Curves, especially when applied to all channels at once (RGB) are a very blunt instrument. Applying curves on an adjustment layer allows you to change or remove it later, but its still a blunt tool affecting all of that range of tones in the entire image.
Masked duplicate "mode" layers are more like scapels. For example if I want to lighten just the area around the eyes I dupe the background layer, set its mode to screen, add a mask, then open the mask with the eraser tool in just the areas I wish to lighten. It's like painting with light with a fine sable brush.
Same with multiply layers which darken and saturate but don't gray down the color like the burn tool. It's not the light which creates contrast in an overall dark (low-key background) image its the shadows. One of my favorite lighting quote was make in reference to a cinematographer and it was something like; "He can light a room better with a can of black paint than most others can do with a dozen lights..."
And if you
I don't "have" to do the adjustment, its just part of my creative process just like dodging and burning a print was in the darkroom. It's just as important to the final look of a photo as good compostion is. A purist would say it should all be done in the camera, but as you accurately observe the 20D and other digitals produce images with less midtone contrast than we see by eye, and are less sharp due to the AA filter and capture array. Accepting only what the camera can capture is like running with 20lb ankle weights.
As an aside, one of the reasons I pretty much lost interest in photography for many years and shelved my MF camera gear was the loss of my darkroom due to overseas moves. Before switching to digital back in 2000 I was using a Pentax WR90 P&S zoom. Funny thing was it took shots just as good as my Nikon SLR in about 90% if the situations I shot. Photoshop, which I used in my day job for scans since V1 in the 1980s, is like having the darkroom back again.
Ditto... Better to err on the side of slight underexposure than to risk blown and unrecoverable highlight detail, especially when shooting a subject in white clothing.
It takes no time at all. The type of camera you use really doesn't matter. You already use WhiBal in a test shot don't you? Just crumple up a towel and have you model hold it too... It doesn't need to be a towel. Any white fabric with texture big enough to see on the camera LCD will work, like an old white cable-knit sweater. Try it, I think you'll like it given the way you shoot on location.
CG