46 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com
PROJECT 1
VIDEO ALSO ONLINE
http://bit.ly/photoplus163OPEN A smoke shot in
Photoshop, go to Image>
Adjustments>Desaturate
(Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+U), then
Image >Adjustments>Invert
(Cmd/Ctrl+I). Nex t go to
Image>Adjustments>
Levels (Cmd/Ctrl+L), hold
Alt and drag the white point
inwards to ensure the
backdrop is totally white.GRAB THE Rectangular
Marquee tool and drag a
selection over the smoke.
Go to Edit>Define Brush
Preset. Give the brush a
name and click OK. The
new brush will be instantly
selected when you grab
the Brush tool, and you’ll
find the tip at the bottom
of the list of brushes.STEP BY STEP CREATE PHOTOSHOP BRUSHES
Turn the smoke photos into handy brush tips in Photoshop
STEP BY STEP CAPTURING THE PORTRAIT
Photograph a person in profile against a light backdrop with a simple lighting
LIGHTING THE
BACKDROP
A single off-camera flash
lets you create all kinds
of different portraiture
looks – you can fire it
from one side, above,
below, or behind your
subject and the angle
of light will give you a
multitude of looks. But
as well as directing it
at your subject, you
can also train it on the
background, like we’ve
done. By lighting the
backdrop we blow it out
to create a high key look
like this. Some of the light
will spill back onto the
subject, creating subtle
backlighting that lifts the
edge of the face.01 USE A LIGHT BACKDROP
Position your subject in front of a light backdrop for a
high-key look. We’ve used a roll of paper, but a simple
white wall will do, or a white board. This way, the
background will be blown out. Later, we can invert the
black backdrop of the smoke images to white so that
it matches the background of our portrait here.03 LIGHT THE BACKGROUND
We’ve used a single flash to light the portrait. By
training it on the backdrop we can blow it out and
backlight our subject. This way, the lighting on the
subject will match the backlit smoke. You don’t need
a flash for this, you could just pose your subject in
front of a window and shoot towards a bright sky.02 SIDE ON POSE
Ask your subject to stand in front of the bright
backdrop. A side-on profile pose is ideal for this effect,
but you could try other poses if you like, or experiment
with different body shapes. When side-on like this, it’s
usually best practice to focus on the eye that is
closest to the camera.04 CAMERA SETTINGS
As we’re using flash here, we set the camera to
Manual mode and shutter speed to 1/200 sec,
ISO100. Then, we can adjust the aperture and flash
power to control the brightness of the subject. Here
we settled on an aperture of f/4.5. Our backlit subject
is slightly underexposed, which is ideal for our project.VIEW^ TH
E^ VIDEO