Chris Nelson. Master Guide for Glamour Photography: Digital Techniques and Images. 2007

rail and shot at^1 / 8 second at f/2.8 with the camera set at ISO 1250 and the

stabilizer on. The image is tack sharp and, yes, I was leaning against a solid

object—but otherwise this was handheld.

The next lens on my list of favorites is a Canon 24–70mm f/2.8, which

I like for its low light capabilities. If I had to pare my camera bag down to

bare necessities, these two lenses would be the ones I’d chose.

If I could only have one more lens, it would be an extra-wide angle. The

one I currently use is a Tamron 17–35mm f/2.8–f/4. It’s particularly use-

ful when you want a lot of depth of field and an extra-wide field of view.

Rounding out the lineup are a couple of lenses I use specifically for lim-

ited depth of field: a Canon 50mm f/1.4 and a Canon 85mm f/1.8. With

the lens wide open, you can practically shoot handheld in the dark, but their

best attribute is their limited depth of field. It’s so shallow that you can lit-

erally have a subject’s eyes in focus and their ear soft. What’s more, it often

reduces the backgrounds to textures or soft shapes, eliminating distractions

and forcing attention to the subject.

Digital Enhancements.

High-Contrast Black & White. By now, you know most of my techniques

start in the camera, and high-contrast black & white is no exception. The

key to getting the look you want is slight overexposure; too much, and you’ll

get patches of white with no detail, so it’s best to go a little easy. You can tell

how much to overexpose by testing a few images

in Photoshop. Open a test image and select the

Eyedropper tool. Move your tool over the image

and watch the Info palette. Sampling the bright-

est highlight you should get a value of not quite 255 (pure white). If you’re

in the 245 to 254 range, you’re right on the money.

My favorite camera for high-contrast black & white images, as I’ve said

before, is the Fuji S1. It has a black & white mode that produces an RGB file

with no color information. If you use one, set the sharpening and the tone

to hard. Then, overexpose by one to two stops. Your black & white files will

be ready to go right out of the camera.

If you are using a digital camera without a black & white function (or if

there’s any chance you might need a color file), shoot the image as I’ve de-

scribed above. After the shoot, you just have one more step: you’ll have to

convert your color files to black & white. My favorite method is the Lab

color method.

1. Open your file in Photoshop. Go to Image > Mode > Lab color.
   2.In the Channels palette, select the lightness channel.


2. Go to Image > Mode > Grayscale.


3. Go to Image > Mode > RGB.

Now you have a black & white file with fairly high contrast and, if you’ve shot

the image properly, it may have the look you want with no more computer

DIGITAL TECHNIQUES AND ENHANCEMENTS 89

You can tell how much to overexpose by

testing a few images in Photoshop.

To convert your color image to black & white,
switch to the Lab color mode, then click on the
lightness channel in the channels palette.