Advise please c&c

Logie-1

Hi Folks,

My nephew made his First Communion today so we set this up (see photo below)

My problem is the background, I really wanted it to be brighter, so what did I do wrong?

Logie.

dazftw

Your white balance is probably set wrong. That's why it has the yellow in it.

Are your lights continuous or flash?

If you want the "seamless white background" you need to have one of your lights pointed at the background and the other pointed at your subject. The one pointed at the background needs to be over powered so it can produce that "seamless" look.

Judging by your settings from pix.ie you should lower your shutter speed and close down your aperture to F/8 at least.

You can salvage the photo to some degree in photoshop.

Logie-1

Thanks Dazftw for your reply.

The lights were flash.

The WB was set for flash, is this correct or should I have kept it on auto?

I mounted my sb600 on a tripod and pointed it at the background, but it didn't make much of a difference, maybe I had it set wrong also.


Logie

ScumLord

That's easily fixed in photoshop raw, it's probably just as easy to fix in a free raw program. That's assuming your shooting in raw format instead of jpeg.

frozenfrozen

If you post the raw I'm sure one of the resident wizards may have the time to play around with it

Effects

I took it into photoshop and fixed it for you.

sineadw

You should be able to do something with it in photoshop, particularly if it's raw. Did you meter it externally?

Usually for high key shots i'll use 2 lights on the background, positioned behind the subject on either side, barn doors on (not a softbox - you'll get light spilling back onto your subject), metering 2 stops above my key light evenly across to backdrop (which means metering over maybe 9 points, just to check). Key light is usually set to f/8 or so, flash or auto wb (in raw, it really doesn't matter..), and maybe a 2nd fill or a reflector. That's the ideal set up if you can get the lights. One light on the backdrop and some post will do it at a push, but it's hard to get two stops over and an even spread, and you still need to have the light a good bit behind your subject.

bullpost

Use a grey card in future to avoid colour balance problems. Then use the colour dropper in post-processing to set your colour balance correctly.

Logie-1

Thanks everyone, I downloaded the trial version of lightroom and it has worked a treat.

Effects. You have him spot on there,lol.

Sineadw Thats a lot of info, thank you very much, I look forward to trying it out.

kelly1

Logie, to get a white background, you'll need separate background lights (ideally 2) placed on the floor. These should be exposed for about 2 stops over the subject. That's assuming you want a high-key look.