Is this photo overexposed?

Daveysil15

So I've been doing a few shoots in the studio lately and I'm happy with the results I've gotten so far. On my last shoot though the images seeem a lot brighter than usual, despite using the same settings and light arrangment. Do you think this portrait is overexposed?

IMG_1142_pp copy.jpg

Bucklesman

Looks a little burnt out around the edges of the hair in my view, but the rest seems fine. If you're using a brighter background than before, that might be reflecting more light even though the setup is the same.

Fat_Fingers

Perfectly nicely exposed to the right.

Daveysil15

And the left? The main light is coming from the left of the picture. I think it might have been a bit too powerful. I'm not sure. Would the fact that she's wearing white make any difference?

ScumLord

Daveysil15 wrote: »

And the left? The main light is coming from the left of the picture. I think it might have been a bit too powerful. I'm not sure. Would the fact that she's wearing white make any difference?

Probably, it's reflecting the light. Having worked with chroma keying using a green screen I was surprised by how much the green screen affected everything in front of it. I didn't notice it until I started to process the picture/video but there was huge amount of green spill all over everything. Everything in the picture affects how the light mixes in the camera.

Gregor Samsa

Daveysil15 wrote: »

And the left? The main light is coming from the left of the picture.

"Exposed to the right" doesn't refer to the right hand side of the picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposing_to_the_right

squareballoon

I think it is. I have an action that shows the areas that are blown and here's what it showed. So your red channel is blown in a lot of places. Should be an easy fix if you shot in RAW though.

CabanSail

Backing off 2 to 3 stops in your RAW convertor should bring that back. The problem you may face then is your high key background may not longer be blown. You may have to do some processing combining two conversions through an appropriate mask to get the subject correctly exposed and keep the background.

magicbastarder

squareballoon wrote: »

So your red channel is blown in a lot of places.

yep, the image is a bit too orange for my tastes.

Fat_Fingers

phutyle wrote: »

"Exposed to the right" doesn't refer to the right hand side of the picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposing_to_the_right

Sorry, yes this is what i mean.

nucker

Daveysil15 wrote: »

So I've been doing a few shoots in the studio lately and I'm happy with the results I've gotten so far. On my last shoot though the images seeem a lot brighter than usual, despite using the same settings and light arrangment. Do you think this portrait is overexposed?

IMG_1142_pp copy.jpg

It looks slightly overexposed. You can fix this regardless if shot in RAW or jpg in a RAW editor, it will just be slightly difficult with jpg though

But if you shoot portraits or fashion, you should always shoot in RAW because it gives you more scope to edit blown out information (but not completely blown out) in a RAW editor

And since you are using a Canon camera, use ISO100 f/8.0 not ISO200 f/11.0. Nikon have a problem with skin tone at ISO100, something that doesn't seem to affect Canon cameras

nucker

Here is my edit on the file

DaireQuinlan

nucker wrote: »

And since you are using a Canon camera, use ISO100 f/8.0 not ISO200 f/11.0. Nikon have a problem with skin tone at ISO100, something that doesn't seem to affect Canon cameras

whu

nucker

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

whu

What do you mean? Do you use a Nikon?

squareballoon

I have to say, I've never heard of Nikon having a problem with skin tone at a particular ISO. What difference would the ISO make to skin tone?

DaireQuinlan

nucker wrote: »

What do you mean? Do you use a Nikon?

No digital bodies, no. My 'whu ' was because what you're saying doesn't make much sense. I'd say it's more down to maybe exposure issues on your hand or post processing problems or something.

nucker

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

No digital bodies, no. My 'whu ' was because what you're saying doesn't make much sense. I'd say it's more down to maybe exposure issues on your hand or post processing problems or something.

How can it be an exposure issue down to me? There is a well known issue with Nikon bodies with studio photography, it doesn't portray the skin tones well, I've seen this on a few mates photos

DaireQuinlan

nucker wrote: »

How can it be an exposure issue down to me? There is a well known issue with Nikon bodies with studio photography, it doesn't portray the skin tones well, I've seen this on a few mates photos

a 'well known issue' ? A cursory google gives me as many people giving out about canon skin tones, nikon skin tones, people saying they're switching from canon to nikon because of canon's skin tones, people saying they're switching the other way, people claiming that nikon skin tones are amazing, that canon tones are amazing etc etc etc. In 99% of cases I'm going to go with PEBKAC.

I don't think 'a few mates photos' really equates to a 'known issue' either. The plural of anecdote, as they say, is not 'data'.

nucker

Well, I don't have problems with skin tones with Canon cameras

magicbastarder

Q.E.D!

magicbastarder

or should that be 'Q.E.D.!'?

DaireQuinlan

magicbastarder wrote: »

Q.E.D!

yeah I guess that one more anecdote just pushed it right over the line :-D

magicbastarder

if a camera has problems with skin tones, it'd have problems in general with inaccurate tone reproduction.

dunno how most nikons are configured, but the 'base' ISO on my D300 is 200; anything lower than that is done using magic and mirrors, so AFAIK, if there was a problem at ISO 100 (not defined as such - it's LO 1, 2 or 3 on ISO settings), it should exist at ISO 200, i'd suspect. unless there's a problem the aforementioned magic and mirrors.

Daveysil15

nucker wrote: »

It looks slightly overexposed. You can fix this regardless if shot in RAW or jpg in a RAW editor, it will just be slightly difficult with jpg though

But if you shoot portraits or fashion, you should always shoot in RAW because it gives you more scope to edit blown out information (but not completely blown out) in a RAW editor

And since you are using a Canon camera, use ISO100 f/8.0 not ISO200 f/11.0. Nikon have a problem with skin tone at ISO100, something that doesn't seem to affect Canon cameras

I shot it in jpg and am only using Photoshop Elements for editing. Some of the photo's don't seem to be as bad. I think she may have been standing a bit too close to the main light at times.

nucker wrote: »

Here is my edit on the file

Not bad but I don't like all the grey coming off her hair to the right of the photo.

Hugh_C

nucker wrote: »

There is a well known issue with Nikon bodies with studio photography, it doesn't portray the skin tones well, I've seen this on a few mates photos

Uh, I think you're talking a load of horse tbh. I've been shooting studio portraits on a variety of Nikons for the last 3+ years and the only time I've had an issue with skin tones is when I've screwed up the lighting. I'm reasonably good too ...

To the original poster, it looks overexposed to me, skin tones look dodgy, either that or you're over editing your pic. You're losing information in the colour rendition. If I were you I'd stop it down a bit or turn down your lamp(s) and shoot RAW/

nucker

Hugh_C wrote: »

Uh, I think you're talking a load of horse tbh. I've been shooting studio portraits on a variety of Nikons for the last 3+ years and the only time I've had an issue with skin tones is when I've screwed up the lighting. I'm reasonably good too ...

To the original poster, it looks overexposed to me, skin tones look dodgy, either that or you're over editing your pic. You're losing information in the colour rendition. If I were you I'd stop it down a bit or turn down your lamp(s) and shoot RAW/

Wow, such a statement, please read other posts I've posted

magicbastarder

that's the problem. he has.

ScumLord

Daveysil15 wrote: »

I shot it in jpg and am only using Photoshop Elements for editing. Some of the photo's don't seem to be as bad. I think she may have been standing a bit too close to the main light at times.

I think you should be shooting in RAW when possible, you can get free programs for basic editing and converting into jpeg. I know it ads an extra stage to the process but you gain so much control over the image that it's well worth it if the photos are important. As far as I'm concerned the only benefit of jpeg is speed. But while speed might be great for sports I'd still use raw for sports as you can really pull the best possible image out of the raw file.

Daveysil15

ScumLord wrote: »

I think you should be shooting in RAW when possible, you can get free programs for basic editing and converting into jpeg. I know it ads an extra stage to the process but you gain so much control over the image that it's well worth it if the photos are important. As far as I'm concerned the only benefit of jpeg is speed. But while speed might be great for sports I'd still use raw for sports as you can really pull the best possible image out of the raw file.

I suppose I could shoot RAW+jepg? That way I could use the RAW file if I have a problem with exposure. I'm thinking of getting lightroom. Does anybody here use that? Is it difficult to use?

Hugh_C

Lightroom is great, it suits my workflow because I shoot sometimes up 4000 images in a month and LR is great at cataloguing. For me though it;'s not powerful enough for retouching, so for that I use Photoshop - Lightroom and Photoshop are a great combination together but may be very expensive for the non-pro ...

I wouldn't bother with RAW+jpeg to be honest, just use RAW.

squareballoon

I use ACR which comes with photoshop to process the RAW images. I wouldn't bother with Jpgs either. They will just fill your cards faster.

Daveysil15

squareballoon wrote: »

I use ACR which comes with photoshop to process the RAW images. I wouldn't bother with Jpgs either. They will just fill your cards faster.

Wouldn't the RAW files fill the cards faster seen as how they are much bigger files? I have a 16GB card anyway so storage is not an issue. I took a few shots in RAW yesterday to try it out. I find it very slow to process the files, even with a powerful laptop with 4GB of RAM. I'm not sure if I'd have the patience for it.

Effects

You might regret it in the future if you don't keep the raw files. When I first started shooting with my 300D I didn't bother with raw but when I go back to edit old shots I wish I had the raw to work with.
These days I shoot raw and a small jpeg on my 5D and raw and high quality jpeg on my X100. The X100 produces really nice jpegs. With the 5D I like having an image there that's easy to review and send to someone without having to process the raw file.

sineadw

Shoot Raw!! You're losing massive amounts of data if you're only shooting jpeg. There's very little extra processing involved, and any computer made in the last 7 or so years should be more than powerful enough to handle the files.

Ben D Bus

sineadw wrote: »

Shoot Raw!! You're losing massive amounts of data if you're only shooting jpeg. There's very little extra processing involved, and any computer made in the last 7 or so years should be more than powerful enough to handle the files.

It's absolutely amazing the difference a couple of little tweaks to white balance/exposure/contrast can make to an image. Which is why I always shoot RAW now.

Just downloaded the trial version of Lightroom this afternoon. I think I may be buying it when the trial is up! Just the selective exposure adjustments make it worth it! But I will need to get a new monitor to make it really work for me as I'm working on a laptop (or my high contrast LED TV).

Add to that the new lens I'm getting this week and the new body I'll want in the next couple of months and I'm starting to realise this could get expensive :eek:

Sorry for going off topic

melekalikimaka

nucker wrote: »

There is a well known issue with Nikon bodies with studio photography, it doesn't portray the skin tones well, I've seen this on a few mates photos

To be fair I know that the Nikon D50 did have a slight redness issue, that could be corrected in camera easily enough and never have to worry again, but that was a camera that came out in 2005, and there has never been a repeat on the issue, pretty sure to say that Nikon cameras don't portray skin tones well based on what 'your mates photos' does not make it 'well documented'