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Shoot: Uneven Skin

Lesson 23 from: Photographing Challenging Features

Lindsay Adler

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Lesson Info

23. Shoot: Uneven Skin

Lesson Info

Shoot: Uneven Skin

All right, so this section is uneven skin which could be redness in the skin, or pimples, blotchiness, whatever it may be. So pose, camera angle, lens choice, doesn't make a difference. I mean, hypothetically, you could shoot a really narrow depth of field. And so, like if there are blemishes back here, they wouldn't be in focus. It's not really a thing. It's more in the lighting, the retouching, the other. Guess what? Really pretty much the same as wrinkles, really quite similar. It's large, diffused light sources. Avoid raking light. Retouching clones. It's pretty much the same thing. The changes for me, most of the time, these are things that I probably-- The quality of light, I would get right in camera. But, I know that that color, it's this-- Pimples are red, the skin is red, that's post. If you use a really hard light source, like a zoom reflector, sure, the redness will get redder. But for the most part, you're not gonna fix that in camera. The softer you get it, the broader yo...

u get it, sure, it'll draw a little bit of attention away from the redness, but it's still part of the equation. So, it's basically everything that we said before. So, I just wanna show you the difference, before after, so you can be like, okay yeah. Yeah, that's true. So, I'm gonna bring you right out. And, let me just see. Sarah? Yeah. All right, perfect. I'm checking the name because I'm like, I look at her I'm like, I don't think she looks super red skinned so like maybe it's the right people? Just wanna make sure. (chuckles) You wanna start with the- Can I see the zoom reflector? Yeah. Let's go like mean. Avoid mean. Going hard light. How you doin'? I'm good. Good. Great. Excellent. So this is a silver zoom reflector. If you look on the end, we have something called bar and doors. They're completely irrelevant to what we're doing here. They're attached but they're open so they're not doing anything. This is the not nice. It's gonna be bright. You were cast 'cause you have like rosy cheeks and stuff? Yeah. So as I look at her, she's not going to be the example for blemishes and pimples, for example. But, the same thing with wrinkles. If she had blemishes and pimples, if you raise the light up it puts more shadows under them so it gives them more dimension. You turn to the side it puts more shadows under them. She's the example for color of skin. She's got a little bit rosier cheeks. What is the power at John? I dropped it a little bit. You wanna drop it all the way to four? It's 5/2 right now. Four. So with this zoom reflector what you'll be able to see-. Great. So if you take a look at her cheek on the right hand side it doesn't look too red but you can kind of see it. You see a little bit more of the redness in the skin. And just for you audience members, actually in camera they changed it a little bit for the screen. It's actually a little bit redder. The reason is smaller light source, contrasty light source, hard light source increases saturation, bumps it up, makes it look more red. That works fine. We're gonna do one really nice example at the end. That was good for the not nice one. Now we're gonna switch over and do our umbrella for me please. So as you notice, a lot these it's like, okay, these solutions are the same. And then you're like, Oh yeah, right? Whatever's closest. A lot of these things are repetitive but it's because it's the same core tools. It's just changing it for individuals to fit their features. Let's go really soft and really close. Great. And turn your body to the light. Beautiful. Lean your chest forward. And stick your chin out just a little. Down just a little bit. Great. And then John I will probably have you fill in a little bit. Lean forward just a little bit more even more. It feels awkward but it looks good. Yeah that was a nice blink. It's okay. Stick your chin out just a little bit more. Right there. Perfect. Okay, will you bring in that fill for me? Good. Relax your shoulders a little. Chin down just a little bit. And I wanna try one more. Okay, that's helpful. So you'll see in the first shot was a little darker so you see less of the redness because part of the face isn't visible. But if you actually look at it, the tones are a little bit more subtle but you're not gonna change those tones. This will be in post. So this is something that we're gonna look at in the last section. So just know you'll look at it and be like, oh the skin looks red. No, you're not necessarily doing anything wrong but one other tip that will help you is, I don't know if it's in my bag but if it is I'll show you guys later, the X-Rite Passport ColorChecker, there's other brands as well. But a ColorChecker. You'll have them hold it in front of their face, you take a picture, and it's got a whole bunch of different colors on it and what it does is it allows you to set a more accurate white balance because it is possible that your white balance is wrong which is why the skin might look too red. So that might be one reason why there's a shift. And I cover this stuff in my Skin 101 class. It's actually really easy to improve the white balance if you do that. But, if that's right and the skin still looks red it's probably just 'cause they have red skin. Let me do one more shot of you and then we'll let you go. And stick your chin way out. And give me a little smile. Good. A real smile. There that's good. Perfect. Cute. Alright, thank you. Thanks so much. Bye. (applause)

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Ratings and Reviews

Sharma Shari
 

This class was amazing! It was great seeing a demo class with real people. As a wedding photographer that specializes in offbeat/non traditional couples, it is always good to see how I can enhance all my clients beautiful features, and make them feel their best and confident when I am taking their photos!

a Creativelive Student
 

I was so excited to get the chance to learn from Lindsay live, and this course did not disappoint! The techniques she shared were insightful and straightforward. I felt like seeing them on different subjects throughout the day really helped to cement the concepts and grow my photography tools to bring out the best in those I'm photographing. I'm not a studio photographer, but the ideas apply in natural light as well.

maria manolaros
 

Great class! Impressive amount of tips on posing, lighting and photoshop techniques , a real good no nonsense approach by superb teacher. Numerous amounts of thumbs ups

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