Tag Archive for: photographer

Getting outrageous skies without Photoshop but with gels

/in , /by

Color manipulation is fun, get outrageous skies without Photoshop

Today another part in our series on color and color manipulation.
part I
Part II

We all love easy to do tricks of course, so I thought today would be the perfect time for just such a tip.

When we look at the color triangle we can see that all colors are connected through the white point.
We talked about this in the first blogpost in this series.

This also means that we can manipulate our white point by choosing a whitepoint that is way off the black body curve and choosing this as a new white point.
So let’s take a look at how this works in real life.

Look at those skies

Let’s take our model Lois on location.

Yeah, well….
There is nothing wrong with this shot but it isn’t really popping right?

So first let’s add some strobe power.

Ok that’s a LOT better, love the sky and the model really pops out.
But what if….we want to push the creative factor up.
Let’s add a green gel to our strobe.
You can use the Rogue magnetic system for this.

Of course it’s vital to shoot a color checker for this.

Now click on the whitebalance part and look at what happens.

Don’t you just love the effect.
In essence it’s very easy what happens.

Normally the white point is on the black body curve.
By using a green gel on the strobe we are now placing the white point above the black body curve, by correcting this to the correct white point everything else drops down, meaning white becomes more magenta. Enhance the colors a bit in your favourite editor and you can have loads of fun with it.

 

An extra tip

As you have read Key is the luminance of a color.
This means that if you don’t have a correct exposure of your shot the colors will not look accurate.
Now of course sometimes you want a more moody look, but it’s important to understand the basis of color to be able to manipulate them the way you want.

To be able to judge your colors correctly you need a proper workflow.
For me this contains a lightmeter and colorchecker.
This means I get my exposure correct and with the colorchecker I can create a profile and white balance for that series.
And do remember this is just to get all the images looking the same so that all the presets you run or anything else in your workflow has an expected outcome.

On the side of the monitor I’ve been using BenQ monitors for years and can highly recommend them.
They have a great line up of professional monitors and a great line of P3 colourspace monitors (in between sRGB and Adobe RGB) for very affordable prices.
Besides great quality most BenQ’s also support hardware calibration. Which means you don’t calibrate your operating system but straight into the monitor.
This is a much better way of calibrating your screen than via standalone software and of course the software is delivered for free.
We have a few 10% discount codes for our European vistors, please contact me for more info.

Working with colors and gels is fun

/in , /by

Colors evoke emotion

Today is the first blog post in a series about color and color manipulation in photography.
We are going to talk about color theory, how to manipulate colors, and how to use gels in a super creative way.
So keep coming back and subscribe to the blog. This part I

Color manipulation

Colors are all around us and are for a large part responsible for how we experience a product or scene.
Think about the movie Titanic in normal colors, instead of the fitting brownish tint.
Or how about the tinting used in The Matrix where green was used inside the Matrix?

Now think about this.
When you are 5 miles below sea level in a concrete bunker,  you turn on the light.
What color is that light?

Most people will answer Blue or are in doubt.
In essence, you don’t have to doubt, you are in a concrete bunker so the light is… well just the same color/temperature as it would be above water.
So why is the Abyss, and almost every underwater movie filtered blue?

Easy to explain, we immediately get a feeling that we are indeed underwater.
And you probably also feel cold 😀

Colors evoke emotion.

Learned or emotional

Now the following is not scientific (I guess) but I use it all the time during workshops.
When we talk about colors and emotion we can expect the following.

Red

Hate, warmth, love, warm, cozy, danger, etc.
The funny and interesting thing is that Red covers both emotions that trigger us, hate and love.

Blue
Cool, distant, uncertain, future, empty, sterile

Green
Now with green, I have to be honest that I don’t have a real emotion.
Of course, we have associations like envy or nature and some people will say calm.

Red is special

This is also why I love using the color red in my photography.
And you can even find it back in our logo. It’s a color that is very versatile.

 

Today we take a look at some images we took from Lois during a recent workshop where I’m using a blue gel as an accent light

 

As you can see I’m using “normal” white light as my main light and as an accent I’m using a Rogue Blue gel on our magnetic system.
The advantage of these gels is that they are thick and give a beautiful deep saturated color, which makes the trick I’m using a lot easier.

Which trick?

When we look at the color triangle we see the colors Red, Green, and Blue.
And in the middle we see the so-called black body curve.
This is where the “white points” are located, a lower color temperature is a warmer white, and a higher color temperature means a more blue color tint.
For calibrations, we use D65 for most photography/video applications.

color manipulation

Just for fun. When you draw a line from the primary color (RGB) through the white point you end up on your secondary color (CMY).
You often see CMYK and K is actually the Key of that color, meaning the brightness, in printers, this often means a Black module, but the K is actually called Key.

By knowing how colors interact we can do some really cool things.
Today I’m showing you something really easy that you can do yourself.

Use one light source with white light and one accent color preferably blue or red.
Now the only thing you have to do is change the color balance in your RAW convertor and you can get some really funky effects like these below.

Because you are using white light and a deep blue you can create a beautiful mix. But if your client doesn’t like the “cool” look you can always go back. This is not possible when shooting with 2 gels.

Color Manipulation color manipulation

An extra tip for color manipulation

As you have read Key is the luminance of a color.
This means that if you don’t have a correct exposure of your shot the colors will not look accurate.
Now of course sometimes you want a more moody look, but it’s important to understand the basis of color to be able to manipulate them the way you want.

Must-have for color manipulation is the right gear

To be able to judge your colors correctly you need a proper workflow.
For me, this contains a light meter and color checker.
This means I get my exposure correct and with the color checker, I can create a profile and white balance for that series.
And do remember this is just to get all the images looking the same so that all the presets you run or anything else in your workflow has an expected outcome.

BenQ

On the side of the monitor, I’ve been using BenQ monitors for years and can highly recommend them.
They have a great lineup of professional monitors and a great line of P3 colorspace monitors (in between sRGB and Adobe RGB) for very affordable prices.
Besides great quality, most BenQs also support hardware calibration. This means you don’t calibrate your operating system but straight into the monitor.
This is a much better way of calibrating your screen than via standalone software and of course, the software is delivered for free.
We have a few 10% discount codes for our European visitors, please contact me for more info.

 

Check this link for part II about Color Manipulation

In our latest video: Inside the Model Shoot we also work with colors and manipulate them

 

 

The Geekoto lantern in action

/in , , /by

Today we get to see the lantern in action

You’ve been asking a lot about the lantern. So for today I thought it would be nice to share a video in which I show you the difference between a standard softbox with grid and the new Geekoto lantern.

As you can see they both give totally different looks.
The softbox with grid is great for high-contrast photography and a moody backdrop.
The lantern opens up the background and can still be placed close to the model for top to bottom shots.

You can get the gear I use on our webshop

 

 

A cool behind the scenes during a fashion shoot including all the info free tutorial

/in , , /by

A behind the scenes look

This is how digital classroom started.
Just a webcam starting in the morning and ending when we were done, and I could hardly believe it but some people stayed awake the whole day, which for them was actually night time.

Although this was fun, it was not really something we could do often due to the very bad internet quality.
A few years later we wanted to start the live streams again but in a different format, a 3 hour live semi workshop.
At that moment we had to stream via a satellite uplink, which mostly meant I was worried almost the whole episode, because just one fat cloud and it would fall below the range of YouTube which meant “lost connection”.

Nowadays everything has changed.
We are now streaming with 4 live cams, we have a chat running where people can ask questions and of course we are now streaming via a super fast fiber connection.

Digital classroom has grown

Digital classroom now is totally different from when we started, but we are continuously looking at ways to make it more interesting for you guys. And the first thing we did was shorten the episode length to 90-120 minutes (3 hours was too long).

And of course we can’t do it without the support of our sponsors. So let’s give them a big shout out.

BenQ :
Great monitors for designers, photographers and video.
Without a doubt my choice for monitors.
And they sometimes have great offers for our viewers, like a 10% discount for all EU customers (mail us for the coupon).

Rogue :
We’ve been working with Rogue for almost as long as I shoot models.
The Flashbender is probably the product I’m the most involved in, but Rogue is the kind of company that really listens to their ambassadors and create awesome products. I use the flashbender and magnetic system in almost all my shoots.

Geekoto :
Awesome compact strobes, with great easy to setup softboxes.
And for the price, it’s almost unbelievable what they deliver. I’m very picky and have been shooting with them for over 2 years now and didn’t have any issues at all.

Calibrite :
I always advise to get a proper calibrated workflow, and Calibrite delivers all he goods you need.
I’m using their colorcheckers and analysers to get proper colors in my workflow.

Cascable :
When you see me shooting live there is a 99% change you see me using an iPad Pro, and on the iPad Pro I’m running Cascable, without any doubt my favourite tethering solution for iPad, it’s super fast and reliable, just what a I need under stress.

IQwire :
Tethering is showing your images directly on a large screen while shooting.
IQwire delivers the fastest and most reliable tethering cables and a complete defence system for camera, laptop/desktop and cable.
Available in 5-10-15 meters length (I’m mostly using the 15mtr which makes it possible to move around my whole studio without ever tripping over a cable.

ClickBackdrops :
We started with a signature series and I ended up with my whole studio filled with their amazing backdrops, and eventually we started selling them (they are just too much fun). Available in almost any size and in 2 materials. Vinyl for sharp and “harder” prints and ProFabric, which mimics the old canvasses we all love but can’t afford 😀

Most of these products we now also sell in our webshop at frankdoorhof.com/shop so make sure to check it out.
The reason we chose these brands to work with, or sell, is that they are designed FOR photographers/videographers/designers instead of designed for the photography market (a huge difference in usability).

Ok…
Let’s go straight to the brand new episode of digital classroom with our model Claudia.