Outdoor Shoot with Godox and Westcott

Over the weekend I did two shoots in my studio. I'd been wanting to shoot outdoors though because it was sunny. I live in Chicago where winter seems forever. I also wanted to test my Godox AD360 outdoor.  So the weekend shoots was a perfect way to hit two birds with one stone. Today I will be sharing my experience on those two shoots. Take note: this is not about posing, hair, makeup, or retouching. Think of it as my personal journal.

Saturday

I started my weekend with a shoot with the talented Ashley Brielle of Modelogic Midwest. After shooting three looks in the studio, we went outside at around 3pm. I brought my Godox AD360 (version 1) and Westcott Halo, along with my Canon 6D. It was a bright afternoon. According to the TPE iPhone app, the sun's elevation is at 46 degrees at the time of my shoot. To give you a perspective, golden hour is about at 6 degrees elevation (probably around 6:40pm).

Figure 1: The TPE iPhone App

Below are some of the images I captured in this session with a comparison of off-camera flash and natural light:

Figure 2: Lighting comparison.
These photos are not retouched except for basic Lightroom adjustments.

Notice how bright the scene was. I had La'Yanna, the hair stylist, held the Westcott Halo, while my wife, the makeup artist, blocked the sun from hitting the model's face.

Figure 3: BTS from Saturday's shoot

 Thought Process

1. Take a photo of the scene without off-camera flash. I tested how much ambient light I should cut off. I chimped and settled for my camera's max sync speed of 1/4000 (I wish I could go higher though).
2. On my LCD I can tell the ambient light is too strong at 1/160. So I set my shutter speed at 1/2000 and still looks bright. I set my shutter speed to the max sync at 1/4000. It looks acceptable.
3. I turned on my Godox and placed the Westcott Halo as close as possible to my model.
4. I took a test shot. The model is barely noticeable because my light's power is at 1/4. I decided to increase the power to 1/1. Now I see my model.
5. I took more test shots without looking at my LCD.
6. I reviewed the photos I took. A lot of shots didn't fire my Godox. I forgot at 1/1 power the recycle time is SLOW (even with the power cable splitter). The recycle time can vary from 2.5 seconds to 4.5 seconds. I guess I'm shooting faster than a second.
7. I took a couple of shots again. I got some good ones but still missed a lot. Then I learned my battery is about to die. It was my mistake to start with an almost 25% batter power. 
8. After the battery died, I decided to end the shoot.

Lessons Learned

• Bring extra battery packs
• Shoot during the golden hour so the ambient light is more pleasing
• Use a more effective modifier to concentrate the light, so I don't need to shoot at 1/1 power. Probably a Colt 45 from CheetahStand will do the trick
• Shoot at a slower pace

Sunday

The following day I worked with Kara Quinlan, also from Modelogic Midwest. After doing four looks in the studio, we went outdoor for the finale. This time I was "supposed" to be more prepared. I brought two fully charged battery packs and shot near the golden hour where the sun's elevation is at around 10 degrees.

Here's a comparison shot I took:

Figure 4: Lighting comparison.

These photos are unretouched except for basic Lightroom adjustments.

I had Lupita, the wardrobe stylist, held the Westcott Halo, while Nini, the makeup artist held the white foam core (not sure if that thing helped the shot).

Figure 5: BTS from Sunday's shoot

The thought process is the same as before. However I still missed a lot of shots. This is because of the slow recycling time of my light at 1/1 power and I was clicking the shutter really fast.

Lessons Learned

• Shoot slower 
• Get another Godox, so I don't need to shoot at 1/1 power
• Use a more effective modifier to concentrate the light
• Use a more powerful strobe like Einstein but at the hassle of using ND filters.  It's not terribly bad though

Here's a photo I took last year with my Einstein and an 11" Long Throw Reflector. I had a 4x ND filter here. The Einstein was probably using 90 watts of power.

Figure 6: Bonus image

Credits

Saturday shoot
Photography by Mark Serrano
Model: Ashley Brielle
Makeup by Vanessa Serrano
Hair by La'Yanna Kai

Sunday shoot
Photography by Mark Serrano
Model: Kara Quinlan
Makeup by Nini Jenkins
Hair by Regina Borsilli-Brown
Wardrobe by Lupita Castaneda and CiCi Colbert-Rich

Steampunk shoot
Photography by Mark Serrano
Assistants: Jesus Zendejas and Jessica Campoverde 
Model: Marta Monica 
Makeup and hair by Mariefel Lagatuz Westa
Wardrobe Styling by Q Phia Sherry / Ugo Serrano / Crisiswear 
Event Organizer: Amie Hana

Check my portfolio to see more of my work at www.markserranophotography.com

Debunking the Frequency Separation Myth

Frequency Separation aka "FS" is an overly abused technique among photographers and retouchers alike. It is an easy path to excessively retouched images because it gives us a false sense of safety.

What is Frequency Separation?

Frequency Separation (FS) is a Photoshop technique that splits an image into two layers: a high frequency and low frequency layer. The high layer is supposed to contain just the texture of the image, whereas the low layer contains the colors and tones of the image.

FS allows you to even out the tones and correct colors while preserving the texture of an image. It allows you to remove blemishes without affecting the tones and colors as well.

FS in action

Debunking the Assumptions

FS is overly abused. Simpler but standard retouching techniques like healing on a blank layer and dodge & burn are neglected as a result.

Look at Figure 1 below. Do you see any major difference between the top and bottom images? I don't. In both cases the texture is preserved. So why are we abusing FS when cleaning up blemishes?

Steps to replicate:

• Heal via FS: I ran FS and then created a blank layer on top of the high frequency layer. On the blank layer, I used a healing brush to remove the blemishes
• Heal only: I created a blank layer on top of the original image. Then I used a healing brush to clean up the blemishes.

Figure 1: Heal comparison with FS

Assumption #1

The low frequency does not contain any texture.

This isn't true because it varies per image. What is texture by the way? Texture in FS is often the fine, grayish lines you see in the high layer. If you do another FS using the low layer as your base image, you'd find it still contains texture. See Figure 2 below. There is texture in the low layer.

Steps to replicate:

• FS round 1: I set my Gaussian Blur at 1.8 pixels. I added a curve so we can see better the texture in the high layer (otherwise all you see are gray images)
• FS round 2: I deleted the background and high layers from the previous round. I used the remaining low layer as my foundation for running another FS. Again I set my Gaussian Blur at 1.8. Notice there is still texture in the low layer.
• FS at blur 16px: This one I used the original background as the foundation for FS and set my blur settings at 16px.

Figure 2: FS comparison

Assumption #2

The texture of an image is uniform.

The texture varies within an image. Sharper parts of the image have more visible texture. Less sharper parts will contain less texture, but it doesn't mean there is no texture. See Figure 3 below.

Figure 3. Exaggerated high frequency layer to show details

Assumption #3

You only need one round of FS.

Again if we go back to assumption #1 and #2, different parts of the image have varying levels of texture. So if you really want to maximize your FS experience, you'd need to set different blur values per part of the image you're targeting of. That means running FS multiple times.

Assumption #4

Dodge and burn in the low layer produces better results than doing dodge and burn separately.

See Figure 4 below. Do you see any difference? Again I don't see any difference. In both cases I dodged the shadow near the nose and the contour near the cheek for the sake of demonstration

Steps to reproduce:

• d/b method 1: I applied FS on my image. On the low layer, I created a dodge and burn curves. 
• d/b method 2: I created a separate dodge and burn curves

Figure 4. Dodge and burn comparison

Conclusion

Should we use Frequency Separation? Yes, but don't abuse it. Mastering the simple heal brush and the dodge and burn techniques will offer better mileage in the long run than FS alone. So when is FS best utilized? I'll leave that question open to my readers. Please comment below to answer.

Credits

Photography by Mark Serrano
Makeup by Vanessa Serrano
Model: Nikki Sterlinski

Check my portfolio to see more of my work at www.markserranophotography.com

Results from the Out of Chicago Portrait Conference 2016

Over the weekend I got the opportunity to be one of the speakers in the Out of Chicago Portrait Conference 2016. The conference was a three-day event filled with creative artists in the field of photography. The opening talk was presented by rockstar fashion photographer Lindsay Adler.

I taught a 90-min session on how to do practical retouching and a full day session that involves a beauty shoot and more intensive retouch demonstrations. For those who are not able to attend the conference, I'll give you a taste of the things I have taught. Some of the key things I emphasized in both sessions are:

• Retouching is not a solution to bad photography
• You need to know your lighting, composition, and how to build your team
• Master the basic tools in retouching: heal, dodge and burn, and color correction
• You can't fix what you can't see

Figure 1: Comparing different modifiers

Beauty Shoot Results

On the full day session I am supposed to demonstrate how to do a beauty headshot. I gave my students a treat by showing them how various modifiers can give varying looks.

We tried four setups. I used the following gear and settings in all setups:

• Canon 6D
• Tamron 70-200 VC
• f/11, 1/160, ISO 100 via Sekonic L-478DR
• White foam core as fill light
• Same distance and positioning
• No retouch except for white balance correction 

Note:  I usually shoot with a Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L II, but I used a Tamron here because the Tamron guys were offering lens trial from the event. I had to bump the ISO to 200 with the speedlite because I'm too lazy to manually adjust the speedlite's power.

Setups (see Figure 1):

1. Cheetah QBox 24" with Einstein E640 
2. $7 shoot through umbrella
3. Bare bulb Einstein E640 
4. Yongnuo 560-III with Rogue Flashbender XL

We were expecting the images would look horrible on setups 3 and 4, but we were mistaken. The results were better than we expected! Also the $7 dollar umbrella performed really well. Most people I asked liked the umbrella a lot.

Retouch Results

After the shoot, I asked the model to choose the photo she likes from the shoot. My students narrowed it down further, and so we ended up with the following image. This was shot with the Cheetah QBox 24".

Figure 2. First version: Before and After with Nikki

The process:

• We identified first the problems with the image
• In Photoshop, we applied the basic techniques in retouching: heal, dodge and burn, and color correction
• It took me an hour to retouch the image. This includes responding to questions and giving feedback.
• After the retouch we agree the image looks great and still looks natural
• We know there are still flaws that can be fixed. The idea is to take a break first. Ask a friend to review the first retouch. Take the feedback. Do another cycle or two more cycles until we've refined the image. 

Credits

Photography by Mark Serrano
Makeup by Vanessa Serrano
Model: Nikki Sterlinski

Check my portfolio to see more of my work at www.markserranophotography.com