This is the final version of this photograph of lemon confit I did recently. It was lit with strobe lights, camera on tripod with a long shutter speed (1.5 sec.) to get the evening light outside the window. It's been cropped and corrected in Photo Elements, which I will discuss next, but here is the lighting set-up:
This photo was taken with my point and shoot with the strobe modeling lights left on so that I could show how the lights effected the subject. When I took the photo, I turned off the strobe modeling and room lights so that the only available light was the evening light out the window.
The final photo I chose has a fill card in front to the right, but not too close, I like the contrast of the dark and bright salt areas—it looks more natural and less like a studio shot. Here are 3 uncorrected versions: #1—no fill card; #2—fill card to the left about 1 foot away; #3—Fill card closer, just inches away from the bowl
These 2 images above are from the same file. The first is the uncorrected file right out of my camera. The second is the file created in Photo Elements. The first thing I did was color correct the yellowish cast by using the "eliminate color cast" tool, reading an area in the salt to get a true white. I try and get the color balance right before shooting, but sometimes when mixing different temperatures of light, I get it wrong.
Then when I cropped the image to my liking, I found the dark vertical bar on the far left and top distracting, so, using the "rubber stamp" tool, I copied some of the blue light areas pasting them to eliminate all the black from the window frame and some other glare spots on the window glass.
Next I turned to the " burn & dodge" tools to lighten and darken small areas. I love these and use them almost always. They remind me of my darkroom days and wish it had been this easy to do back then. I lightened the sky and jar base and darkened all of the glass areas where the glare made it look milky. I also darkened all around the jar base and corners, something I always do to keep the viewer's eye focused on the subject.
Finally, I corrected the lighting levels slightly and added just a little contrast. I think this shows best in the glass top and salt areas where it gives the image a little POP (don't know the technical term for "POP" but it's what a little extra contrast does).
What I didn't do is touch the saturation levels. I recommend extreme restraint when it comes to increasing color saturation—we don't want food that looks radioactive. In fact, as far as correcting photo files, you shouldn't have to do a lot to them. You'll get a better quality image if you spend more time on getting the original file as close as you can to being perfect, which of course nothing and no one is, so don't be hard on yourself and have fun.
B
Nice walkthrough, Donna! I'm not in the realm of artifical lighting (yet? ever?) but this was a great read.
I used to crank up saturation levels to really get colors to pop for web viewing. Now that I'm printing more and more photos, I dial saturation down if anything -- especially on yellows and reds which can visually dominate the frame. Totally agree with you there.
Not familiar with Elements, but does it not have a RAW editor to let you choose your color temp, instead of using a clunkier menu option?
Now, about that reflection in the glass... 😉
Eric F
Managing reflections in the glass is very hard, especially when photographing with strobes. How do you best avoid unwanted reflections of lighting/camera equipment?
Alanna
So this is what's wrong with digital photography. Here you are, a professional photographer with good equipment, good lighting, the willingness to turn your dining room into a studio, lots of experience and more than a little talent -- and you still have to resort to Photoshop/et al for more than cropping. I'm willing to bet that if people were to walk back through their few print shots from inexpensive 35mm point and shoot cameras from the early 2000s compared to their volumes of images from digital cameras from all price points, their memories are far better recorded by the old technology than the new. Digital cameras have a long long long way to go to catch up with real life.
JB in San Diego
I disagree with Alanna - I think the eye-brain photo processing engine is more powerful than the camera can emulate. Your memories of an image are usually more rich than what can be captured on film. An artistic eye and Photoshop are critical to recreating the human perspective of a digital image.
Nancy
Donna,
Thank you for posting this. I am a beginning photographer and blogger and I cannot tell you how useful your posts on photography are. I truly appreciate you taking the time to put together posts such as this.
Donna
OK—Here I go. It all comes down to how serious you want to get. How much time are you willing to spend to understand how light works to get better photos? How much money are you willing to spend to get a professional looking photo no matter what time of day or location you're given.
My last blog post was all about available light and learning to work with it. No strobes were used and I didn't need Photo Elements because I set my white balance on sunlight—free sunlight. You can get great photos that way even with a point and shoot but you're going to be limited when given certain situations that aren't typical and evenly lit.
The old days with film had they're limitations too. You couldn't see what you were getting for sure, you had to spend an incredible amount of time in the darkroom to do the same manipulations you do now sitting at you desk. Transparency film or slides?—man—you'd have better had everything perfect because they were unforgiving. Why do you think they sold tungsten, daylight and other color temps for the film. And you had to shoot a whole roll before you could switch—which was easy because you needed to bracket your exposures like crazy taking up to five of the same scene—if you wanted to get the BEST exposure, which many times is not what an automatic camera will give you. If the scene changed before you could do that? Good luck.
No—getting good or great photos consistently has little to do with equipment. It's the time you're willing to shoot and shoot and shoot to understand how light works, then make it work for you under any circumstances. And that should be fun for you to do— if you really care about getting better images. If it ain't fun and you don't want to do it—that's OK—just don't be disappointed when your photos just look—OK.
Donna
Responding to Eric's comment:
Reflections are tricky—especially on rounded surfaces. If you think about it, with a curved surface you're not ever going to get the reflections out no matter where you put your lights. By putting them to the sides and not letting too much light fall on you or your equipment, you can eliminate most, but if there are no reflections the subject is going to look flat—so you live with the ones you can't get rid of. . . and then there's PhotoShop.
Donna
Responding to Alanna's comment:
And who says real life is always beautiful?
I love my shots that aren't manipulated at all and are beautiful because they look real, but I do like the option if I want of making them better if there's something that's distracting me from just seeing the subject in all it's natural beauty.
Michael Long
Donna, I think your doing a wonderful job with your photography... I have a degree in photography, from many years ago. We had to start with the old 4X5 negatives, and one of the first projects to do in black and white was to take sugar and make it look like snow, After we were able to do that, We had to learn lighting by photographing the cube with a 3:2:1 ratio. Which will burn out a few brain cells, But you came out with a better understanding of lighting. Then we had to do the darn cube in a glass container, So your dealing with reflections along with keeping textures. And did it all without the photo editing programs that are out there today... We were also, demanded or commanded to Never use the word "Shot A Picture or Shot a Person" we always photographed them... Oh those were the days,
Sorry about the rambling on about photography... I was a passion, now my cooking is. I thank your doing a wonderful job behind the camera, Keep up the good work, and Tell Michael to keep up the great writing, I'm an avid follow of you both,
Thank you so much,
michael Long
Donna
Oh Michael—I knew one day someone would comment on saying"shoot" and "shot" and I'd have to make an effort to come up with something else then photograph. My Michael commented just recently that I say it a lot—and not just when referring to photography—I'll say, "I'll just shoot downtown and drop that off", for example. I hate to write or type the world photograph because I almost always have to go back and respell it—too many "O"s or reversing the ph at the end. Maybe I can abbr. Something like, " When I phg. that apple . . "
bunkycooks
Thank you so much for posting this. My hubby has been helping me with all the food photography stuff and we are struggling to get photos that have that "pop" and correct white balance. They look great when we are taking them and then they just are missing something when transferred to the computer! We just bought Elements 8 and my hubby is trying to figure all that out. I will forward this post to him. I know that it was very helpful for me. Maybe we can transform our photos to look like this one!
Donna
When I started using Elements about 3 yrs. ago, I knew nothing because I had just started using a digital camera. In fact, I just started using a computer. I hired a college student to come over to my house ( I hate reading manuals) and in just 2 half hour sessions she had me using the basic tools and I was able to take it from there. I love iPhoto, but you can't burn & dodge in selected areas and I think doing that really helps an image.
bunkycooks
Donna, thank you for the reply. We actually have a photographer that works in a camera store coming next week to help us in our home. I wish we had thought about a college student. It might have been less expensive! I am hoping that 2 hours will do the trick! This way he can see what we are doing, what our light situation is, etc.
Natalie Sztern
Donna this is just up my alley as someone who is getting into photography: the ability to use Photoshop...being in the market for a new computer can u explain the virtues of a Mac when it comes to your work as opposed to just loving Mac...I struggle with spending that kind of money on a computer - however if photographers rate the mac for precisely what you speak about on a 'no-comparson' level I would consider it highly.
Barbara
I'm not new to food blogging; if considering a recipe website I started 14 years ago counts...but am sure new to the whole photography bit and for the most part it's been a lot of trial and error (mostly error I think).
I've always enjoyed Michael's efforts...first known to me from his judging on Iron Chef but I must tell you that I've been cooking for...well, ever, so your information is invaluable to me Donna and I thank you so much for sharing even if this post is a little scary.
When I first started with food photography, I was adamant...this is not going to take over my kitchen...and it hasn't because it's starting to take over my dining room! It owns a nice size corner with a utility table, tiles for flat surfaces, white board and more but it appears it's a natural progression from your picture to just turn the whole room over...so a bit scary but at least I would be in VERY good company!
Guy
I hope I don't come across as a shill, but a few years back I took a couple of Nikon School classes -- they travel around the country to various cities. I found the classes great...they aren't specific to Nikon cameras, but they do use Nikon cameras for examples.
The classes have since been reconfigured, but the "part 2" course was extremely good -- they talked about color calibration, white balance and all sorts of advanced digital topics. http://www.nikonschool.com
The Chef In My Head
All good things I am trying to learn. Thank you so much for the post, very educational! ~LeslieMichele
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