Base Plate Lighting Tips
Lesson 32 from: Creating Your Reality with Composite PhotographyRenée Robyn
Base Plate Lighting Tips
Lesson 32 from: Creating Your Reality with Composite PhotographyRenée Robyn
Lessons
Class Introduction
09:16 2Why You Should Sketch Your Composite
03:25 3What to Look for in Your Background
10:51 4Posing Your Model
08:23 5Communicate with Your Team
10:34 6Elements of Compositing
31:36 7Learning from Failure & Criticism
12:27 8On-Location Safety Tips
03:42How to Nail the Right Perspective for Your Composite Photo
07:15 10Gauging Light & Exposure On-Location
03:49 11On-Location Posing
18:37 12Cliff Shoot Location Final Thoughts
12:03 13Tips for Culling Images
09:41 14Culling Images Q&A
11:29 15Preparing Your Image for Composite
07:18 16Composite Image Cleanup
11:01 17Adding Background Image to Composite
17:04 18The Difference Between Flow & Opacity
05:41 19Composite Sky Elements
20:58 20Using Curves to Color Match
05:43 21Adding Atmospheric Depth to Image
17:08 22Using Color Efex Pro to Manipulate Color
07:37 23Using the Liquify Tool
05:15 24Color Theory & Monitor Calibration
10:35 25Adding Smoke Layer to Image
07:55 26Selective Sharpening
05:18 27Crop Your Image
02:29 28Goal Setting for Digital Artists
04:39 29Review of Location Composite
01:57 30Understand Angle & Height for Your Base Plate Image
06:15 31Base Plate Focus Point
04:45 32Base Plate Lighting Tips
06:10 33How to Use a Stand-In for Base Plate Image
03:47 34Capture On-Location Base Plate Image
05:57 35Student Positioning Demo
09:05 36Base Plate Sketching
07:33 37On-Location Sky Capture
01:53 38What to Look for in a Base Plate Model
14:30 39Building Composite Model Lighting
10:03 40Composite Model Test Shots for Angle Matching
19:48 41Composite Model Shoot: The Art of Fabric Throwing
13:34 42Composite Model Shoot: Working with Hair
05:45 43Composite Model Shoot: Posing Techniques
21:26 44Composite Test with Final Shot
06:12 45Lighting Setup Overview
04:52 46Culling Model Shoot Images
03:35 47Adjusting Skintone Colors
04:54 48Merging Background with Model
04:54 49How to Mask Hair
09:49 50Creating a Layer Mask with the Brush Tool
14:23 51Creating Shadow Layers
07:10 52Removing Visual Distractions with Stamp Tool
07:11 53Replacing Sky with Layer Mask
05:15 54Drawing Hair Strands and Atmospheric Depth
10:30 55Creating Contrast in Your Composite
12:23 56Adding Atmospheric Elements
06:43 57Using Particle Shop
11:47 58Selective Color Adjustments
07:58 59Cropping, Sharpening, & Final Touches
10:29 60Closing Thoughts
05:52Lesson Info
Base Plate Lighting Tips
So understanding light. When you're doing a composite you need to have a great understanding of what light is, and how it behaves, and especially cause we're building it in the studio, so we're not shooting anything on location and then filling the light in like we did with the previous class. With this class we're creating completely synthetic light from nothing and then we're gonna use strobes, and try to emulate it as close as we can. And there's once again tons of different techniques, there is no right way from wrong way in my opinion. I have seen people pull this off with every lighting setup imaginable so, we're gonna go through just one option today (laughs). So don't think that what I'm teaching you guys this is like the only way that this can be done. You know, go out, educate, you know educate yourself and try a bunch of different stuff, and then you might find one that works really well for you. So in this case what we're gonna do in the video is you'll see we're gonna put ...
a person in there, and we're gonna basically study the light of what's going on around her, and we're gonna figure out how that works so cause when you photographing with an overcast sky, light's bouncing everywhere. Right, it's just this giant soft box that covers the whole space. So basically, we have this huge light source therefore our shadows are extremely soft which is kinda nice, cause I like soft shadows, I'm not really, I've never been the type of photographer that likes to photograph hard shadows. I appreciate it when somebody can do it well, I've just never been able to figure how to do it well and it always looks awful when I do it, so that's one of the things I'm working on. But in other case we have nice soft light today and we're just gonna try and wrap this around her, we have a pretty model coming in - she has mermaid hair oh my god, her hair is like down to here it's incredible. So we're gonna light this, we're gonna try and make her look as close as we can to the environment lighting with the equipment that we have available to us today. Does that answer your question? Perfect. Cool. So the other bonus of having a stand-in is I can understand how the light's gonna look on my subject. So in this case with this image we have really dreary flat-light, it's not very fancy, so that means in the studio I'm probably gonna add a fill light to the front just like how we did when we were shooting on location up at the cliff edge with the model, so I would probably add a similar effect to that in the studio, but I still need to understand how the environmental light is going to affect my subject. So when I have my stand-in, I can actually just go there, have the person stand in, and take picture of them and I can analyze the light that's hitting their body. The other side to that is if I don't have a model and I don't know what the lights gonna be doing I'm out by myself, I can hold my hand out in front of me, and then I can photograph my hand at whatever direction and then study the light of how it's affecting my hand, or if you have a bag or whatever, whatever it is that you want, we can add this into the shot and then study it afterwards. So basically just a slight expansion on what we just covered so you know, using the tools that are available to you. It actually is kinda nice like even on an overcast day, if you stick your hand out and then you photograph it at different angles, you're gonna see that the light's gonna affect it differently, even on a totally overcast day. In the sun it's even more obvious so and even if you have soft light you can sit there, and you can photograph it even with your iPhone or like whatever device you have, if you just wanna have a reference of how that light is gonna hit, and then how you want to replicate it in post-production so. Understanding light is probably one of the most important things to a photographer and especially a compositor. Let's take this a little bit further and tell me a little bit about how you first (stutters), some skills that you first came up with how to learn how to see the light. So actually that's a really good question. I'll just leave that open for now. How I taught myself lighting is actually I use it in one of my other presentations, I have a picture of a flower and I put it in the fridge. So I cleared out the top shelf of my fridge and this is like when I was still using a point and shoot, and I discovered the little flower setting on the camera so the macro setting, and so I put this flower into the fridge and I sprayed water on it, and I figured that the water droplets were kind of like eyeballs, and so then I started blocking off the light and understanding what happened with this mysterious catch-light thing that I had heard all about. So I started trying to understand how light behaved and it was in large, soft environment like an overcast day. And then I went to a studio, a friend of mine who's a DJ was like hey I need some photos but I don't have any money, I was like I have no skill, let's do this (laughs). And so a friend of mine, his name's Lane, he let me use his studio which was really awesome, it was my first time experiencing photographing studio lights. So a lot of people will say oh well you're a model so you must understand that. Let me tell you in my experience, it might not be this way for everyone but watching photographers do what they do well from a models' perspective for me was like watching Olympic level swimming, but having never put my feet in the water. So I knew what good technique looked like but I had no idea how to do it myself. It made no sense to me. So I showed up at my friend's studio and you know, we got my friend in there, and we had all the lights were set up and I was looking at these photos, and was like I took a picture and he had at the time this beautiful five-point lighting set up, I took this photo and I looked at my camera and I was like, I don't get it. I don't understand what's going on, this makes no sense to me whatsoever. So I was like okay if I'm gonna teach myself lighting, it will be one thing at a time. So I turned off all the lights except one light and then I started photographing it, and I took tons, and tons of photos with one light. And then I just went okay I kinda got this one light thing figured out, let's go to one light and a reflector. Let's figure out what that does and then I learned like butterfly lighting, and I was like oh my god butterfly lighting, that's really pretty. And then from there it went into two lights and a reflector, and then three lights and a reflector, and it went up, and so far to date the biggest lighting setup I've ever done is 16 lights. But it was literally from taking time and going one light at a time, doing as much as I could do with that one light so shooting hundreds of photos, thousands of photos with one light, and then going onto the second one, and going onto the third one, cause I knew that if I just jumped into it full on with like five lights, I was gonna be missing some serious fundamental stuff.
Class Materials
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Ratings and Reviews
Dino Maez
i have to say, the class was AMAZING! in every way from the tricks and technique's of mastering this art form to the personalized attention given by Renee. through the class you are able to learn information that would normally take the average person years of trial and error. Renee gives you the gift of benefitting from her her experiences and what she has learned THE HARD WAY! Renee is an outstanding instructor full of passion for what she does, and with a strong desire to not only improve the art, but more importantly, pay it forward, by sharing her knowledge with others. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the event in person, truly a once in a lifetime experience for me, the staff at creative live were THE BEST! they are helpful in every way and really made this event something special, i can't say enough about the experience i had and would highly recommend that anyone who has the opportunity to go down for a class, it will be an experience that you will never forget. but the best part of creative live is that wether you are there in person or wether you are watching from the comfort of your own home, you are involved in the class in REAL TIME, you have the ear and attention of the skilled artist giving the instruction, being there myself i can tell you that Renee was regularly given questions and comments from the viewers via the creative live staff and she would respond to them as they came, in that way you are very much apart of the class you are never left without getting that personalized attention of an amazing artist or that specific question you have answered, and even better you have the option to purchase the class and have it as a constant resource in your tool kit that you can refer back to at any point that you need a refresher or want to recall that special technique that was demonstrated. thank you thank you to renee and all the staff at creative live you have a life long member in me. and i would recomend that everyone take advantage of this valuable resource dino maez
stephen lenman
I have completed many creative courses. This is by far the best so far. Quite the most amazing and inspiring presenter with a true passion for their craft. The core information is excellent, but the thing i liked most were her subtle tangents, dropping incredible information completely on the fly. A complete real world honest view of business and practical side of the industry. Especially her advice on how she started to her business. Saving up enough in her day job so she could pay the rent, and do photography for 3-6 months.
Sheldon Carvalho
Awesome class. I've been following Renee for a very long time. I love her work and to finally see her work and get an image done from start to finish was quite something.. I love the way she sees things and the way she treats her work and all fellow creative. I would recommend this to everyone interested in getting into composting. Looking forward to creating and making my own art work. But it now :) Have fun creating. :)