Controlling Light

[Phil]

That's pretty much the name of the game in photography to begin with, but it sure seems hard sometimes. The subject has definitely given me fits in the past, especially when it comes to using flash.

Anyway, last night I decided to make my own little homemade snoot type thingy and see what I could do with it. I think they came out OK for a first try, though I'm not completely satisfied. I have a new appreciation for people who do this stuff for magazines, catalogs, etc., every fingerprint or bit of lint shows up!

 

[Rich Rohrich]

You're still doing way better than most of us Phil. :)

I've been trying to shoot this sort of stuff lately and what I've produced so far has been too embarassing to show in public. :bang:

I need to go to Texas and have Okie teach me how to do it right. :cool:

 

[Okiewan]

Nice!

There is NO WAY to clean items well enough before the shot.
This is about 5 minutes worth in post. Just try to get stuff reasonably wiped off (non-lint!), catch the rest later.

Lil color work thrown in just because. Nice shot Phil.

 

[Phil]

Okie, I love what you did with that. Post processing is not my strong point. Can you walk me through exactly what you did here?

 

[Okiewan]

That was an easy one Phil ... since it's ALL black, except the scope marking. Black requires a neutralize, it usually gets a red/magenta cast like yours did, or Blue/Cyan from lighting. In this case, since the subject and back ground are both black;
1) Duplicate the base layer
2) Convert it to black & white
3) add a mask to that layer
4) Paint the color from the bottom (original) layer back in where you want it to show through.
5) Clean up was just with the healing brush

Done.