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Lighting or Photoshop?

Will Keir

Will Keir

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Wondering how do achieve this "look."

Portfolio/Faces/1/

I really love the light on the faces, the vibrant and exciting feel for these portraits. Seems like a pretty simple setup yet captures the essence of the person, place and time. Was wondering if this look is achieved through the lighting or in photoshop?

If lighting, what is the setup to achieve this great look with interviews?
 
I'm working on a project with a very similar style, and I can achieve it within RCX if I light for it, though for stills it is much easier to achieve in Photoshop. It is very simple to do, it just takes some time to tweak to get the effect that you want.
 
Yep. 3 point lighting; soft-ish key, two hard rim lights. Alchemy, Clarity, or any local contrast adjustment technique will give you that edgy pop in post.
 
Seriously, if you give it an unsharp mask after alchemy it really drives it home, though noise looks artificially sharp with motion. For best effect you would roto the eyes and background out to clean it up.
 
Likely two Profoto, gridded, strip boxes are the highlights on the sides of the face. Key is likely a Profoto or Speedotron beauty dish, possibly a box. Highlights look a little crisp for heavy diffusion - but could be a silver box or umbrella. Possibly also a kicker involved. This was a very popular setup with commercial photographers a couple years ago. Actually we used it on a job where the DP was doing much more naturalistic stuff to what the photographer was doing. We probably should have pulled the photographer back.

Look at anything Jill Greenberg shot a few years ago to see the same look but more pronounced. Her look is a little edgier. I think she uses a ring flash for fill at times.

Obviously there was post involved in getting the look where the photographer wanted. So it was PS and lighting.

To get a similar look with video lighting is a little harder, controlling the spill from kickers can be tedious, especially with any movement from your subject. I usually go with a single or double kicker (R,L), Mickey diffused and go softer with the key than this. Options include foam core bounce, I have a wonderful 7ft parabolic, or there's the old chimera. Some sing the praises of Mole soft light. Getting those same highlights may require show card or a silver umbrella.

Hope this helps.
 
The result looks a lot like a beauty dish on top with two side kickers... But if you look in the reflection of the eyes, it appears it is just a big softbox with the photographer in front.

If you want to mimic this for video, a softbox or kino style light in front with two fresnels dialed down on the side would get you pretty close. Then add the "clarity" in alchemy for some local contrast on the grit.
 
Jimmy Gilmore said:
Likely two Profoto, gridded, strip boxes are the highlights on the sides of the face. Key is likely a Profoto or Speedotron beauty dish, possibly a box. Highlights look a little crisp for heavy diffusion - but could be a silver box or umbrella. Possibly also a kicker involved. This was a very popular setup with commercial photographers a couple years ago. Actually we used it on a job where the DP was doing much more naturalistic stuff to what the photographer was doing. We probably should have pulled the photographer back.

Look at anything Jill Greenberg shot a few years ago to see the same look but more pronounced. Her look is a little edgier. I think she uses a ring flash for fill at times.

Obviously there was post involved in getting the look where the photographer wanted. So it was PS and lighting.

To get a similar look with video lighting is a little harder, controlling the spill from kickers can be tedious, especially with any movement from your subject. I usually go with a single or double kicker (R,L), Mickey diffused and go softer with the key than this. Options include foam core bounce, I have a wonderful 7ft parabolic, or there's the old chimera. Some sing the praises of Mole soft light. Getting those same highlights may require show card or a silver umbrella.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

ditto
 
David, what is it your are doing? Would you mind taking a few screen grabs of the project please?

Drew Baird said:
I'm working on a project with a very similar style, and I can achieve it within RCX if I light for it, though for stills it is much easier to achieve in Photoshop. It is very simple to do, it just takes some time to tweak to get the effect that you want.
Click to expand...
 
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