Category: Lab Exercises (Page 2 of 6)

Pick any photo that you will be including in your final project presentation.

Please consult Week 7’s topic page on Global corrections for more detail.

Make global corrections:

1. Crop and adjust the geometry
2. Adjust the white balance if necessary under the color tab
3. Adjust the exposure using the histogram under the light tab
4. Under effects, adjust the clarity.
5. Under color, adjust vibrance.

Put the before and after versions of your photo in a gallery block into a post on OpenLab. Include a list of the adjustments you made to the photo.

While not a traditional portrait lighting style, windows are great for creating silhouettes.

Create a profile silhouette of yourself in front of a window.

If you are working with a cameraphone, this will take a bit of coordination. Set the exposure for out the window. Bring your result into Lightroom (mobile or classic).

Lightroom App

At a minimum:

Straighten it with Geometry. Under Light, bring down the blacks.

Lightroom Classic:

Use Transform to straighten. In the basic panel, make the blacks darker.

Post to Openlab with a description of your process. What did you have to do to get a clean silhouette? Don’t forget to reduce the files size of your jpgs before posting.

Category: Lab: Week 13 – Silhouette

Review the portrait lighting styles: Rembrandt, Broad, Short, and Split light.

Standing close to a window, create a self-portrait in each lighting style. Put them into a post with the category below. Clearly label each one with the lighting style and write a short description of the lighting style in your own words. Answer the questions: Which lighting style was most difficult to create? Which gave you the best result?

Category: Lab: Week 13 – Lighting Styles

Working very near a window, take a series of 8 self portraits. Not Selfies. Each image should convey a mood or a feeling. Your photos should use light, expression and the relationship between you and the surroundings to be expressive. No props. If you have curtains or venetian blinds, you may use them as elements in the photos.

Expression is important but it isn’t everything. Consider the position of your head, if the background is light or dark, how much contrast there is to the light.

If you are very close to the window and there are no other lights on in the room, you should be able to create a shot with a black background and high contrast. The further away from the window you are, the more even the light will be and the lower the contrast will be.

Variables to experiment with:

• Head position: front view, 3/4 view, profile
• looking at the camera and looking away from the camera
• high and low contrast
• low key and high key – (most of the tones are light or most of the tones are dark)