I tried the last week, and I will try it again. If you have a unique setup or did something out of the ordinary, it would be awesome if you could share it with us. Most of us are in this to learn. I'll admit, all the techniques I have used I learned from other posts, articles, websites and books. I have only been in photography for about 6 months but I have been trying to become a sponge with everyone's great ideas.
So again....I will share what I did in the hopes that others will follow my lead.
In order to get this shot, the first step was to get my camera and 70-300mm lens on a tripod. My flash (sb600) was attached with a sync cord and laying flat on a pile of books pointing at a white foam board (from any crafts store). I filled a black storage container with water and hung a zip-lock bag filled with water a few feet above it with a clamp I bought for $1 at Home Depot.
I played around with my flash a bit and I don't remember what the final setting was. It was either 1/16th power with no compensation or 1/8th power with no compensation. It was also set to 1/200th to match my camera settings (which can be seen on the side in the EXIF info if you click on this picture). Once I had that all set up, I poked a hole in the zip-lock bag with a pin. This steady rate of drops allowed me to pre-focus on the spot where they were falling using a pen. Once I focused it, I shot a few to see what it looked like then clicked it on manual and left it alone. My shutter release was set to continuous and all I did was snap away. It seems more complicated then it really was. In photoshop I just darkened the black with levels and applied an unsharp mask.
Please share your techniques, post processing steps or any tutorials that you used to achieve your end result. WE CAN ALL BENEFIT FROM ONE ANOTHER!!! Everyone has something to share or a story that went along with your photo.
Here's are two I did as part of my 365 project about a week ago:
And here's the setup. It's pretty simple, but just a tripod with the 28mm f/1.8 attached to the camera and a remote shutter release. Then I placed a bowl of water (for the water shot) on the table with a black velvet cloth as the background and put a light up on the side, used some white foamcore to bounce on the other side, and then used the on-camera flash. Oh, and the shutter speed in both were 1/200 I believe.
Ok, to start, on my camera I have custom settings. One of my custom user settings I have the saturation all the way down and the contrast all the way down. It gives me soft, lightly colored photos. Then from there I add the vintage touch, and in this case, a pop of color.
Here's the original
From there I brought it into photoshop, desaturated it slightly and added a photo of just bokeh layered over it on Soft Light blending mode. Here's that one:
Then after that I brought it into picnik. Went to advanced settings, curves, and clicked on Reala 400 to burst the color a bit, clicked ok. Went back into curves and used the preset Yellow Fade. Before I clicked ok, I clicked on the small blue paint brush. This brings up the option to "colorize" what you've just done. Or basically just erase the setting you just made on it in certain areas. So I set the brush size to where it would work on the umbrella top and just painted (or erased) the yellow fade from the umbrella. That's all I did. You can also colorize this way in Photoshop by duplicating your layer and adding a layer mask after you apply whatever setting you want. It's just quick in picnik and I needed quick today.
:) There you go!
@mattyb Thank you so much for putting that on here! ive been so curious about how to do it, i read it and gave it a shot. :)
Its not as awesome as yours, but im pretty happy about it :)
@amyhughes Quick question about the bokeh layer? How did you get that layer? Did you make it in photoshop with a paint brush or did you actually do it with your camera?
And playing again with colours until I reached the one that I posted in my 365 projects. It is a matter of discovery and trial and errors hope I can do this again.
(Sorry I cannot figure it out how to put a photo from Flickr)
Set up took my DSC-90 camera stuck it on tripod set the self timer and run and jump.... my dog ran in at the last minute I guess she just had an eye to know where to line up
@mattyb Thanks so much for starting up this discussion. I'm right at the beginning of the learning curve (and better half is rather good at all of it, darn it) so I have a lot to pick up and am 'determined' to do so. This way I can speak his language and look just a bit clever. Gotta love that!
@amyhughes@marubozo@ddantic@chevymom Thanks so much for sharing your secrets! Will keep them in my "try me" file :) I have learned more from all of you on this site in the last 6 weeks than I ever did in workshops and by reading books. What a great community :)
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And here's the setup. It's pretty simple, but just a tripod with the 28mm f/1.8 attached to the camera and a remote shutter release. Then I placed a bowl of water (for the water shot) on the table with a black velvet cloth as the background and put a light up on the side, used some white foamcore to bounce on the other side, and then used the on-camera flash. Oh, and the shutter speed in both were 1/200 I believe.
This was the setup after my nut cracking attempt:
Ok, to start, on my camera I have custom settings. One of my custom user settings I have the saturation all the way down and the contrast all the way down. It gives me soft, lightly colored photos. Then from there I add the vintage touch, and in this case, a pop of color.
Here's the original
From there I brought it into photoshop, desaturated it slightly and added a photo of just bokeh layered over it on Soft Light blending mode. Here's that one:
Then after that I brought it into picnik. Went to advanced settings, curves, and clicked on Reala 400 to burst the color a bit, clicked ok. Went back into curves and used the preset Yellow Fade. Before I clicked ok, I clicked on the small blue paint brush. This brings up the option to "colorize" what you've just done. Or basically just erase the setting you just made on it in certain areas. So I set the brush size to where it would work on the umbrella top and just painted (or erased) the yellow fade from the umbrella. That's all I did. You can also colorize this way in Photoshop by duplicating your layer and adding a layer mask after you apply whatever setting you want. It's just quick in picnik and I needed quick today.
:) There you go!
Its not as awesome as yours, but im pretty happy about it :)
It was a bit tedious but at the end I end up with this.
in the beginning I took loads of photo of running water into a wine glass in the sink the until I able to have this photo
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5260/5388251293_53035b5108_m.jpg
Using photoshop I cropped that photo into this
And then I smoothed the background trial an error... playing with lights, contrast, hue, and other components until I reached to this point.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5015/5388252063_2efbfa8f5f_m.jpg
And playing again with colours until I reached the one that I posted in my 365 projects. It is a matter of discovery and trial and errors hope I can do this again.
(Sorry I cannot figure it out how to put a photo from Flickr)
http://365project.org/matejaseliskar/365/2011-01-19
Set up took my DSC-90 camera stuck it on tripod set the self timer and run and jump.... my dog ran in at the last minute I guess she just had an eye to know where to line up
One of my first shots:
Instructions on my facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=5551118&id=657401851