Smoke

[jellotranz]

I figured this would be really easy.. Not as easy as it looks! I'll have to try again when I have more time, I ended up getting alot of light spill over to the background.

[Mad Aussie]

I'd give you some advice ... but I've never tried this myself Interesting colours.

[jellotranz]

Interesting colours.

Interesting as in cool, or interesting as in "Wow that third arm you have coming out of your back is really interesting..." I ask becuase I can't see the colors so I really have no idea what it looks like.

[Marko]

A decent attempt and nice colours but way too soft. The focus is hard in shots like this as it's normally done in the dark. I've done this before and prefocused in the light. It's still hard....but fun.

Did a podcast on this one a while back. Here it is again in case people are interested. http://www.photography.ca/blog/?p=155

[jellotranz]

I think my biggest problem is that I was getting spill over from my flash onto the backdrop (I was doing it in my living room where I don't have much space) so when I increased the black levels so you didn't see the background, I lost detail in the smoke. I think thats why it looks soft as I did prefocus in the light but who knows..

Oh and it was the podcast here that made me try it.

[jellotranz]

On second thought.. You might be right. Maybe I bumped the focus ring at some point during the shoot and got the focus off as my first ones which didn't look good due to the type of smoke I was getting are much clearer than this one. Welp try again another day.

Thanks!

[Mad Aussie]

Interesting as in cool, or interesting as in "Wow that third arm you have coming out of your back is really interesting..." I ask becuase I can't see the colors so I really have no idea what it looks like.

Interesting as in 'wow ... so you married your mother huh?'

Naaah I mean interesting as in I really have no idea how you got different colours in there at all!!

[jellotranz]

Naaah I mean interesting as in I really have no idea how you got different colours in there at all!!

The colors were easy. Once I shot the picture, I Inverted the image. Then I choose Hue and Saturation and changed the hue which changed the color of most of the smoke. Then I selected at radom areas using the selection tool (feathered the selection 30 pixles) and then re-ran the Hue filter and changed the color. I did this 5 times or so. I wasn't sure how it turned out as I can only see the pinkish color.

[Mad Aussie]

ah ok. I thought it was a non PP effect somehow.

[Michaelaw]

I think my biggest problem is that I was getting spill over from my flash onto the backdrop (I was doing it in my living room where I don't have much space) so when I increased the black levels so you didn't see the background, I lost detail in the smoke. I think thats why it looks soft as I did prefocus in the light but who knows..

Oh and it was the podcast here that made me try it.

This was the first hazard I experienced in my first attempt at this stuff. Black backdrop with lint and cat hair... All of it got lit by the flash and black levels in post were not doing me any favors. For me it was not a one time sit down done kind of job...I'll have to do it agian