Photography WIP

[GreenOne]

Spacemunkie: \" CMON is as much about photography as about painting itself.\"

Hi Y\'all.

I ve been thinking about my minis lately ( Hobbyists do that a lot I think.) and I taught that if my painting skills are developing at a pace I am happy with, my photo skills are really falling behind.
As any serious business involving my life-enlightening hobby would involve pictures, I think I should take time to fix that.

Anyway, here\'s a recent pic I took:

I used a borrowed camera that seemed pretty decent to me, with a lot of settings, manual and auto-focus and stuff like that. I can give you more details when I borrow it again. I had only one light with one of those new twisted white bulbs and a basic setup for holding the cam and creating the background.
I read the articles about photo, tough It\'s a lot to assimilate in one go. I used photoshop to ctrl+shft+L the pics.
Anyway, If you can pinpoint me the most obvious flaws in this picture, I will work on that base to improve my photo skills.

I will use this tread and a photo test mini and post here as I try to gather a good setup ( I\'m one of those \'handyman\' without much budget, you know...) and improve my pics...

So if any photo pros want to help, I may get to take decent picture of my decent minis.
And if anyone want to improve their photos too, feel free to join and make this a class of some sort :flip:

 

[Ogrebane]

I have a similar problem. I just cant seem to take a decent pic.

 

[matty1001]

I get pretty decent photos with just one light set up and a small light tweak in iphoto/photoshop.

 

[War Griffon]

If the camera is a decent one and you can borrow it for a few hours you should be able to get to grips with it, it will just mean taking lots of pictures and trying the different settings and getting the basics right.
I put an article together a while back showing several different set ups that I have used and now use, you can get away with table/desk lamps with halogen or daylight lamps in them as I have done in the past. My present set up uses a light tent/cube and two of the twisty photo lamps but you don\'t necessarily need to go that far.

Here is the ARTICLE

Worth a read if nothing else, also remember that macro settings have a distance limitation depending on quality of the camera and a tripod and timer or shutter release are deffinate pluses

 

[Shawn R. L.]

One thing I see alot, and this could just be a case of personal taste, is having background\'s that \'outshine\' the mini. Either the color is very vivid or is simply too bright. Sometimes the blue-white backgrounds are nice but often they are so pretty they steal strength from the paintjob. I like to think of the background\'s as a frame for a picture - there to surround and accentuate THE SUBJECT and not become the subject itself...Just my two cents worth.

 

[GreenOne]

I did a few more adjustments in photoshop, and I\'m starting to wonder if the program alone could solve my problems...
After experimenting with white balance, contrast and sharpness, I get that:

It\'s already much better than just Ctrl+shft+L.
But I get some pixelisation, anyone knows what does it and how to avoid it ?

 

[rosac]

can anyone (apart from uberdarks kind comments) help me with my daemonhost photos. I seem unable to make it look good!:~(

 

[Talion]

@Greenone looks like your not using a flash to me.

I haven\'t got a light box, and my photo\'s are no way near as good as most on here.

I use a flash on the Red-Eye Setting and then put a piece of toilet tissue over the flash just to diffuse the light a bit.

Your photoshop picture has been tweaked to much where the primary colours are starting to show through.

This is the best i could do with your photo

The image seems out of focus try using the macro setting or a higher res on the camera.

 

[EPStudios]

Some of the changes are based on preference... but most everything I did is pretty standard. Took me around 1 minute or less.

Basic things you should always do after photographing a new miniature...

1. Auto level
2. Smart Color Balance the white backdrop
3. Resize (if necessary)
4. Make sure the brightness and contrast are satisfactory.
5. Marvel in your improvements.

Mark

 

[GreenOne]

@Eps: lol, I like the frame setup... make it look I work for your studio..
And thanks for the compliment, good pics do help tell I am not just talking about getting better, I\'m doing something about it

@Talion: No flash, I read everywhere not to use it... I\'ll prefer to get better lighting.
Can you explain the macro setting stuff ?

@Rosac: Many people tend to overlook a post if it does not include a link or pic

Much better in both versions.
I guess mastery of photoshop will really improve those pics, I\'ll work a bit on this later.

In the meanwhile I think I got a decent setup, with light tent and all, all I need is a camera now
Maybe bigger bulbs too, do you think two 60w white are enough? ( Top and side.)
With lights and all I did it for under 60$, pretty cool^^

This will come handy soon since I have another submission coming soon

 

[Talion]

Most modern camera\'s have a maCro setting. This basically allows you to photograph close-up pictures in focus.

The symbol for Macro is

Look for this on the camera, you can then put your camera relatively close to the mini to get sharp focused, pictures.

As for the flash, unless you have a good lighting set-up I would recommend using it. If you use DullCote on your minis, you won\'t get any shine back from varnish or paint.

 

[GreenOne]

*Bump*

Hi Y\'all! Finally got a camera so it\'s time for me to work on my photo skills...
Actually, I am quite eager to submit my last work so I\'ll start with that.
Just to be sure I don\'t lose any points because of the picture I\'ll ask your opinion before posting.
So here are two series of pics, first is unedited, second not resized but edited to the best of my knowledge... I think.

So here is my screaming bell:

With balance and sharpen:

Well, I might do the final right away, but any tips or opinion will be useful anyway