Q&A
Araya wrote me a couple questions I thought I’d share….
Q: Do you shoot in RAW?
Always. The amount of data preserved in a raw file is paramount to the amount of data preserved in a actual film negative.
People may not like the looks of a raw file straight out of the camera, because it is just that. Raw. You have to know how to process your raw files correctly to get what you are looking for out of them. Adobe Lightroom is my favorite program for processing raw files. It lets you make the adjustments without actually changing the files, so if you screw something up you can always go back to where you started if need be. Learning a non-destructive work flow is a very important thing.
Q:What camera do you shoot with? Lenses?
As long as you know how to work your camera and lights a $1000 camera works just as good as a $8000 camera. Good glass matters most if you are shooting for huge prints and need super fine detail, but decent glass works for everything else very well.
The things that a professional camera and top of the line glass do are far more than the average person needs.
Q:It looks like you do a significant amount of Photoshopping on your photos. Do you use the Diffuse Glow filter a lot?
I actually do very minimal post work on most of my images. I don’t even know what the diffuse glow filter is. I would recommend that you never get in the habit of using “canned” plugins. If photoshop doesn’t have it built in, don’t rely on it. Since I have to edit on many different computers I stick with the tools I know are there.
Most of what you see in my images are in there when I take the picture. Shallow DOF and soft focus are tools that photogs have been using since before photoshop, and knowing how to use lighting to make things look the way they do will get you farther than photoshop.
I basicaly do color correction and fix skin blemishes, undereye bags and stuff like that. If you add contrast it tends to make the model look less flat…things like that.
Here are two examples; a image with a lot of post work, and one with minimal. Notice that even on the heavily photoshopped image I barely touched the model.
Learn about how to get the shot you want at the zivity bootcamp.
About the author - I am Godzilla. You...are JAPAN!!!! Read more from this author
