Firstly, what is a “low key” image?
Low key images are often described as dark, moody,
classy or even sinister
A broad definition is that low key images have plenty of contrast and dark tones. Images are often described as dark, moody, classy or even sinister. In the pre-digital days, getting the exposure correct on transparency film where the highlights that define the subject had to be light but not overexposed, was a challenge that involved careful use of light meters and polaroid. Modern cameras with immediate feedback and histograms, that show at a glance where the tones of the scene lie, have made things much easier, especially when you’re controlling the light source such as with flash or in a studio.
The natural opposite of low-key is high-key—lots of light tones like a bride in a traditional dress shot in a pristine white studio.
With “low-key” in mind I revisited a few of my images that weren’t shot with that in mind to see if I could Photoshop them to be darker, moodier and vastly different from what I originally shot. Playing like this always leads to new knowledge about the software, which feeds back into your photographic sensibilities next time you’re shooting. And it’s fun to see how far you can push pixels into places they were never meant to go.
The slideshow below can be enlarged with the button lower right.
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I posted recently about really looking at common things that are all around us. Here are a few examples of things I’ve tried to look at afresh over the last few days.
The greenery image is made from a picture I took of the leaves of a blackboy grass tree which is right outside my office window. I noticed how it looked late in the afternoon so I enhanced for emotion and didn’t concern myself with how it literally looked. I retouched for mood and colour. Click to enlarge.
I love shiraz. The label on the bottle I opened for dinner looked interesting side lit so I shot it with my desk lamp as light source, hand held 3200 ISO. Vignette, blurring and recoloured in Photoshop.
Way back in 1978 (yes, I said 1978!) I went to a photography seminar in Perth (Workshop 78—anyone remember those days?) and saw the legendary British photographer Sam Haskins (worth a Google if you don’t know him). Naively I asked him what sort of light he used for his pictures, as if it mattered. He tolerated my inane question and his reply “I use available light and by that I mean whatever is available”. I’ve never forgotten that. You don’t need fancy stuff to make pictures you just need to make pictures. Use the sun, a torch, a mirror, car headlights or $10,000 worth of studio flash. Judge the image not the tools used to make it.
Beautiful decay. Natural texture.
A couple of mornings ago I decided to halve a pear to dice and add to my breakfast cereal. By mid morning I noticed that the unused half (yes I’m lazy it was still on the chopping board) was starting to wither and I liked the texture and honesty. I put it outside for a couple of days to speed things up and photographed it tonight with a single off camera flash from behind with a small reflector fill. I like the Photoshop split tones on this one. The reduced colour range seems appropriate and I used a weathered background to push the ‘worn and wrinkled’ look I was trying to get.
Love these digital days—it’s so easy now to plan, shoot and retouch to get an image just the way you like. The only problem is that the world is filling up with amazing photos as more and more of us learn to shoot and use Photoshop. It’s getting harder to find an audience as we all click our way around the internet.
Still, I for one love this stuff. I’m blown away by how much fun it is to be a digital image maker.
Very short post today about photographing and Photoshopping some flowers (who hasn’t photographed flowers as “test shots” before).
I went out for a meeting this morning, grabbed my camera bag just in case. After the meeting I noticed some pretty looking tulips and other stuff in the garden bed outside the office. I spent about 20 minutes shooting. Tonight I downloaded and chose my favourites and tweaked and adjusted in Photoshop for a couple of hours. Fairly casual photography but I made a serious attempt in software to get something clean and pretty.
I just never tire of Photoshop—it gives me the inspiration to keep shooting pictures.
Anyway here they are. Hit the full screen button under the slideshow for bigger images. I decided not to show the ‘before’ pictures You’ll have to imagine the originals before retouching. Good luck.
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Photoshop: A temptation to change things digitally. Should I resist?
The Original
I spend some time down at the beach with camera and tripod and hungry mozzies. As the sky fades and the lights on the jetty start to show against the darkening sky I’m wishing there was more drama in the sky. Clouds = Drama. I’m never satisfied. Last night’s sky was fantastic but of course I didn’t have a camera or a tripod (or the mozzies) last night.
Anyway, I take my pictures and make sure I park the tones from the scene just where I want them on my histogram. Shooting RAW (of course). I want the best quality file to edit. Enhance, not fix, in Photoshop. I’m hunched over, chimping the little image and histogram on the camera’s LCD screen but even as I’m checking technical I’m thinking visual, “I’ll try a new sky in there”. I’ve got skies from other times.
I check the details. I’m thinking, “I’ll try a new sky in there”. Because I want to. Because I can.
Back home I download and back ‘em up to an external drive (that’s what you do isn’t it?) before looking through to check sharpness and choose the best for my initial edits.
Variation on a theme
Long story short: not only do I find and add a suitable dramatic cloudy sky into the pic, I decide I don’t really like seeing the dark beach in the foreground, so I extend the ocean right up to my toes. The retouching was so good I got my feet wet.
I’m going to teach how to do this in the next course I run. You won’t get wet feet.
I meet people who shudder at the thought of “manipulating what was there”. I meet other people who say “what’s the fuss?”. I’m not trying to deceive anyone or please anyone but myself with my images. I know which image I’m going to hang on the wall. If someone asks “is that a new sky in there?” I’ll tell them (and try to do a better job in Photoshop next time!). I wonder if the Pixel Police are taking my details?
A few years ago I ran a high quality portrait studio and retouched hundreds of images of people. They got the retouching they asked for after I showed what was possible. They got their image, their way. Sounds fair to me.
What do you think?
