Brandy Dykes Photography
Lifestyle Photography & Mentoring
Working with underwater photos in Lightroom
Posted on July 11, 2018
Now that summer is here, we are spending a lot of time in the pool or in some kind of water. The kids can spend hours swimming, but frankly, I get a little bored after about 20 minutes. So, I decided to purchase an underwater housing bag for my DSLR to keep myself entertained. I wasn’t ready to invest in legit housing so I opted for the Zonman DSLR Waterproof Pouch on Amazon. It was a little complicated to work with, but it got the job done! I was able to take lots of pictures of my kids in the pool and even swimming in the ocean, all while keeping my camera safe and dry. This takes lots of shooting, so be prepared for a bunch of crazy throw away images and a few decent ones!
Now comes the issue of editing underwater images. When you photograph underwater everything tends to be very blue/green and a little hazy (depending on where you’re shooting) There are lots of great options and methods of how to fix underwater images in Photoshop and in Lightroom, but I’m going to share how I edited these simply and completely in Lightroom.
Here are a couple of before and afters. You can see that the skin tones on the “before” are off and overall they need work!
Below is a screen shot of the Lightroom Settings that I used. First, I began by using the Color Temperature eye dropper tool on a neutral part of the image (both times I used parts of their clothes) to get a more accurate white balance reading, then I adjusted it based on my liking. As you can see from the panel on the left, I worked a lot with the Color (HSL) Panel to correct the colors of the skin and the water. Something that you cannot see from the panel is that I used the local adjustments brush on the “Color” setting and I painted a bit on the skin to add more orange and warmth. Underwater images usually need more contrast to make the subjects pop and I always add extra clarity. Any other adjustments beyond that are purely aesthetic. I removed the extra set of feet on the first and adjusted the crop, etc.
I am by no means and master of underwater editing, but I enjoy learning new tips and I thought I’d share the methods that I have learned. I hope you enjoy and I’d love to see some of your underwater images as well!
2 Ways to Add Motion Blur to your images
Posted on March 14, 2018
I really love the idea of showing movement in a still image! Sure, a frozen shot of my daughter on the merry go round or a bike would have been fine, but I really wanted to show how fast she was spinning and how dizzy we (both) were getting! (*Warning*, looking through the viewfinder at my subject while spinning on a merry go round got me a special kind of dizzy!)
So, in order to get this kind of image you need to adjust your camera settings in manual mode.
My settings were:
Shutter Speed 1/20 sec. This is a SLOW speed that leaves your shutter open in order to get that blur. So you have to be very steady and encourage your subject to try to be as still as possible. It also lets in lots of light, so you’ll need to close your aperture (or F Stop) down to compensate. Mine was set to F7.1 And, because this was taken during the day I was at ISO 100.
In this case, I was sitting on the opposite side of the merry go round as her. At other times I’ll use these settings and just “follow” my subject (also called “Panning”) to keep them in focus and blur the background.
As you can see from all of the images below, it may take a few tries to get it right.
The second way to add motion blur is by panning. The image below is an example of this. This method is achieved my standing very stable and “following” your subject with the camera. My settings were similar F5.6, SS 1/20. I tried 1/15 but I couldn’t get a sharp subject and at 1/25 my background didn’t blur enough. So I found 1/20 to be the sweet spot. But try adjusting the SS to your liking and see how it effects the results.
I’d love to know if you have tried it and to see what your results were!
How to use your garage to make a classic portrait
Posted on February 7, 2018
When it comes to photography gear, I consider myself a minimalist. I love the idea of having a full studio setup, but I don’t have the storage space or the motivation to pull out tons of equiptment when I want to do a shoot. I actually used a dark grey backdrop (purchased from Amazon) for this shoot, but the same effect can be achieved without it. That’s why I like using my garage to make a clean and classic portrait.
Have your subject stand just outside the garage (or any doorway, tunnel, etc) and watch how the light is hitting their face and eyes. Ideally, you want some nice catchlights (the reflection of light) in the eyes and soft light on the face. Then, you can under expose your image just a little and watch the light behind your subject fall off quickly, creating a dark backdrop. Finally, in post processing (Lightroom, Photoshop or a mobile editor like Snapseed) bring up the contrast a little until you’re satisfied!
The first image is a pullback of my setup. As you can see, I only added the backdrop. The following two images are a couple of the results from this setup.
