Guidance

[skydog]

I recently took some photos at a friend's wedding that had some very harsh conditions. The wedding occurred at noon, and the sun was very intense. In addition, the wedding occurred under a tent which was quite dark. I was instructed not to use a flash, and I could only take pictures outside the tent.
I have two pictures which are typical of the day.

Pic 1. For pics under the tent I increased my f stop by 1 to try to bring in a little more light without blowing away outside the tent (I also shot raw). For pic 1 I started to duplicate the pic, bring out the light of the couple using layer adjustment, I was then going to mask out the sky and the minister to bring out the blue of the original layer. How best to adjust the color of the skin? I find the skin to be slightly green and I'm having problems removing all the green tint (neck/shoulders) without messing up the eventually messing up the temperature of the other skin areas.

Pic 2 is typical of most of the photos outside the tent. Shadows are harsh under the eyes. Would those of you that normally shoot wedding have planned to use a fill flash in these conditions? Is there anyway to improve this condition?

Thanks for any advice as I proceed with this pics.

[skydog]

This one may have a little more detail.

[Cameraken]

Hi Skydog.

Oh Dear.
You have given yourself a whole heap of extra work here.

I ALWAYS use flash for every wedding shot. (Except in the church) Set one stop lower than ambient. So take a meter reading, say 125th at f8 then I would set my flash to f5.6 this fills in the shadows and would have saved a lot of time.
Also the pictures are not as sharp as expected??

The images are salvageable. Especially as they are in Raw.

Just a whole heap of extra work

Ken.

[PatrickB]

Hi dog,

(in case you're a girl: sorry bout the dog )

in a regular shooting I use a reflector to light the models' shadow areas. But as you will hardly have somebody around with a 2 square meter reflector yes, a ring-flash or something would do the job at least quite well. Best thing would be a handheld-flash which is not mounted on the camera and could be held opposing the sun, I illustrated it a bit in the attached drawings.

You can sure do something to lighten up the shadows, using a screen-layer and masking out the background etc.

P.

[skydog]

Thanks for the feedback thus far...get feedback! As I've mentioned in previous posts, I normally shoot action sports shots (area high schools/college) and never do weddings. Thankfully I was not the paid photographer for this event, but I found the paid photographer didn't use a flash either...but I agree, this would have been the best approach.

[skydog]

get should have been "great"

[Daviskw]

Hi Skydog

Strange things happen with color in low light. Rather than fiddling with all the making and such why not just use Shadows/Highlights?

I also noticed the strange green tinge, but rather than fight with color balance and such I just picked a few skin tones from another picture and applied them with a gradient map. You have other good pictures of them so it would not be hard pick a few tones then apply.

Butch

[skydog]

Butch..I really like what you did with that picture. Now this is one of weaknesses: working with shadows and highlights...when working on this picture to improve the shadows and highlights of the couple did you create one layer and adjust the H/S and mask out the background? thanks

[Daviskw]

Hi there

No I just used shadows and highlights...but also a curves adjustment to boost contrast and to keep some color in the sky. Then applied the gradient map skin tones and a little smoothing of the skin

Butch

[Gary Richardson]

Had a vquick play with your image.

Duplicated image to new layer. Desaturated, inverted, set blend mode to Soft Light, then reduced layer opacity to taste (I used about 75%).

Applied layer mask, and masked out all areas but skin. (mask a bit sloppy on posted image as it was a quick job meant to illustrate concept).

New Curves adjustment layer, and adjusted skin tone a little, reducing blue tint.

[Flora]

Hi,

very nice job everybody!!

skydog,

Originally Posted by skydog

I have two pictures which are typical of the day.

.... they might not have come out as you wished, but I still think these are two great shots of couple and bride!

Originally Posted by skydog

Pic 1. How best to adjust the color of the skin? I find the skin to be slightly green and I'm having problems removing all the green tint (neck/shoulders) without messing up the eventually messing up the temperature of the other skin areas.

.... Can't give you any help/tip at all about shooting pictures, so, I'm only talking from a 'retouching' point of view ... In my opinion, the greenish cast is just one of the problems... For the reasons you explained the whole picture is a bit too dark and lifeless.. Where it isn't 'green', the skin colour has, anyway, too much cyan/yellow in it giving the couple, and the little that can be seen of the Minister, an unhealthy, unnatural look.

Working with PS CS2, I used a Levels Adjustment Layer to lift the shadows, and another Levels Adjustment Layer to minimize the green cast by setting the grey point on a lighter spot at the back of the groom's jacket.

I, then, used:
Selective Colors and Hue/saturation to correct the colours.
Levels and Brightness/Contrast for tone and contrast.
Neat Image to minimize the noise.
Copy+Paste to hide the Minister.
Smart Sharpen to lightly sharpen the image.

Originally Posted by skydog

Pic 2 is typical of most of the photos outside the tent. Shadows are harsh under the eyes.
Thanks for any advice as I proceed with this pics.

... Same procedure as for the first picture...minus the minimizing the colour cast since here there was none.

We work with different Colour Profiles:
Adobe RGB (1998) you, sRGB ICE61966-2.1 me ...I'm not sure but this might alter the look of colours and saturation ...

[Cameraken]

Hi Patrick.

Thanks for the diagrams.

It is probably not necessary but maybe your diagrams deserve a little further explanation.

In the second diagram you may have given the impression that the overlapping area will be overexposed but this is not the case.

Imagine that the ambient light (sunlight) is giving a reading of 125th at f8 and the reflected (flash) light is set to f5.6
In the areas that receive light from both light sources the correct exposure would still be f8. The lights do not add together and overexpose.
The only way the lights would become additive is if there was a multiple exposure (one for each light)

I hope this clears up any confusion.

Ken