Settings | Your camera set up is essential for a bright, crisp photograph. As I do a fair amount of editing on my photographs, I like to make the original photograph a little darker than you might expect. This minimises the chances of over-exposure and allows you to have a little fun playing around with the brightness, contrast and curves in the editing process. With a DSLR I would recommend playing around with the ISO (the lower the ISO the darker the image and vice versa). Although the aperture and shutter speed can both help to brighten an image, this does all depend on the photograph you're taking, how much of a soft focus background you want and where you are taking your photograph. Play around, Google and learn your camera inside out!
Lighting | My perfect day for photographing is when it's a bright day, but there are a few clouds in the sky. Clouds work as a giant soft box, minimising shadows and allowing your image to appearer whiter. Whether it's dull or we have a rare blue sky outside, natural lighting is an essential for me so I will utilise what I have making sure that my camera setting are set up to deal with as much or as little light as is coming through.
Finding the right space is an essential for creating a bright image too, I'm lucky as I have floor to ceiling windows, which means they bring in as much light as possible, but I would definitely recommend working near a window, making sure that the light comes in at the right angle and covers the whole image evenly.
Background | I usually opt for a white wooden, plain white or a marble background whenever I am photographing, as I believe these three promote the most brightness and are aesthetically pleasing to me. Marble is a fail-safe background, disguising any unwanted shadows and genuinely making an image pop if I need to add any pattern or texture. White or striped bedding is another one of my fail-safe options whenever I am in a photography slump as they instantly brighten up a photograph and minimise the need for editing.
The Editing Process | There isn't a photograph on my blog that hasn't been edited using Photoshop in the last year. I couldn't live without it and for bright photography- although not an essential in any way- it does allow me to perfect an image with minimal effort. I mostly only use curves to edit as this allows you to manipulate the background, shadows and brightness of the image with ease. Pushing the curve bar upwards brightens the image and pushing the curve bar down darkens. Once you play around with curves a few times it is very easy to grasp and you'll have perfect bright images in no time.
What are your tips for creating a bright image?
No comments
Post a Comment