Digital Portrait Photography and Lighting: Take Memorable Shots Every Time

Digital Portrait Photography and Lighting: Take Memorable Shots Every Time Review

Portraits preserve people


Since the earliest portraits were scratched onto cave walls, we've developed increasingly sophisticated tools for capturing human likenesses. Yet the motivation has changed little -- to freeze a human image as an art form, a means of communication, a piece of personal history. Whether formalized with elaborate settings and lighting or snapped at the beach to hold forever the pure joy in a child's face, portraits preserve people. Today's digital technology offers flexibility, economy, and almost limitless tools for perfecting your images, and these experts help you use it.
* Discover the skills you need to move from serious amateur to professional photographer
* Learn how a snapshot differs from a casual portrait
* Identify what you want your portrait to communicate
* Investigate lighting equipment and how to use it in different scenarios
* Use natural or mixed light to create unique effects
* Explore composition, posing, and handling challenges
* Handle props, backgrounds, color, location shooting, and studio shots
* Work with groups, children, and pets
* Perfect image-editing methods and final-touch processes that produce high-quality, professional images
* Find resources that can help you in setting up your own portrait business

Studio Lighting Solutions: Expert Professional Techniques for Artistic and Commercial Success (Pdnpros)

Studio Lighting Solutions: Expert Professional Techniques for Artistic and Commercial Success (Pdnpros) Review

Studio Lighting Solutions, the first volume of the PDN Pros series, is a comprehensive guide to the world of still-life photography in a controlled studio environment. This genre includes food, beverages, desserts, gems & jewellery, cosmetics, household products, small kitchens, small appliances, bathroom and kitchen fixtures, small sets, home entertainment, electronics, home furnishings, in-studio automotive photography. Highlighting the real-world projects of over 25 successful professional photographers, this book shows photographers what it takes to achieve both artistic and commercial success in still-life photography. Over 60 shots are presented in an easy-to-read/view style, with descriptive text accompanying each featured photograph. For each shot, the photographer provides in-depth information about the assignment and the shoot. This includes the objectives of the client and/or art director, the specific logistic circumstances and challenges, the lighting and other techniques employed to get the shot, the digital manipulation and styling necessary, equipment needs, postproduction, and more, all leading up to the final, successful, real-world photograph.

Creative Lighting: Digital Photography Tips and Techniques

Creative Lighting: Digital Photography Tips and Techniques Review

How to make digital photography lighting more creative—and less challenging!

How do you master the art of lighting your photographs? Go beyond the basics, go beyond the "rules," and get creative with the help of renowned photographer Harold Davis. In this book, Harold shows you how to break the boundaries of conventional wisdom and create unique, lively, and beautifully lit photographs.  Packed with tips and tricks as well as stunning examples of the author’s creativity, this book will both inform and inspire you to create your own lighting style.

• Teaches you when and how to control the light in your photographs
• Reviews the basic “rules” of digital photography lighting and shows you how to break the rules to create your own uniquely lit images
• Helps you start building a lighting style of your own
• Includes stunning examples of the author’s photography and lighting techniques

Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned digital photographer, you'll find ideas and techniques to spark your creativity.

Amazon.com Exlusive: Introduction Letter from the Author

Dear Amazon Readers,

Light is crucial to photography, and without lighting you cannot have a photo. But books about light and lighting come in a number of varieties. So if you are considering my book, I wanted to let you know why I wrote Creative Lighting: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques, where I am coming from in this book, and what you’ll find in it.

If there is one skill a photographer needs, it is the ability to see and understand light. Learning about the directionality, intensity, quality, and color of light is partly intuitive--but can largely be taught. Creative use of lighting makes or breaks a photo, whether the photo is shot outdoors or in the studio. Furthermore, you can’t even begin to understand how to create effective lighting until you learn to “read” light itself. Becoming familiar with light and lighting in all its infinite varieties is the first step along the way to mastering the craft of photography.

Creative Lighting covers both natural light and studio lighting. However, it is not a cookbook covering studio lighting setups; nor is it a book that emphasizes the pixels over the overall visual impact that a photograph can make. Each of the photos in this book can be used as idea generation for your own work--how you can use existing light, alter light, or create lighting to make spectacular photos of your own. I’ve included the story behind each photo in the book, as well as full technical data about the captures. The emphasis of my book is the creative use of lighting. Like other books in my Creative series, Creative Lighting is intended to be useful as an idea book.

Creative Lighting is conceptually divided into five parts. As you’ll see, there is a great deal of material, and it covers a lot of ground. The parts of Creative Lighting are:

Part I: Seeing the Light--Covers understanding and observing light and its characteristics (and applies to both studio and natural light); learning the material in this section is a first step towards becoming a master of light.

Part II: Exposure & Lighting--Details the responses to lighting in terms of camera settings because light and lighting is only one part of the exposure equation, the other side of the equation is how you set your camera to respond to the way the subject is lit.

Part III: Working with Ambient Light--Explains how to work with existing light, meaning sunlight and also mixed lighting environments, and also provides some tips for improving the quality of ambient and existing light.

Part IV: Lighting in the Studio--Shows you how to make creative use of continuous lights in still life compositions, and how to create stunning portraits using strobes in the studio.

Part V: Lighting in the Digital Darkroom—With digital photography, taking the photo is just the first part of the workflow. In this section, you’ll learn to use RAW processing and Photoshop to improve the creative impact of lighting in post-processing, and even change the entire lighting effect in a photo.

I hope you enjoy Creative Lighting. May the light be with you, and best wishes in photography!

Harold Davis

From the Author: Lighting Case Studies

Case Study: Light Through Clouds

Case Study: Bud in Vase

Case Study: Blossom

Studio Lighting: A Primer for Photographers

Studio Lighting: A Primer for Photographers Review

For photographers who have a basic understanding of how to operate their cameras, this book offers easy techniques, a myriad of photographs from acclaimed studio photographers, and numerous lessons to create great effects that portray subjects in a flattering light. Whether working in a spare bedroom, in the garage, or in a well-trafficked part of town, photographers learn how working in the studio allows them to control the effects of lighting on their subjects, no matter the weather or time of day. Including practical advice for achieving the shadows and highlights that make any subject appear photogenic, assignments that command an increase in creativity and efficiency, and progressive photos that illustrate various steps in the lighting process, this book provides the hard facts and hands-on experience photographers need to make the images they have always dreamed possible.

Kevin Kubotas Lighting Notebook: 101 Lighting Styles and Setups for Digital Photographers

Kevin Kubotas Lighting Notebook: 101 Lighting Styles and Setups for Digital Photographers Review

Get professional advice from one of the world's top wedding photographersCreative use of lighting is a hallmark of quality photography. Kevin Kubota has been listed among the world's top 10 wedding photographers by American Photo magazine and named a Legend Behind the Lens by Nikon. This guide features dozens of his unique lighting and post-production recipes and techniques, each illustrated with a spectacular image.

• Author Kevin Kubota enjoys a cult-like following among professional photographers and has earned numerous accolades for his talent
• Includes the author's unique lighting and post-production recipes and techniques that reinforce the theory that good lighting is the key to quality photography
• Presents a number of shooting scenarios with behind-the-scenes setup, a description of the photographer's objective, the equipment used, and the resulting image for each
• Features a companion app that will enable the photographer to search and find lighting suggestions by subject, style, budget, equipment, and other guidelines, all while in the field

Kevin Kubota's Lighting Notebook for Digital Photographers is almost like having the famous photographer sharing his secrets with you one on one.

Studio and Location Lighting Secrets for Digital Photographers

Studio and Location Lighting Secrets for Digital Photographers Review

Studio and Location Lighting Secrets for Digital Photographers Feature

• Explores the basics of studio lighting in various situations
• Features more than 200 lighting tips and secrets for planning and taking the most impressive digital images in the studio
• Compares available camera equipment, accessories, software, and printing options
• Covers post-shoot digital darkroom techniques and workflow tips and tricks
• Companion DVD includes advice on making the most of accessories such as diffusers, reflectors, and accessory flashes

Improve your photography with more than 200 lighting tips from a top photographer

Written by Canon Explorer of Light Rick Sammon and leading fashion and studio photographer Vered Koshlano, this guide is packed with professional advice on the essential element of photography: lighting. It provides detailed information and insider secrets that are bound to make you a better photographer.

You'll learn the basics of studio lighting as well as how to achieve special effects. A 90-minute DVD is included, with additional tips on using reflectors, diffusers, accessory flashes, and more.

• Explores the basics of studio lighting in various situations
• Features more than 200 lighting tips and secrets for planning and taking the most impressive digital images in the studio
• Compares available camera equipment, accessories, software, and printing options
• Covers post-shoot digital darkroom techniques and workflow tips and tricks
• Companion DVD includes advice on making the most of accessories such as diffusers, reflectors, and accessory flashes
• Written by two top professional photographers and illustrated with full-color examples

Studio and Location Lighting Secrets provides information from the pros to improve your photograpic skills.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

LED Lighting: Professional Techniques for Digital Photographers

LED Lighting: Professional Techniques for Digital Photographers Review

Accessible for professionals and hobbyists alike, this guide helps photographers navigate the transition from traditional flash and hot lights to light-emitting diode (LED) lights, the hottest new trend in lighting technology. The arrival of cost effective LED lights has facilitated radical advances in photographic science and required photographers to change the way they use lighting. This book explains how these innovations have influenced conventional light theory and offers a seamless transition from old lighting technologies to new ones. It demystifies the process of choosing the right LED light for projects, presents common sense methods for using LEDs, and offers suggestions for achieving the perfect lighting color and balance. In addition, numerous examples using a range of LED lights provide instruction on how to use them in still life images, portraits, and even moving pictures. Using the tools in this handy reference, visual artists can invent new styles unencumbered by the limits imposed by standard light sources.

Christopher Grey's Lighting Techniques for Beauty and Glamour Photography: A Guide for Digital Photographers

Christopher Grey's Lighting Techniques for Beauty and Glamour Photography: A Guide for Digital Photographers Review

Incorporating several categories of beauty photography—maternity, fitness, boudoir, Maxim style, Goth glamour, and fetish glamour—this guide describes the artistic and technical nuances of each genre while teaching posing and compositional techniques. Explaining how to choose popular lights and modifiers, the guide helps novice and professional photographers create stunning portraits with mood and personality that highlight the most desirable aspects of the subject. A series of case studies from portrait sessions and detailed diagrams for recreating the shots are also included.

Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Studio Photography

Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Studio Photography Review

Photographers learn how to create amazing photography with this simple, basic, money-saving approach to working in the studio. While exploring available lighting and equipment, this reference tackles the concerns of studio photographers regarding too much gear, not enough space, and a strict budget and offers alternative techniques for photographing subjects. Tips for how to set up a studio in a limited amount of space, what kind of equipment works best for different effects, and finding great tools for budget prices make this a truly comprehensive reference.

Master Lighting Guide for Portrait Photographers

Master Lighting Guide for Portrait Photographers Review

Time-tested lighting strategies that will improve the quality of a portrait are detailed in this book for beginning photographers. Terminology used by industry pros is explained, the equipment needed to create professional results is outlined, and the unique role that each element of the lighting setup plays in the studio is explored. Photographers learn how color, direction, form, and contrast affect the final portrait. The concise text, photo examples, and lighting diagrams enable photographers to easily achieve traditional lighting styles that have been the basis of good portraiture since the advent of the art.

Studio Lighting Anywhere: The Digital Photographer's Guide to Lighting on Location and in Small Spaces

Studio Lighting Anywhere: The Digital Photographer's Guide to Lighting on Location and in Small Spaces Review

Offering a streamlined approach to creating studio-quality images, from backdrops to lighting, Joe Farace instructs photographers on selecting the gear that provides the most value and requires only minimal storage space. Emphasizing portability and ease, Farace also provides techniques for using small flash units to create big portrait-lighting effects. Also included is a demonstration on the use of green-screen technology to digitally superimpose on the image any desired type of background, thereby eliminating the need to buy and store dozens of unique backdrops. Once each piece of gear is finally in place, more advanced demonstrations include lighting placement, adjusting lights to suit each unique subject, and metering them for correct exposure. Lessons also include creating classic portrait-lighting effects and tips on posing subjects, as well as a final walk-through of the postproduction phase and troubleshooting common challenges.

Studio Lighting Unplugged: Small Flash Techniques for Digital Photographers

Studio Lighting Unplugged: Small Flash Techniques for Digital Photographers Review

This lighting manual shows that successful studio photography does not require a warehouse-sized space brimming with expensive lights, Hollywood-style facades, and a half-dozen assistants making the client lattes. Rather, this guide shows photographers how to create studio lighting effects that range from clean and classic to highly complex and use a garage, spare bedroom, or even a backyard as their “studio.” The simple setups show that one to three small, inexpensive electronic flash units—along with budget-friendly stands, communication systems, and some do-it-yourself light modifiers—can be combined to create brilliant studio-quality images without the studio. Numerous sample shoots and plans provide clear instructions for taking control of any environment to create spectacular images.

Professional Digital Photography: Techniques for Lighting, Shooting, and Image Editing

Professional Digital Photography: Techniques for Lighting, Shooting, and Image Editing Review

Going beyond a basic introduction to digital equipment, this book teaches photographers how to achieve high-quality, professional results with digital equipment and the application of traditional photographic techniques. It serves as a sourcebook for professionals who are ready to complement their traditional images with digital imaging techniques. Explained are how color balancing can be altered with a dial on a camera; how to effectively light subjects for digital capture; and how to enhance, highlight, shadow, and sharpen fuzzy images. Whether working with a Mac or PC, photographers will learn to use the tools in Photoshop to fully realize their artistic and professional potential.

Advanced Studio Lighting Techniques for Digital Portrait Photographers

Advanced Studio Lighting Techniques for Digital Portrait Photographers Review

Portraiture tends to rely on standardized, established lighting techniques, but most photographers know that subscribing to traditional methods does not always flatter every subject. The techniques collected in this guide will heighten the senses of mystery and drama in a digital photographer's work by enhancing shape and contrast, keeping images fashionable and appealing with less reliance on natural light, and illuminating a subject's eyes without producing catchlights. In this manner, textbook lighting setups can act as a springboard to creating personal and artistic high-quality portraits featuring new, radically-altered lighting effects. Multiple series of before-and-after photos comprehensively illustrate how to utilize these new methods to create emotion-evoking works of art that do more than simply capture the likeness of a subject.

Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Location Photography

Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Location Photography Review

Packed with incredible images and step-by-step techniques, this book is a must have for commercial, wedding, and portrait photographers working on location who want to maximize their time behind the camera and minimize their time spent hauling cumbersome lighting equipment. The tips show how to select easily portable and versatile equipment for location shoots, cutting down on the packing and porting of expensive equipment. With techniques and information on the latest technology—including battery-powered flashes and accessories—this reference shows photographers how to work with smaller and lighter-weight lighting equipment without sacrificing quality. Whether shooting portraits, landscapes, or interiors, whether indoors or out, photographers will embrace the portable approach offered in this valuable resource.

Basic Studio Lighting: The Photographer's Complete Guide to Professional Techniques

Basic Studio Lighting: The Photographer's Complete Guide to Professional Techniques Review

As every photographer quickly learns, there’s more to studio lighting than simply learning the equipment. In Basic Studio Lighting, an expert photographer and renowned photography teacher provides nuts-and-bolts guidance for mastering the complexities of one of the most important aspects of making a photograph: proper lighting.

Readers will discover surefire tactics for using equipment properly and innovative ways of utilizing color and light to create fabulous effects, as well as getting hands-on practice with exposures, accent lighting, backgrounds, set-ups, and dozens of other studio techniques. Plus, dozens of outstanding color photographs illustrate each technique step by step.

Perfect for aspiring photographers and students as well as veterans, Basic Studio Lighting provides all the theory and practical techniques needed to create professional photos that make an impact.