Hi-Key variations

So I’ve already given a teaser  on my shoot with Samantha Stone, I’ve finished editing half the set.

Originally the purpose of the shoot was to experiment with dark and gritty B&W photos, however towards the end we started playing around with Hi-Key photos. We moved on to a medical theme and so I think the “whiteness” suited it. Although most Hi-Key pictures tend to be clean, crisp and light in atmosphere we still wanted the grittiness to the feel.

Now as you’re probably aware – my usual style tends to be dark, hi-contrast (so not strictly low-key, but close) with fairly punchy colours. I occasionally think I should move away from that but often think – hey why push to be something that your not – or do something that isn’t your natural style – so on the whole I’m happy with it BUT variety is also good – so I sometimes like to have a play in other areas. This leads me on to these pictures and the editing of this part of the shoot – not being used to editing in this way I did a fair few variations. Initially this was limited to Black & White – variations such as : even contrast, high Contrast, various curves,  shading (I usually prefer sepia and/or blue – which I guess you could describe as “silver” since I tone down the Saturation) – but then later on I had a play at keeping it in colour.

So there are some of those examples – just for one image. I have my favourite and so does Sam, but wondered what others liked. Of course there are no right and wrong answers – just personal preference – but I’m always curious to know what these tend to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can click on them to get a larger image.

 

To give you a brief description (Photoshop geek stuff) ….

Basic – Just the basic stuff really – nothing too over the top. Less punchy than my usual style.

Soft light – As Basic but with a duplicated layer changed to Soft light. What I think this does is causes the dark areas to go darker, and the light areas lighter. I don’t really use Blending modes much. Don’t know what the difference between this and just upping the contrast.

Harsh Emboss – Some De-saturation with a High-Pass filter to make it look edgy.

“JL” – Both the Emboss and the “JL” methods (and Soft Light to a certain degree) are inspired from tutorials I’ve seen from a great (and young!) photographer called Joey Lawrence.  His stuff however is usually fairly dark so a lot more gritty – but I adjusted the techniques for my own liking. Great photographer/retucher though – check out his stuff.

Preference from colour edits:

 

Actually what the hell, here are some B&W edits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…that’s it.

March 31, 2011 | Categories: Editing, Shoots | Tags: Editing, Hi-key, Samantha Stone | 2 Comments