In this post I'll be breaking down the post production process I went through enhancing the shots using Adobe Photoshop.
Even though these images appeared to be finished without any post production needed. There was actually quite a number of subtle things I added to these images in order to enhance them. For starters, when I brightened the exposure of the image above, I encountered an apparition of myself seemingly haunting Danny. This was because I was standing behind him in the shot without really moving my head, just my hands to create the portal around Danny. Using a black brush in Photoshop, I simply just painted over my face to hide it.
Another thing I added to Danny was a yellow light seemingly coming off the portal and onto his shoulders and head, to help make the portal feel more like a real object creating light. This was achieved by taking a yellow brush and painting it onto a transparent layer with the "color" blending mode. The light seemed too intense at first, so I turned down the opacity of the layer.
The final thing I did for this image was cropping on the right a little. This was because the black backdrop was starting to fall off and you could start to see the wall behind it. Below you can see the before and after of this image.
BEFORE
AFTER
Another image that took quite a lot of enhancing was the shot of Danny deflecting the laser. Orignially, like the portal image, it was just way too dark. So I turned up the exposure using Photoshop's Camera Raw feature. I also wanted to change the colours of the lights. We didn't have a red gel, the flashlight was originally orange, so using a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, I changed the hue of the "laser" from orange to red. The saber was originally blue in the shot. Changing it to green was an afterthought, especially because the saber already has a green option. I thought it would pop out more and have more contrast with Danny's blue shirt and tie. This was also done using a Hue/Saturation layer by changing the hue. Because the Kyberlight saber was giving off a blue glow, I also had to change the glow on Danny's shirt and face from blue to green. There's even a blue catchlight in his eyes that I had to change. These are the before and after shots below.
BEFORE
AFTER
I've also sharpened all these images using the Unsharp Mask filter like I do with all of my images for a slightly better picture quality.
This project was so much fun that I will definitely be trying more painting with light projects in the future.
You can also view all of the final images used here in my PORATRAITS sub-tab under the PORTFOLIO page.
Danny was also a huge help with first two videos posted on the VIDEOGRAPHY page
Here are the previous two posts from this blog down below.