figures

[Iain Denby]

I have such a good library of figures now that even if a client asks me to put in a figure of a bloke feeling his b******s...I can!

[Ernest Burden III]

Sure, but do you have the lady feeling his ..........?

[Ernest Burden III]

Iain

 

Do you photograph all of these yourself?

 

I have to get together a new set of homies for renderings. I am not looking forward to the investment in time to do it. I was thinking of hiring someone else to do the photographing.

 

I will buy Corel's Knockout2 to cut the figures from their background. What do you use? Then I must may them not-so-photographic in Photoshop. I'm not sure what I will do, but I have some ideas to try.

 

It turns out that my father, who has been selling collections of entourage images for years, has lots of un-used people photos, so I may try to beg, borrow or buy them from him, save me the time to take pictures.

[Iain Denby]

Iain

 

Do you photograph all of these yourself?

 

.

 

 

Ernest

Yes I take all pictures myself for several reasons:

* They are unique to me

* I take the pictures of people in natural poses, walking in all derections etc.

* I can position my self so the lighting is correct.

 

With my digital camera it takes about an hour to shoot 40 -80 pictures, out of which probably 60% are OK and then cut them out as and when you have a few minutes between jobs etc.

 

I just use PS. I use the magnetic Lazzo, clean up the selection with the freehand Lazzo. A bit of cleanning up the edges and your done. I would guess each figure takes about 3 -5 minutes.

 

For us in the UK, we have only a couple of months in the summer where you are lucky to get a handfull of sunny days to shoot.

[Ernest Burden III]

I also have the brain defect that makes me believe that I am the only person who can do something right. By saying I was thinking of paying someone else to shoot photos, I would only do if the person could apply all the skills you mention.

 

Sunny days, but not too sunny. I generally think overcast days provide the best general-purpose people photos because of the difused light. You can always raise the contrast, even draw in some shaows in 'multiply' mode, but with bright sun digital cameras tend to lose all detail in highlights AND shadows.

 

On the other hand, being able to shoot at 1/125th second is much better for getting clear pictures of moving people than fighting to get anything at 1/30th.

 

Photoshop does, with v7 and now CS, have an 'extract' filter that works pretty well. I am still going to try the Corel one and hope it's better/quickerer. They show it seperating lace and hair from BGs--we'll see--especially if I need to photograph Stevie Nicks (if you don't get that, then you must not be very old).

[Iain Denby]

Ernest

 

You're right about the short comings of digital photos taken in sunlight. Strangely enough, I never use the Extract command in PS...just got into my own habbits really. I'll try it.

 

I definately do have the brain defect you mentioned!

[Susan]

I'm finding knockout more of a pain than a help. I probably makes sense to make some initial selection in PS and then continue in Knockout.

 

 

I've purchased "Buzz" as a plug in PS to "simplify" photos t look NPR. It works well with vegetation but not as well with people. I found that the PS effects were unsatisfactory. Which filters are you folks using?

[Josh1587140445]

So do you just pretty much station yourself in one spot and shot as the people pass by?

 

Because I would like to start sitting outside during lunch and snap a few shots. But I am afraid that by just sitting there with a camera people would just look at you a little strangely wondering what the hell you are doing.

 

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