Jesse Rosten

I’ve had a few people asking me about my post production workflow for portraits so I thought I’d share. Photo retouching can be a daunting task and it’s hard to know where to start. Too often, photographers rely on “magical” plugins and expensive Photoshop actions that supposedly offer one-click retouching (hint: no such thing). I’ve yet to find a one-click solution that doesn’t destroy all the detail in a person’s skin. In the words of the Beatles, “Photoshop is all you need.” Well, you also need to develop an eye for retouching, but that will come with practice.

A word of warning: Photoshop is a very powerful tool and the beginner’s tendency is to overcook everything. My suggestion is to keep the adjustments al dente until you get the hang of it. Then you can go to town (but you probably still shouldn’t). This walk thru is by no means exhaustive, but my hope is that it’ll at least point you in the right direction.

A few notes on this video before you watch. It’s long. Even though I tried to work quickly, sped up certain portions, and edited out a few steps, the video is still about 30 minutes long. So if you’re gonna watch, you might want to pop a bag of popcorn first. As tutorials go, this one is a bit unorganized. The tutorial genre is still quite new to me, so be kind. You’ll see toward the end of the video that I skipped a step or two (specifically the shine layer). I’ll cover those another time.

I also want to note that in the video I use the word “blemish” to refer to anything I’m going to remove with the healing brush. And while I removed a some freckles with the healing brush, I certainly do not want to imply that freckles are blemishes. On a typical retouch, I would probably leave the freckles. But our model had such great skin to begin with that I quickly ran out of ‘blems’ to address and went for the freckles.

All righty, have fun. Feel free to hit me up with any questions via the comments section.

Click the here to see a before/after comparison.

While playing around with Mac’s Universal Access settings, I came up with a new voicemail.
[Sigh] Ok Computer. Best. Album. Evar!

Summer is upon us. It’s been well over 100 degrees the last two weeks with no end in sight. The secret to beating the heat is to never, under any circumstance, leave the pool. You want your photo taken? Sure! As long as I don’t have to get out of the pool.

Here are a few pics from a just-for-fun shoot with Amanda, aka Salamanda. I had one day left on an underwater housing rental and wanted to try something different. We didn’t have time to put together a wardrobe so Amanda pulled something from her closet – a wedding dress.

Light came from a single 1.2Kw HMI. It was pointed into some painter’s plastic that we pulled tight across one section of the pool, just above the water’s surface. Light falloff in water is much stronger than air and I definitely noticed the HMI didn’t have the same reach under the surface. Could have used an extra stop or two but we made due. The hardest part was getting the light where I wanted it. Due to the obvious consequences of mixing electricity and water, we couldn’t put the HMI *in* the pool. With a heavy top light I was limited to a deep shadowed look. So we just went with it. By the way, the housing was an Aquatech from Borrowlenses.com. Check ‘em out. They’re good people.

Kudos to Michelle our MUA and Lyn the bubble wrangler. Lyn also shot some pics of another model and from what I’ve seen so far they will be epic.

If you want to see what a really deep underwater shoot looks like, check this out this underwater stage at Pinewood Studios.

If you’ve purchased a DSLR within the last year, there’s a good chance that your camera also shoots video. With the push of one little button, photographers now have the option to bring their photos to life, to add motion and sound, to create a dynamic story with their cameras. It’s great to have options, but as the saying goes, mo’ options, mo’ problems.

If you’ve been wondering how the heck to transition from shooting stills to shooting motion, might I suggest a little reading – Vision in Motion: A Photographer’s Introduction to Digital Video. This wonderful resource was written by none other than filmmaker, photographer, and friend Trevor Meier.

So what’s in the eBook? Well, I’ll tell you what’s NOT in the book. This is not a step-by-step gear guide. Pixel peepers look elsewhere. As the title suggests, VISION IN MOTION is about vision. Trevor suggests ways to help you find your vision and the best practices for communicating that vision through the medium of motion. Don’t underestimate the importance of vision. In both photography and cinematography, you need a vision, you need a direction. But the added complexity of time when shooting motion makes vision crucial. Motion implies movement and time implies change. If your characters aren’t moving toward some goal and changing over time, then you’ve got a story about…well, nothing. You’ve got to have a vision. This book will help you discover yours.

But the eBook is not all theory. There’s some technical talk, too. If you’re coming from a photographic background, there’s new lingo and techniques to learn. For example, in photography you can use shutter speed to control exposure. Video is different. Try shooting a whole film with the shutter at 1/8000 and see how long before your audience walks out. If you don’t know why this is a bad idea, you need to read this eBook.

Check it out here: VISION IN MOTION. You might even see a familiar face or two in the pictures!

I love shooting tethered. Viewing my photos on a large screen *while* shooting makes critical evaluations of exposure, focus, and composition much easier. Clients love it, too. They get a confidence boost from being able to see the photos as they’re taken. On commercial shoots, tethering is a must. You can’t have the client, art director, and make up artist all crowding around a tiny 3″ screen on the back of the camera.

As much as I love shooting tethered, sometimes it’s just not practical to lug a computer around, especially on remote location shoots. More gear means more crew. And more crew means bigger budgets (something that’s sadly lacking in the industry these days). On a run-n-gun shoot, even tethering to a laptop is awkward at best. Imagine doing a “walk a-about” photo shoot where you are tied to an assistant with a 10 foot rope. That’s ONLY convenient if one of you happens to fall into a crevasse.

Here’s a better solution. Wireless tethering to an iPad. No wires, no worries; portable and practical.

OK, onto the technical milieu. There are a few variations on the following workflow, but for the sake of simplicity, I’m just going to share what I’m using to go from my Canon 5D MkII to the iPad.

First thing you need is a little app called ShutterSnitch. It’s $8 and available in the app store. ShutterSnitch creates a landing point for the photos that are getting sent from the camera. There are some other great features built into the app, but rather than write about them you can read about them here.

There are a couple ways to get the photos out of your Canon dSLR wirelessly. Canon makes several WFT (as in, Wireless File Transmitter) devices for their various flavors of dSLRs. But, one look at the price and you might want to rearrange that acronym to WTF (as in, WTF!?). The cheaper option, and the one I’m using, is a wifi card from Eye-Fi. Eye-Fi makes SD cards that have a microscopic wifi antenna hidden inside. These cards can connect directly with ShutterSnitch. But there’s a caveat with Eye-Fi cards and the 5DMkII. The camera won’t recognize the newer X2 version so you’ll need one of the older classic pro models.

Now, at this point you’re probably thinking,”WTF! How am I supposed to use an SD card in a CF-only camera like a 5DMkII?” Gotchya covered there, too. You simply need an SD to CF card adapter. Yeah, I didn’t know those existed either. Eye-Fi does not officially support CF adapters for their cards, but I found one that works well with my MkII. The CF multi from Syncrotech. Some adapters will cut the wifi signal strength so be sure to find one that has been tested for use with Eye-Fi cards. The CFMulti seems to have no effect on the Eye-Fi’s ability to transmit. So far I’ve used it successfully up to about 25 feet with no file errors.

To make all of these photo transfers work, both the card and the iPad have to be connected to the same wireless network. Not a big deal if you’re shooting in a studio or any place there’s power. But if you’re on location you’re going to need a way to create an ad hoc wireless network. I cannot officially condone jailbreaking your iPad (nor does Apple), but it will allow you to install an app called MyWi. Yes, MyWi is the same app that people are using on their iPhones to share their 3G connectivity with other devices. Running the app on the iPad will create a network for the Eye-Fi to use for transferring photos. The great thing about this solution is that you’re carrying your network with you. Which means wireless tethering will work even if you’re deep in the jungle or on top of a mountain.

Just to recap, here’s what you need:
1. Older model Eye-Fi card
2. Synchrotech CFMulti adapter
3. MyWi app
4. ShutterSnitch app

One last tip on setting up the camera. Be sure to set your camera to shoot RAW+JPEG (small works best). The RAW files stay on the card, the JPEGS get transfered to the iPad for reviewing.

Big props to Matt Jeppsen of FreshDV for turning me on to this idea. We shared a few tweets back and forth on the workflow and Matt pointed me in the right direction. Check out FreshDV.com for tasty snippets of video industry news.

Two of mankind’s greatest inventions, together at last. Note: this is an exploration of what is possible, not necessarily what is practical. Tweet from the street at your own risk!
iPad Version Here

I wish I could say I was writing this post on an iPad. Alas, the Apple Fairy has yet to bequeath unto me the “ultimate mobile multimedia device” (Job’s words, not mine). But instead of sitting around pining over my iPadlessness, I’ve decided to mock up another iPad “experience.” I’m not going to say much about this one since it’s pretty self explanatory. Combine the convenience of shopping online with the familiartiy of a print layout. Sprinkle in a dash of novelty in the form of “living portraits” and wrap the whole thing up in a sleek, hand held device. I think this could be an interesting way to shop.

The footage for this demo came from a stock footage fashion shoot we did a couple weeks ago. Here’s a little bit of randomness from the day:

And just because the ladies did such a great job, here’s a few more clips of them posing.

I’ve been itching to try some stop motion lately and luckily found a project that seemed suited to the technique. Here is a TVC I created for a women’s health fair event (sidenote: TVC is industry-speak for “television commercial”). The challenge was to visually show a connection between “health, fitness, and fashion.” Shooting stop motion allowed for some creative transitions that helped tie the three themes together. Notice there are no cuts in this spot.

And now some technical details.
We shot this on a blue paper backdrop. It was lit with a couple of kino four-banks from the front. I went with hot lights instead of strobes to eliminate any potential flickering due to variation in strobe output. Don’t get me wrong, I love AlienBees, but they are not as consistent as, say, Profoto. Plus, shooting with constant light meant I could shoot at a higher fps without waiting for strobes to recycle.

The spot was shot on a Canon 5DMkII in stills mode (not video). I cheated the stop motion where ever I could. Cheating meant having the model move in slow motion and varying the shutter interval manually. It probably averaged somewhere around 4 fps. Other setups required the standard (and tedious) method of positioning the frame, snapping a picture…reposition…snap…repeat ad naseum. Text was done in After Effects using a combination of jitter settings in Path Text and Time Posterization.

I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll say it again. Filmmaking is one long string of creative problem solving. A great example of this is the “toiletry mobile” constructed from a mountain bike wheel and fishing line (see picture below). This little gem allowed the toiletries to easily orbit the model’s head. Big thanks to Casey our fearless model, Anna with make up and hair, Amy the apple eater, and Lyn production manager extraordinaire. Also thanks to InHouse Marketing for all their help with production logistics.

The iPad is on its way and the HP Slate is not far behind. I am equal parts excited and terrified to see how these devices will change the way we consume media (hint: revolution). Already we’re seeing publishers and advertisers flock to the iPad. Many magazines that have been print-only since their existence now have the opportunity to immerse their readers in interactive video, sound, and motion. So, if you shoot video, how can you prepare for this brave new world? Get yourself an L-bracket.

I’ll explain. Traditionally, books and magazines are in a portrait orientation and film and TV are landscape. You don’t read books on your TV and you don’t watch movies in a magazine, until now. With the advent of the iPad (and other handheld computing devices), the lines between print and motion media are being blurred. Books AND movies can now be consumed on the same device. A device you hold in your hand and flip any way you wish.

With the iPad, there’s really no longer a landscape limitation for video. Maybe you want your vid to appear full screen in portrait mode? Maybe you need a long, tall video banner-ad on the side of a digital magazine page? I think we’re going to start seeing a lot more vertically shot video soon. The simplest way to get a portrait orientation out of your video camera is to flip it. Flip it good. So get yourself an L-bracket and get shooting (if you shoot with a fixed monitor you might want to also get yourself a neck brace and a chiropractor).

Last weekend I shot some vertical beach scenes. These were shot on Red with a Canon 10-22mm.

Beach Verticals from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

All this vertical footy got me wondering what some of this might look like as an iPad magazine cover. So I did a little Sunset Magazine mock up. Sunset Mag, if you’re reading this, call me. We’ll talk.

I’m working on a personal project right now about the costal Redwoods. After spending two days deep in the jurassic mists I started to get a little stir crazy. You ever feel like raptors are watching your every move?

In addition to almost twisting my ankle falling off this tree, I think I really scared two old ladies that were walking up the trail behind the camera. There, now no one can say I take myself too seriously. Enjoy the buffoonary.