Eye glasses and flash glare?

[randy_kurtz]

Hello all. I am having trouble with flash glare on eye glasses. This is my

setup. Canon 5D 24-70mm lens, 2 Hensel 500w mono lights. The lights are setup

15ft in frount of the shot and the lights are just 5ft apart and 5ft high. The

5D is set on 400ISO/f9/ shutter 1/125 what can I change to get rid for the

glare on the glasses. Thanks Randy...

 

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h175/RLKURTZ/IMG_2991.jpg

[randy_kurtz]

I need to add I am using umbrellas on my lights.

[james d.]

Tell them to remove their glasses. It's honestly the simplest solution.

 

If they don't and you are not in a studio or they have plenty of patience's for you to tweak

things then they have to live with it.

[buckry]

She needs to tilt her head down slightly.

[hop_phan]

I have seen photographer using just eye glass frame ( without glasses ) in their studio.

[grant g]

Raise your lights higher or tell the people with glasses to tilt/face down a little.

 

I've never asked anyone to remove glasses, and have on a few occaisions told individuals

to put them back on "if that's how people normally see them". I've had to explain when

asked about the flash reflections, that "I can take care of that..."

[randy_kurtz]

Grant Gaborno, What do you think about moving the lights in to about 10ft and up about 8ft tall? Do you think this will be a good idea?

[grant g]

Randy, Good thinking-that would probably do the trick in this case. I was just coming

back to this thread to also suggest moving the lights closer, if possible as that makes

them "taller" relative to the subject.

[randy_kurtz]

Sounds GREAT!! Thanks you all for the help.

randy

[rnt]

This is always a problem, especially with on-camera flash. Having the subjects rotate their heads slightly left or right while still looking at the camera works best for me. Tilting the head down works too.

[kari douma]

Yes, Lights higher and chin down helps. Another trick is to have them raise thier earpieces up, so the glass is tilted down a little bit. You get the glare when the flash hits the glass straight on. I sometimes tell people to take off thier glasses for one or two picutes, then I use that image to photoshop the eyes if needed. This glare you could probably clone out pretty easily.

[kari douma]

Here is an example of my suggestion above of removing glassses to use the eyes. This is my aunt. I knew she would have glass glare when I did this, so I told her to remove her glasses, and then I used those eyes to make the last portrait.<div></div>

[picturesque]

That's a great example, Kari. Another thing you can do besides all the above suggestions is to turn the person's face away from the light that is causing the glare. Also, umbrellas make it more difficult to deal with glare because of the size of the reflection. If using a key/fill set-up, keep the fill light small--don't use an umbrella on it to cut down on the frontal, large reflection it would cause. Being the fill light, it won't make much difference re softness of light and shadows.

[randy_kurtz]

Kari thats awesome :) I am going to give it a try in CS3 today. Thank you!

[randy_kurtz]

Kari I just used photostitch to put the two photos side by side then saved it and then opened the photo with photoshop and used the clone stamp on the eyes. Is the a easyer way to do this? This is very cool! Thanks

randy

[colinsouthern]

If the glasses are to remain on then you HAVE to get the light source out of the family of angles (by moving lights - changing head / glasses angles etc).

 

If you're keen, pickup a copy of Light, science & magic - it's the industry standard introductory text on protographic lighting - and covers reflection issues in great depth.

[kari douma]

Randy, this is how I did it in CS2. I opened both files. I used the square marquet tool to select the eyes with no glasses, from the forehead to the bridge of the nose, to the sides of the face. Then I used the move tool to take her eyes off the image and lay them on the image with glasses. I lowered the opacity of the layer so I could see through the eyes with no glasses, to line them up exactly on top of the eyes with glasses. Then I put the opacity back to 100%. Then I masked the new eyes, and inverted the mask, so that the new eyes were not showing at all. Then I used my white brush to paint them on where the glass glare was.

 

It sounds complicated, but it probably only took about 2 minutes.

[jose_rivera9]

One final thing to give a try without changing much of your setup is to use a polarizing filter. If it still doesn't remove your glare then you could move it closer and higher.

[santa1]

I'll re-emphasize the comment that umbrellas make the problem worse. if you use a panel

type diffuser that if flat you'll have less reflection . You may still need to raise the lights or

use the digital restoration after shooting with and without the glasses but in some situations

just using a flat diffuser will suffice.

[colinsouthern]

Jose Rivera wrote: "One final thing to give a try without changing much of your setup is to use a polarizing filter. If it still doesn't remove your glare then you could move it closer and higher."

 

It won't help - this is direct reflection, not glare. :(

[mattalofs]

You can usually get rid of glare on glasses by having the wearer smudge them with fingerprints. That way you can avoid photoshop or repositioning the subject. Be sure to have lens cloth on hand for them to clean up afterwards.

[david_schilling___chicago_]

Raise your lights to about 45 degrees from the subjects and have her drop her chin abit,....easy peasy.

[randy_kurtz]

Thanks agen to all this has been a very big help!!

randy