josh_e

<p>So far what I've been doing is to play with various settings in the software and see what I get and my approach is pretty much ad hoc. I like to develop a more methodical approach.<br> The guide should be quite software independent because different software such as Photoshop or Capture 1 have similar capabilities. I'm not looking for a guide for using the software because everybody can move a slider left or right. I want something that helps getting the "right" result and this brings up the second part of my question:<br> Out of all the various ways you can edit an image (color balance, exposure compensation, contrast, histogram or even just cropping) what is the "best" result one can get? Of course there is no definitive answer because this is to an extend a matter of taste. Some people like their pictures dark other like them bright. Some like it high contrast and some want the opposite. However there must be guidelines. If you want a photo to exhibit joy and happiness, it won't help to make it look dark. I like to know more about such guidelines. Right now I sometimes spend 20 minutes just cropping a photo. If cropped too much the subject looks out of context and if not cropped much then the subject may not stick out from its surroundings. </p>

<p>If I were you I wouldn't write to the disk or even use it so that in case the files are deleted they won't be wiped out. You can use a tool like photorec: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec<br /> to recover deleted files but you need to run it from a separate disk partition. (You can use an Ubuntu live disk for example.) It can even undelete files you deleted some time ago but does not recover filenames or directory structure. There must be simpler Mac-based tools too but I don't know.</p>

<p>Thank you. One thing I specifically like about the PP on those photos is the warm glow that they have. I can see a similar glow/shine in a lot of professional landscape photos as well. How can this be achieved in photoshop? </p>

<p>If taking photos from outside without trespassing and without using special equipment such as a long telephoto lens or infrared then no need to ask. But when I want to take photos inside (a shop, bar or someone's house) I ask for permission first. Look up "Photographer's Rights" by Bert Krages.</p>

<p>The seller accepts a return but the newer 1.4G lens would be almost twice as expensive even used. The contrast problem seems to appear only when shooting at wide apertures against sunshine, as in the attached crop-out. I don't know what to do (in case there is really fungus in the lens).</p>

<p>Front</p><div></div>

<p>Here is the same experimnt with my 50mm lens which I got new a little over a month ago. Doesn't look much better.I don't think this one may have developed fungus in such a short time so are the specs on the 85mm not fungi either?</p><div></div>

<p>$700 is what I paid for it. I contacted the seller to see if I could still return it. </p>

<p>Thanks. I was going to repeat this with the new 50mm lens that I have but it's a G lens so its aperture is set to 16 when detached from camera. But still worth experimenting. <br> Now the question for me is whether a "moldy" lens is worth $700.</p>

<p>Rear element</p><div></div>

<p>As preparation for a photo idea that I had in mind I put a flash in front and in the back of a 85mm 1.4D lens that I got used and took photos of the other side. OK there is much more dust on the lens that I can see with naked eye but what bothers me is the vertical lines appearing on the rear element. Are they scratches or are they somehow produces by light? The lens is in good condition and I can't see any scratches when I look through it although the photos I take appear to have low contrast. The aperture was set to 2 (as far as I remember) when I took the photos.</p><div></div>

<p>What about LightZone? It looks like a capable editor with a good GUI. I tried ViewNX-i. It's very simple and I could get decent results from it. My problem is that I use Linux. <br /> The main problem I have with free 3rd party editors like Rawtherapee, Dark Table and LightZone is that the initial image they show is not the same as the out of camera jpg so it's very easy for me to get a jpg that looks worse than the in camera one. They have so many, almost too many edit options available too.</p>

<p>A used old model with a resolution of around 10-12 MP would be a good choice to get you started. </p>

<p>Well...... I was into street photography for a few years and then I moved to a small town. There is still quite a lot of opportunity for street photography here but not comparable to what I was used to. So it occurred to me to create scenes myself. I have a lot of ideas for "photos that tell a story" for example a woman in bed being threatened by a camera on a tripod (think of old school science fiction movies with giant spiders) and many more.<br /> On the sexy side I liked Herve Lewis's <a href="http://www.hervelewis.com/#pagegalleries?gallery=fineart&series=2">fine art nudes</a> a lot since I was much younger and wanted to somewhat emulate them.<br /> Anyway so far I've got only two positive responses to my modeling calls. The first one (amateur model and outdoor shots) got me to the MM citadel where I sent messages to several local models explaining ideas similar to the one I mentioned above. I got no response from them but then a travelling model who used to be an art figure model contacted me and I did what I could do with a figure model. <br /> The photos I took and posted are not really voluptuous so they are far from "ultimate GWC dream". I get the point you're making about available light although flash has advantages too, not just the compositional flexibility but also freezing motion. And the strobist guy does a good job of popularizing it.<br /> Thanks for the encouragement Jochen. I used wavelet denoise to smooth the skin on the other ones but forgot to do so for the first one. Isn't the background that Maximov used muslin?</p>

<p>After asking a lot of questions here, here are a few photos I took [NSFW]: https://500px.com/curvaturephotos <br> These are my first ever photos of a model with "in-studio" lighting. (Prior to these I took some self portraits and photos of a model outdoors with the flash mounted on the camera; other than that I've done mostly candid shots in the past).<br> They were taken with a Nikon D750, 50mm 1.8G lens and a Strobist kit. (I'm getting a 85mm 1.4D lens as well).<br> Any advise is appreciated. Even if it's to abandon photographing models LOL.</p>