Photographers
For nudists who like taking photos. For beginners and experts. No experience necessary. If you are curious, have just bought a camera and would like to know more... step on in... Nerds and photo-geeks are also welcome. If you have a darkroom or work in Black and White you have a home here. If you think that autofocus is the tool of the devil, you will not be mocked.
- created by RobRoy
What series of techniques or steps do you use to manipulate a photo?
Return to DiscussionsMy own stuff is pretty simple since I don't know how to use
many advanced techniques in Photoshop yet I am slowly learning. I use a Green
Screen Wizard for cloning and back
ground changes ,Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 for retouching , cropping , adjusting
the lightness/darkness revive color ,
brightness , sp. effects etc . Sometimes
I go too far and have to back up so what I do is save 
Thank you very much for the compliment it is
very kind you. I think all nude photo are great for one but i love the artistic ones the most . I like to take all kind of picture in different setting going for the more the artistic look less like the porn look . I want
to do more in nature picture just need to find the right spot for them. I have
done a lot of beaches and back yard stuff beach. I only recently started playing
around with green screen stuff. Now I have been looking for wide open nature spaces
where I can take picture .I have been taking them myself using a tripod and setting
the timer.
I love shooting at
the nude beach it has such a nice open Environment with lot of natural light. I
like studio photos too. But you just cant beat scenic view here are a few shot
I took .
Since I got the new Photoshop I havn't been able to use it to create composite photos. The file size is too big. I use it to adjuut exposure (sic) and crop photos taken with a time delay and tripod. I could use my previous Photoshop. One thing I discovered is the need to add shaddows using the darken tool. The body casts shaddows on even a cloudy day. Without shaddow a body appears to float. It also helps to match the lighting angle on the various layers.
First, I think your stuff is great and inventive and experimental in a cool way, so whatever you're doing you're doing well.
Now, to answer the question "What series of techniques or steps do you use to manipulate a photo?" There is no one set of things you do for all images -- each is different. However, the following are things I, and many professional photographers I have met, tend to do and I'd say these are things that matter.
1. Most Important: Your Choice of Subject, because nothing affects the look of your image so much as what you point the camera AT! Once you have that, good Lighting and good Composition are the next most important things before you ever click the button.
I assume, from your question, you probably meant what steps AFTER you shoot and you take it into the Digital Darkroom, be it Photoshop or whatever software. So to answer that...
After you click the button...
2. I usually start by adjusting the contrast and brightness of the image using the "levels" controls in Photoshop. If you're not in Photoshop, almost all image editing software usually has some equivalent as it's the most basic of adjustment tools. Do NOT adjust brightness using "brightness" or contrast using "contrast." Those have there place but usually are NOT the right tool to get the best results. Those bring EVERYTHING up or down. The levels control allows you to adjust overall brightness by adjusting the mid-range, while keeping the lower values (blacks) down where they belong without washing out (unless you want them to) and by allowing the brightest highlights (whites) to stay up there without going blown out over the top.
Almost every professional photographer I know who uses Photoshop tends to do this, or something like this, as the first step. It makes an image snap. Especially common is to lower the black levels (often called "crushing the blacks") by which they mean lower the exposure of the bottom values until you lose the washed out milky quality in the very darkest tones so they have a deeper, more crisp look to them.
Cameras are designed these days to "acquire" a full range of visual detail from the brightest to the darkest, which tends to make them have milky black levels (especially RAW images) and dull (or blown out) white areas.
Playing with the three level controls lets you adjust the overall brightness and set a nice contrast range that isn't flat while still holding details.
3. Isolate elements to adjust independently their levels and focus - For example, you might want to just take down an overly bright sky or background without effecting the model. I am particularly fond of layering the focus by blurring the background areas behind and in front of my model. This simulates the sort of shallow depth of field you get with a nice Digital SLR or film camera, but which many small digital cameras are don't do well. Small digital cameras hold everything in focus. Using these tools you can simulate the effect of shooting on a better camera.
There are more tricks, but they vary with each image. Those things are the first steps in almost everything I shoot -- when needed! When not needed -- don't be afraid to just leave it alone. Me... I tend to over cook an image sometimes. Less is more.
my edition of Photoshop is an old one (Photoshop 7.0) But it is more than suficient for what editing I do. ( Having been brought up with traditional film and processing my own in a Darkroom). I tend to do most editing whithin the camera. The editing I do in Photoshop is what I would normaly be doing in the Darkroom i,e Cropping, Contrast, Lightening, Holding back and burning in. I still enjoy working with negatives in a darkroom.Havinga foot in both camps. Frank
I use Lightroom 4 for both cataloguing and editing (Lightroom 5 has just come out and I'm umming and erring whether to upgrade!). I have recently had my netbook upgraded to enable me to do it "on the hoof" when I'm travelling. I do also have Photoshop CS2 for the rare occasions when I need to use it and that can be accessed from within Lightroom. I have recently discovered colour manipulation and should probably use Photoshop for that more than I am doing at present.
My own stuff is pretty simple since I don't know how to usemany advanced techniques in Photoshop yet I am slowly learning. I use a GreenScreen Wizard for cloning and background changes ,Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 for retouching , cropping , adjustingthe lightness/darkness revive color ,brightness , sp. effects etc . SometimesI go too far and have to back up so what I do is save
That is like asking a painter what colors he or she uses on their palate. The answer is that it depends on the image. I use Photoshop. Some images will need Shadows/Highlights adjustment to bring extreme regions under control. Content Aware Fill is amazing at removing unwanted objects and interpolating what should have been there. For many of my fantasy images I use the basic Dodge and Burn to create shadows and highlights on the body to give the illusion of the lighting that would be found in the location.