GraceNMichelle shoot: post production thoughts

The shoot with vlogger Geek Goddesses GraceNMichelle last week went great. We tweeted about the process as much as we could while staying on track with the limited amount of time that we had. Since we budgeted less than an hour of actual shooting time and two hours for set-up I decided to use set-up time to compose the shot and lock down on a tripod. This way I could composite two shots together, a good shot of Grace and a good shot of Michelle, into one final image.


I picked this one for Michelle's expression.












Then I added Grace from another frame













I did a little bit to soften the fly-away hairs and lines on the faces. I try to be gentle when I'm retouching because I want my subject to look like real people (for the most part).

The fun part is selectively adjusting the contrast and saturation for each part of the photo. Generally, I'm gentle with skin tones, so I can keep a good tonal range. I'm a little bit rougher with clothing, props, and anything else that I really want to pop. I then crop the photo and do a bit of burning around the edges for a vignette.

I may end up taking this photo a little bit further. I'm also considering using a different frame for Grace; which means I'll be starting over for the most part.