Light It, Shoot It, Retouch It: Learn Step by Step How to Go from Empty Studio to Finished Image (Voices That Matter)
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Photography & Video
Light It, Shoot It, Retouch It: Learn Step by Step How to Go from Empty Studio to Finished Image (Voices That Matter) Details
Amazon.com Review Amazon.com Exclusive: Bonus Content from Scott Kelby, Author of Light It, Shoot It, Retouch It Here are a few things I wish someone had told me before I started studio lighting. In this book, I list ten things about lighting. Here are three to get you started right away. [Click Photo for Exclusive Content] Picking an f-stop for Portraits Start with Just One Light Shoot Tethered to Your Computer Read more About the Author Scott Kelby is Editor-in-Chief of Photoshop User magazine, President of the National Association of Photoshop Profession als (NAPP), Training Director for the Adobe Photoshop Seminar Tour, and one of the leading seminar instructors in the industry today. Scott is author of the best-selling books The Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers, Professional Portrait Retouching Techniques for Photographers Using Photoshop, Photoshop Down & Dirty Tricks, and The Digital Photography B ook (volumes 1, 2 & 3), among others. His easygoing, plain-English style of teaching makes learning photography and Photoshop fun. Scott trains thousands of photographers each year through his live seminars, live Webinars, and his weekly videocast. He knows firsthand which lighting and retouching techniques are in demand, and now he shares them all in one place, here in his latest book. Read more
Reviews
I bought this book after listing to yet another Photofocus podcast which featured Mr Kelby as a guest host. I love his sense of humor and he has a fantastically detailed methodology for communicating his technical expertise.This book is called Light It, Shoot it, Retouch It but those three aspects are not given equal weight. I was initially taken aback by how much of the book was spent on retouching vs lighting and shooting but as I went through it I found the post processing information absolutely fantastic. I think that there could have been more insight provided about why certain modifiers would be chosen over others in some of the setups. Also, since it does mention the actual shooting aspect in the title I think that more attention should have been spent on dealing with how he manages a shoot, interacts with the models, how he directs the models and some technical tips on how he focuses and composes his shots.The above is really just a minor nitpick considering how fantastic the information that the book does provide is. He really opened my eyes to more of the "what" is possible with photoshop along with the how these things are achieved. I greatly appreciated that.The book's one significant and almost inexcusable flaw is that he never tells you what his lighting ratios are! He uses 500ws elinchrom lights in just about all of the shoots and goes so far as to show you the exact power settings that he used for his shots. But why not use a light meter at the subject and measure each light to tell me how the actual exposure composed is from the subject's point of view. Telling me your aperture and the power settings is doesn't mean nearly as much as telling me that the side strip light is 1.5ev and the key is 1.0. The aperture, iso, shutter speed and light power settings may be nice to have but that information comes a distant second in my mind behind knowing the actual exposure ratios. It was stunning to me that this key detail is left out. Even if you knew the exact distance between each light and the subject, the power settings of the lights is not very helpful because you have no way of knowing how much light is consumed by the modifiers.Even with that major short coming of the book I would recommend it. There is some great information here and I think that it will help me with my own creativity, process and workflow.
