Transcripts
1. Introduction: What would you do if you
could create a look of multiple lights with
just one speed lights? Well, I'm going to show
you how in hi, I'm Leon, the clean and I'm a
still-life photographer that is in love with crafting light in order
to create still-life images. For this class, I am going
to share with you how I take just one light and make it look like I have a
multiple light setup. Although this is a pretty
easy technique to learn, I do recommend that
you know how to use off-camera flash before
you get started. If you are new to using
off-camera flash, then I recommend you take one of the many awesome courses that's available here at Skillshare. I'll go ahead and link some of those in the resources section. If you already are
comfortable with using Flash, then let's go ahead
and get started and turn our one flash and too many.
2. GatherYourSupplies: The first thing
I'd like you to do is gather your supplies. For this lesson,
you are going to need your camera
and the subject, I would recommend that you
have something that is still, it's going to be much easier to practice and get started
with something that's not going to grab a vase of flowers or maybe a
product that you would like to photograph
and get it set up in a location of your
choice because you're going to want your subject
and your camera to remain still and stable
throughout the whole session. I also recommend that
you use a tripod. Now if you don't have a tripod, you could put your camera on a table or some stable surface. And it definitely
needs to be a place where the camera is not
going to shift or move. The next thing you'll
want is your flash. I will be using a
speed light inside of a 28 inch beauty dish. The last thing
you're going to need is some kind of editing software where you can merge or composite your
images together. I will be using Photoshop. If you don't have Photoshop, then I recommend you
checkout Photoshop Express, which you can put right onto your phone, grab your camera, your light, your
subject and a tripod, and let's get started.
3. Lightsetup: The first thing I'm
gonna do is setup my subject where I
want it and my camera. Remember that once you have your camera and your
subject position, you don't want to move them. So go ahead and leave
them just how they are. And it's the same with
your camera settings. I would go ahead and put your camera's settings and then leave it and not change them. Once I have my subject
is how I want them, I'm gonna go ahead and grab my light and set it
up as my main light. Your main light is also
called your key light. I'm gonna put that at about a 45-degree angle from my subject. You can go ahead and experiment with different looks and angles and find out what works for
you in your particular style. For this shoe, I did several
options just so I would have more to choose from when it came to making the final image. After I got a variety of
images with my key light, I went ahead and
got my background light for my background, like I just shifted my
light to the background. Again, I've tried
several different angles and ways to light up
the background too. So I would have
lots to work with. Don't worry about overshooting. Go ahead and get yourself
lots of choices. Not only did I try lighting
my background from the size so that the light would skim off of it from the left
and the right. I also went ahead and put
my light right behind my subject so that it would give more even coverage
to the backdrop. For the final light, I'm going
to create some rim light. Rim light hits your subject from either the
back or the side, and it causes a rim of
light around your subject. It really helps in separating your subject from the backdrop. It's a beautiful
type of light and go ahead and experiment
with it again. I wanted to give myself
lots of options, so I went ahead and tried several different positions
with my rim light. Now you should have three differently lit looks
with your images. You should have the
main key light, you should have a
backdrop light, and then you should also
have the side or rim light. Go ahead, find your three
favorites and we're gonna take those into the editing
software of your choice. I'm going to show you
what I did in Photoshop. Let's go ahead and move on to the next lesson and
edit our images.
4. Bonus: Second Shooting Demo: Now I'm going to move my key light around and get a couple of different
options with my key light. Now that I have a few
different options with my key light, I'm going to go ahead and get the second light in my setup. The skin right past
that backdrop. Again, I'm getting
lots of oxygen. Steve has, I would rather have
too much than too little. Now I come across to the side. I don't want to bump me flowers. When you're moving your lights, you want to be
really careful that you're not bumping your subject, the more you can
get them to be in the exact same spot
throughout all the images. The easier it's gonna be
when you do your composite. Now I'm gonna go ahead
and I'm going to flip my life The Art
written warning. I'm gonna do that by just
turning the lights so that it is coming toward the
back of my subject. But staying out of the
frame of my camera. I'm gonna go ahead and flip
it onto the other side. Then I can have more variety, but also technically I could make a four light
setup with this, so I can have this slight and then where it was
here, that's two lights. My background light is three and then my main
light would be four. So this would be a
four light setup. And if you're
feeling adventurous, you could go ahead
and add even more. If you can make it a 30 light
setup with this technique, there's really no way
to hold yourself back. Go ahead and just experiment, be adventurous, and try all
sorts of different things. You can see this technique really does not have
to take a lot of time. I did all of that and probably
less than ten minutes. Now I'm gonna go ahead. I wanted to download
my images and I'm going to pick my favorites
for my composite. So let's go ahead and move
on to the editing process.
5. Editonetothree: Now we are already to look
through our images and pick out our selections
for our final composite. Here are my key
light lit images, and I'm going to pick two
to take into Photoshop. I'm going to go ahead and select this one and this
one right here. Now, let's go ahead and
look at backgrounds. I think that I like this one
with the circular light, where I had the light
directly behind my subject. And then I also like this one where it's not quite as bright, so I'm going to pick
that one as well. Now let's go ahead and look
at the rim lit images. I don't care for that. This one is a possibility, but let me look at the others. I think I do like this one, so I'm going to select
it and I'm going to take one from the other
side, right there. I selected about six images. You can select as many or
as few as you would like, but you'll need a least three. I am taking those selections
and I'm going to go ahead and open them up
in Photoshop as layers. Once I get my images
into Photoshop, I'm going to put my main
lights at the bottom, followed by my rim light, sidelight in the middle, and then my backdrop
lights at the very top. I'm going to go ahead
and just select my favorite of the
two key lights, which is the same
thing as main light. Then I'm going to
select the rim light. I have two different
options for rim light. I have this one and I have
this one from the other side. I'm going to go
ahead and just do this one on the
right side you can see where it has this
nice rim light along the frills of the Peony
petals and then this light along the pairs and
the handle of the vase. I'm going to select that one and I'm going
to take it from normal to screen
mode right up here. Once I have that on screen mode, I'm gonna go ahead and
reveal my main light image. Now you can see that the rim light has been added
to the main key light image. Let me go ahead and
show you what it looks like without the rim light. Here it is just by itself as the main light and here
is the rim light at it. You could go ahead
and play around with other modes and maybe
try difference. You can see difference left that backdrop quite
a bit darker, but it's still added our
two images together. You could try lighten, which I actually think
works better than screen here because it
keeps my backdrop dark. After that, I'm going to
go up and I'm going to select my backdrop lit image. Here it is. Now, I'm going to
turn the mode from normal. I could do lie in or
I could do screen. This is really going
to be what you prefer. Go ahead and experiment and see which one you like the most. I'm gonna go ahead and go
with screen and I'll show you why between
screen and lighten. You can see this little
sliver of light right here along this
pair, right here. If I switch it to,
this isn't lighten. And if I switch it
to screen and gets that tiny little bit of rim light and I like
how that looks. I'm going to go ahead and
keep the screen option. Now I did have other
options so I could turn off this backdrop and turn on
my other one right here. Again, I'm gonna keep on screen. I think I like this one more. It's a little more subtle
than that last one. Let's see what this
one looks like. It's on normal, so I'm
turning it into screen. And that one is very subtle. I think I'm gonna
go ahead and go with this middle option. If you brought in more than
one of each lit image, you can try and see what
the other ones look like. Like. I'm gonna go
ahead and try adding this other rim lights
and I'm switching it to, let's see your screen. I think I'm gonna
go with light in. Here it is with just that side. And here I am
combining this site. You can see it really
changed the look. I could actually make
this a four light look. I could keep this left side
light and the right side light and then my backdrop lie and then my main fill light. Let's go ahead and see what this other main light
option looks like. So here it's turned off and
now I am turning on a really, very similar, I don't
know that I really prefer either of those
more than the other, so I'm just gonna go
with that right there. The next thing I'm
going to do is crop my image and get out the lights. Now, depending on the style of photography that you're shooting or your own personal preference, you may decide to work those
lights into your image. It's entirely up to you and what you like to
do at this point, I'm gonna go ahead and
merge my visible layers. Then I'm going to get
rid of my soft boxes. I'm going to do that by
using the Patch Tool. Now this is again
something that you can try doing
whatever you prefer. There are so many options in Photoshop in order to
do the same thing. So do what you like the most. And I'm using the patch tool, but you could also
use the clone or the fill tool or so
many other things. I do have some sensor
desk right here. I'm gonna go ahead
and remove that with the Patch Tool as well. At this point, I would probably go ahead and
bring this image back into Lightroom and I would
continue to color correct it and fix the exposure. But you are welcome to finish the editing process
in whatever way you prefer for your own
taste and style. But here you have an image that looks like it was shot with multiple lights when in
fact you only used one. Go ahead and finish your edit and I'll see you in
the next lesson.
6. Conclusion: I hope you enjoyed creating your own multiline might
look with just one light. This is such a fun technique to explore and experiment with, and I hope you have a
lot of fun with it. Please be sure and share your completed image in
the project section, I cannot wait to see
what you have created. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I'm here to help as
much as I can and I can't wait to create
with you in the future.
Leah McLean, Floral Inspired
