34 Selective Lighting

Lighting for Photoshop

In previous lessons we have taken a good look at shooting exteriors and interiors along with lightingapproaches and Photoshop techniques. We have explored how to light a room with strobes, umbrellas,and grids. We have looked at how to get good images without supplemental light using HDR. Now, thisfinal lesson will take a closer look at a few other techniques that use various lighting approaches andPhotoshop techniques.

I like the term 'Shooting for Photoshop'. This is a strategy that is used when a photographer chooses tocreate or build an image using selective lighting techniques and then compositing in Photoshop. It isalso the same approach when Iuse the term: Hide-A-Light. Plac-ing a light in a scene to create alighting effect than hiding thelight using Photoshop.

Here is a short and simple exam-ple:

This is a hotel room capturedwhile shooting a hotel, much ofwhich is later in this lesson. Thisis the base exposure for theroom. Lots of window light com-ing in and and some strobes.

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I have a light placed to the right of the camera next to the cabinet and pointed at the floor and end ofthe bed. You can see a reflection in the armoire and the corner of the light stand. On the other side ofthe cabinet is another raw light with diffusion pointed at the couch and you can see the shadows onthe wall. A third light is on the floor at the head of the bed to skim light along the bottom of the bed.The fourth light is the fill umbrella over the camera.



I bracketed my shutter speed here again to get a darker window. Now that all the lighting was doneand exposure set, I had one problem and it was the side of the armoire. Besides the reflections it wasdark and there was nowhere to put a light to brighten it up. Now was time for the Disappearing Light,aka Hide-a-light.



So I had my assistant move one lightclose to the bed and position it tobounce off the ceiling and the nextimage shows how nicely lit that isnow (below).



Now it's Photoshop time.

I opened the base image in PS and drag over the window exposure and the cabinet exposure.



I select the window using the Polygonal Lasso Tool and then add a layer mask to the window exposureand this makes the outside window show well.



Then I add a layer mask to Layer 2, add a mask, and paint over the cabinet to reveal the lighter col-ored side and also lighten the carpet at the same time.



After the lens correction tool, the completedimage.

This is the key technique. You place a light in your scene to light a specific area. Then youuse Hide-All masks to reveal, by painting on the mask, the effect of that light but not thelight itself. Think about this further and you can see how you can do this technique evenwith a flash and i'll show you that coming up.



So lets look at another image one more time to make sure it all makes sense. Below on the left is thebefore and after. On the left image there is window light coming in directly and creating shadows andthat works well. There is an umbrella left, squeezed against the wall to add fill coming on the backs ofthe chair and room overall. The camera is in the doorway. The right image is the finished image. Theshelves on the left of the cabinet are brighter. The wall above is brighter, the carpet on the right isbrighter. The window outside is brighter.

First, I bracketed myexposures for the win-dow and inside lightas well. I had tochoose the left expo-sure as my base im-age to keep the directsun coming throughthe windows from be-ing to hot so the exte-rior exposure is todark and I replacedthe windows.



To solve the inside issues with the cabinets and floor, I shot two images with strobes: the left shows fill-ing in the cabinet dark holes and the right shows brightening the carpet. ends up being to dark and Ifix that next. Then I replaced the windows using the same techniques shown previously.



Using the Quick SelectionTool I grab inside the win-dows. The selection asusual is not perfect so I usethe Polygonal Lasso tool toperfect the selection. WhenI select the ADD LAYERMASK icon at the bottom ofthe layers palette, it turnsthe selection into a mask forthe window. Then with themask selected, I go to Fil-ter>Blur>Gaussian and blurit 3 pixels and that softensthe mask edges.



Heres what the mask lookslike.



Next I add the first umbrellaimage to the stack of layers,and add a hide-all mask.Selecting the brush tool andmaking white the fore-ground color, I brush overthe cabinets and he wallabove to brighten them.



Here is what the mask lookslike: heavy to brighten theinside of the cubby holesand 30% opacity on the out-side of the cabinet andwalls.



.Here you can see thebrighter cabinet.



I used the same technique:added a hide-all layer maskand brightened only thefloor which means me andthe umbrella dont show up.

This is hide-a-flash or selec-tive lighting with masks oryou can call it what youwant. Place lights whereveryou need them and shootaway. The stack all layers inPhotoshop and add blackmasks, then paint on theblack mask with white to re-veal only the lighted areasthe image needed. Nowwell look at a home andhow all these same tech-niques are applied.



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34 Selective Lighting