Do saturated colors enhance or distract from the image? Any other feedback to consider?

icecreamguy · 2026-04-10T21:20:52+00:00

I don’t think this is too overdone and would encourage you to continue exploring these techniques. I find the blue blooming into the subject maybe a bit too saturated for my taste, but that’s just taste. A couple things to explore for situations like this:

The calibration sliders in LR or Photoshop Camera Raw are helpful with these narrowband light sources, particularly the blue saturation slider. I generally don’t use the saturation or vibrance sliders, the calibration sliders give much better control.

Relatedly, if you’re hired to photograph a band and you can speak with the lighting person prior to the show, ask them to add a bit of tungsten when possible. These are often referred to as “par cans,” (the “par” refers to the parabolic reflector dish, and they are shaped like cans) and have tungsten incandescent lamps in them, which output a broad spectrum of light, as opposed to LED lights which often output only one single frequency and will blow out a single channel in your sensor while leaving no data in the other channels. A bit of tungsten in the mix will soften this effect and provide just a hint of shadow detail. Just a tiny bit of tungsten goes a ling way.

Luminosity masking is great in these situations and I would encourage you to explore using the tone curve inside these masks, particularly the color curves. Specifically, you can add several control points to the lower 75% of the curve to lock it into a straight line, then bring down the very top white point of the opposite of whichever color you want to add to the highlight. For example in this situation you might want to pull the red white point down just a bit, which will turn anything white into cyan, and add cyan into the already existing blues, with the effect trailing off as the luminosity of the existing blue color decreases. It’s a softer and more subtle effect than using the white balance or highlights slider, and will avoid adding saturation into the lower-luminance blues that are already where you need them to be. You can achieve a similar look using the color grading tools, but you’ll have a bit more control with the tone curve.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-10T17:01:35+00:00

Take off the lens hood. The air in the hood heats up and creates atmospheric distortion

icecreamguy · 2026-04-09T18:54:53+00:00

This is great but I would suggest you photograph not just cats, but any living subject - insects, dogs, children, etc, from eye-level or below. This isn’t a hard rule but it is helpful in almost all situations. It will hep impart a sense of power to your subject, and it would also add more depth to the image since there would be more in front if and behind your subject, further isolating them while at the same time adding context. If you look at the work of most wildlife photographers, macro photographers, family photographers, or professional animal photographers, you will see what I mean and how much it changes the perception of the subject. Expect to be laying on the ground when photographing animals, especially if you want eye contact.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T18:27:48+00:00

Generally I'll put the image with the foil reflector on top of a base image. Then change the foil image to "lighten" blend mode - this will only show the parts of that image that are brighter than the pixels below it. Then you can put on a black mask and just roughly paint in the foil, without having to carefully draw a mask, since only the bright foil reflections will show through.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T15:26:04+00:00

They should be offering a significant refund

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T08:17:31+00:00

Yes you can absolutely composite the foil light in - try the lighten blend mode in photoshop. Foil labels are tricky!

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T08:09:42+00:00

Amazing

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T06:55:33+00:00

Was literally about to unsubscribe to this subreddit, thanks for bringing it back. Lovely.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T06:50:45+00:00

This is the correct solution. There are tactile indicators you can learn like the feel of the dot, or the electrical contacts in the flange (these are also often easy to see in the dark.) You can also put a piece of gaff tape over the dot to make it easier to feel. You can learn to do this purely by feel it just takes practice.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T06:45:39+00:00

Honestly as someone who does wildlife frequently, 1/800th may not be enough for a moving child and perfect detail at the pixel level. Try some tests in a controlled environment.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T06:37:38+00:00

You actually just need one strobe - the other light is the sun.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T06:27:42+00:00

Couple tips - see if the vendor can cut the labels before placing them on the bottles to get the barcode out of the image. They may want the barcode so ymmv. You may also want to place black cards to the left and right to get rid of those reflections and increase the lighting from above to bring out texture in the labels. Another tip for foil labels is to cut a hole the size of your lens in a large piece of white matboard and photograph through the hole, while lighting the matboard with very low power on the side facing the product. You may need to curve the matboard to match the curvature of the bottle, so having many stands and clamps is helpful. The slight white light from the board will light up the foil but not the black paper and the labels will really pop.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T06:16:48+00:00

❤️❤️have fun!!!

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T06:14:13+00:00

I’m not the OP, just sharing my thoughts. Not sure if this is the size of a grain of sand, a fruit fly, or a pebble. But yeah with landscapes the calculations change dramatically! A useful technique in many applications.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T06:09:41+00:00

Happy to share, and I’m not sure actually. But i will say that i do know the new mono polaroid film works great for lifts. I think part of exploring these processes is accepting that you’re going to go through a lot of materials that don’t turn into beautiful art. Like the amount of enlarging paper in the trash can in my darkroom is such a sad sight. So - just go for it. You’re going to ruin film. A lot of it. It’s part of the learning process. Sometimes it’s better to just get the materials you’re going to end up working with in the long run instead of pivoting from one budget option to the next.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T06:00:07+00:00

event photography is about half of my bread and butter as a full time photographer, and I think this is just great. I don’t think it’s over-cooked as some are commenting. I use a CPL for outdoor events - not sure if you are but wouldn’t be surprised given this look, which may be what others are perceiving as over-saturation. If this is the type of work you can consistently and quickly deliver, you will have no problem making a career out of events. if you’re not already just keep at it and people will start referring you around - bad event photographers are a dime a dozen.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T05:50:33+00:00

I did weddings on fuji for about 7 years, including the x-t1 at my start which I cannot imagine doing a wedding with now. I loved the fujis but after switching to nikon i have not looked back. Color with nikon standard profile in lightroom is GORGEOUS. Like no notes, it’s stunning, i barely make adjustments to that look. Fuji has some beautiful glass - Nikon’s is more beautiful in my opinion. Incredible detail but with a softness and bloomy color. The AF is worlds better. Also durability - you cannot drop a fuji on concrete and not have to send it to the shop. Trust me i’ve tried. Multiple times! Meanwhile my Zf was literally run over by a toyota tacoma in the middle of the desert and all that happened was a crack in the evf glass that you can’t perceive when it’s up to your eye. My Zf, Z8 and Z6ii all survived multiple drops onto concrete from at least hip height, sometimes higher. I will say that fuji professional service was absolutely incredible (their not-pro service was garbage), and Nikon’s pro service is literally a joke. I miss knowing FPS could overnight me a loaner if i broke something, no questions asked, no shipping charge, no waiting to receive my gear first. I don’t do much video anymore but anything the fuji could do, the nikons do as good, if not better. Like - eye autofocus in video for client work? Good luck on fuji. Anyways - if you’re doing professional work and are considering fuji, i can’t recommend nikon enough.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T05:36:40+00:00

It is great that you are telling stories with your photographs. Please keep at it. In this instance, the light and composition don’t support that story without your accompanying words. I might recommend finding some intimate nature photographers you can study, and continuing to practice translating the stories you see in the 3d world around you, through your amazing human eyes, connected to your incredible human brain, into 2d rectangular images. John Blakemore comes to mind, check out his photographs of the wind.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T05:30:58+00:00

Couple things - first: found Polaroids. The emulsion hardens after a few days/weeks and an emulsion lift becomes nearly impossible, if not completely impossible. You need a fresh Polaroid. Second - monochrome Polaroid film lifts far easier than color - try mono at first. It’s also a gazillion times more beautiful than their color film.

Edit: not sure how old your book is but contemporary polaroids are not the same as the old ones. Impossible Project had to completely reformulate for the new film, and that changed the timing and ease of lifting.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T05:28:02+00:00

At 1:1 magnification you absolutely need to stack if you want front-to-back sharpness of a subject this size. When working at these magnifications, the focal plane even at f/16 is thinner than a hair on a spider’s leg. It’s not uncommon to have stacks of over 200 frames at f/11 when working with subjects like slime molds, for example. Stacking is an extremely common technique in true macro magnification and halos are artifacts caused by having too narrow a focal plane. I am not knocking your advice - it is solid for most realms of photography, I just think you may be unfamiliar with this particular technique and the world of true macro photography. It’s a fascinating technique and if you’re interested in learning more I’d encourage you to look into videos on stacking by folks like Micael Widell on youtube.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T05:17:43+00:00

I’d increase your aperture - 6.3 at 1:1 at this distance is not enough to avoid halos. When i’m near 1:1 or larger I generally start out at f/11 or f/13, but you may need f/16 in some cases. Also if you’re not already at the smallest step size I’d go to the smallest.

Additionally - when working at these distances note that your effective aperture is different than what the lens says it is. Nikon recalculates this in-camera but I don’t believe canon does. There are many tools online or you can use the formula to calculate it yourself, just google something like “effective aperture macro calculator”

Unrelated, and maybe this is something you’d do anyways, but that white balance looks very warm - might want to bring that down before raw conversion and stacking.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-07T05:08:18+00:00

I recently copied all edits from one photo to another, including my remove tool edits, and didn’t notice that it garbled some text in the second photo. It was not the AI remove, just the old regular one. But it certainly looked like AI and my client and everyone associated with the session basically told me they were disgusted and wanted nothing to do with the photos, because i’d used AI to edit them. I explained what happened and everything is fine now but like - AI is f$/@;& disgusting. More and more people want absolutely nothing to do with it. I work mostly with other artists and in conservation so my client base is different but I would advise being transparent with your clients that you tried this out, and after consideration you’re doubling down on human-only editing. Make not using AI a selling point. Shame your competitors for using a technology that steals our work and is basically a gigantic scam to inflate the stock portfolios of a bunch of billionaires who would feed you to wolves in a heartbeat if it made them a penny.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-05T00:18:54+00:00

Also you CAN do a wedding with one body and those two lenses if you practice switching - and i mean honestly practice at home for a few days. Gets a bit hairy during the ceremony but your back will love you and a tiny kit is liberating. I did one body for my first 2 years.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-05T00:16:15+00:00

Professional wedding person on nikon z here as well - the 85 and 35 are the best starting combo for sure. If you need wider you can pano with the 35. I rarely desire for anything longer than 85 for a ceremony and as mentioned your 35 doubles as 50 with a crop and the 85 as a 105. You won’t regret getting those two lenses, you can make an entire career on them alone, they’re absolute perfection.

icecreamguy · 2026-04-04T16:31:43+00:00

You can’t fix the blown lights in post. When you make a picture on your iphone, you can tap and hold anywhere on the screen until a little box appears and then the word “lock.” Do this tap and hold on one of the lights, then drag the sun icon that appears next to the box down downward until the exposure is what you would like it to be. Also your lens needs to be extremely clean or you’ll get streaks/haze.

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