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ctfchallenge | all galleries >> Challenge 44: Stuffed Animals >> Challenge 44: Stuffed Animals--Eligible > Boot Check*
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26 November 2003 Don Ellis

Boot Check*

When camping, it’s important to check your boots in the morning
for scorpions, snakes, spiders and lizards.
Do not be fooled if they seem friendly.


other sizes: small medium original auto
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Don Ellis07-Dec-2003 10:30
Hi Paul,

That’s very kind and I’m happy to tell you what I do in case it helps. I have nothing even closely resembling a studio; instead, I have a 30-inch-square table draped behind and on the surface with double-wide black velvet.

The room is lit from two windows on corner walls that are shaded with venetian blinds. Especially with shiny surfaces, I find that virtually everything reflects, so I angle the blinds upwards and almost closed so that whatever light enters goes toward the ceiling. Because of the narrowness of the slits, very little light comes in this way, so shots are invariably done on a tripod with fairly long shutter speeds (1 second or so).

I shoot in RAW mode, bring the photo into Photoshop, and either Auto-Contrast (PS7 or CS), or manually set black and white points (assuming they exist). Obviously, there’s a black point on black velvet, so I set it and then use a black paintbrush to catch those areas that are not true black. I keep Saturation, Sharpness and Contrast at the lowest in-camera settings and very occasionally I’ll boost Saturation by 5-10% -- but often I won’t.

Then slight Curves to brighten and enhance contrast, then Ultrasharpen 6 at 50 (lowest setting), flatten the image, then Unsharp Mask with something like 100-300%, 0.2, 0, depending on the photo. The high percentage and low radius catches just the tinest details and tightens them.

Hope that helps.

Don

Paul Donovan 30-Nov-2003 14:29
Don, like this - what I've noticed is, all of your images seem to have great lighting. Would you care to share, now or after the challenge perhaps, what your secret is? In this one for example - was there post-processing to get the nice clean black background. There's no loss of detail on the boots etc, or flash blow-out kind of things. Do you use bananas and flashlights, built in flash, or a studio setup? Thanks. Paul
iso320028-Nov-2003 21:23
The repetition of poses makes it for me.
Guest 28-Nov-2003 08:47
I especially like the all black shoes with the only colour being the laces. The two animals having identical poses just makes it a classic!
Gayle Knowles26-Nov-2003 09:37
Hahahaha....so true! Don't forget to check your sleeping bag before you go to bed too.
This is funny, well composed, excellent black background and once again....a superb entry.
Gayle