Thursday News Update
Happy Thursday everybody: here’s what’s up:
- The fine folks over at Westcott (the people behind the amazing Spiderlites that I use in studio, and on my Lightroom Tour) have featured my Lightroom tour in their customer newsletter (that’s it above–click to see a much larger version).The headshot you see in the newsletter was taken for a Photoshop CS3 online course I’m working on, using just one TD-5 Spiderlite and one Westcott 30″ reflector.
To get that fashion/glamor look I used a “Clamshell” (also called “Over and Under” lighting ) set-up, with the Spiderlite TD-5 (with a large softbox attached) positioned directly in front of the model’s face, angled toward her, and positioned as close as I could get it to her face without actually being seen in the frame. Then I positioned the reflector (silver side up) just below her neck (again, just out of frame) bouncing the soft light from the overhead Spiderlite back into her face, to minimize shadows and make her eyes sparkle.
So, think of these two (the softbox and the reflector) as a giant clam right in front of her face, and then you shoot through the little gap between the softbox and reflector. (I’m in the studio again today, and if I get a chance, I might be able to tape a quick video on how this was done).
B&H Photo has put together a kit called “The Westcott Scott Kelby Studio Kit” based on the exact kit I use on my Lightroom Tour (coming next to Chicago, by the way), which includes 2 of the Spiderlites, two stands, two softboxes, and a pop-up background that you’ve heard me talk about here on the blog. You can find it right here.
I’m such a big fan of Westcott’s products, and I’m really honored that they chose to feature me in their campaign. Thanks, you guys! :-)
- Yesterday on John Nack’s blog, John posted a link to Trevor Morris’ great site, and on it he’s compiled an easy-to-use list of Photoshop CS3’s keyboard shortcuts (you can find them right here). Way to go Trevor!
- PopPhoto.com has what could be a life-saving article on how to recover lost images if your memory card goes bad. You can find it by clicking this link.
- Previously on this blog, I mentioned how one of my students came up and told me about Drobo, which is a super secure way of backing up your photos to a hard drive, and automatically ensuring that the images on that hard drive are safe using a very clever robotic way of not only monitoring the health of your drives, but addressing any problems for you, and alerting you on what to do next.Well, I got a Drobo system myself and hooked it up last night, and I have to tell you—so far I’m very impressed.I’ll have more on this tomorrow, but in the meantime, if you’ve got a sec, go watch their short video called “See Drobo in Action” over at Drobo.com and see if you don’t think this thing is really cool (especially for photographers who are paranoid about losing their images, which is basically all of us).
That’s it for Thursday’s news. Catch you all tomorrow!