Dynamic Lighting - Moody Flowers

Short - Sweet - To the Point! :)

Dynamic Lighting is lighting where there is ONE definitive, bold, light source that creates an uneven lighting contrast of bright brights and dark shadows...

this isn't the harshest of lighting conditions, but it still emphasizes detail in the flower as well as in the cloth

a little harsher?

window as dynamic light source

 the main light source for the first picture was the window, the rest of the room was dark for the most part even though there were other light sources (windows). The flower is a little lower than the window. (light source)

The light source for the second picture was the same window, though the position was much farther away from the window. The flower is level with the window...

of course the lighting doesn't always have to be 90 degree angles... The light source (sun) is almost directly facing the camera, revealing detail on the window and wood, that would not otherwise be visible had there been other light sources present (say on the other side of the window...) ...or had there been a bottle of windex nearby... 

Below is a great tutorial on how to do FAKE Dynamic lighting with some editing...

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/photo-effects-tutorials/add-dynamic-lighting-to-a-flat-photograph/

Light Rays Tutorial

Cheap and easy way to add light rays to any photograph in almost ANY photo-editor (also works for video) 

STEP 1: Create basic shape for the light ray

beautiful.... 

STEP 2: Motion Blur

I see a face...

STEP 3: Layer it 

adding multiple copies of the same ray over and over in different spots of the picture to get a nice look... (change the blending mode to "add" so make the black go away...) 

this is a darker look to emphasize the rays

more washed out

Without the picture below this is what my rays ended up looking like...

I added brighter spots at the bottom to make the light more believable and added some dust particles to give a more dreamy, fantasy look... 

I did not take this picture... 


I think one of the most important parts of adding anything to a photography, is simply, matching the color... 

HSL Magic! The Magic of adjusting Hue, Saturation and Lighting...

Using HSL in any photography editing program and even video editing programs, you can go from the original left photograph, to the new HSL enhanced right photograph with almost no work at all... 

feel free to copy and past the photo below, if you want to follow along with this tutorial

STEP 1:  Do all the "usual" adjustments, from the original photograph and pretty it up the way you think looks best... I usually do a brightness and Contrast adjustment with a few Color Curves to get what I thought looked pretty nice:  

Step 2: HSL adjust... 

Experimentation is the best way photographers will learn... 

THE FINISHED PRODUCT: 

Here's some other photographs edited using HSL adjustments.

Pictures by Andrew Taraba