Photographing a Beauty Headshot

One of my favorite set-ups is my version of a beauty headshot. I have described the basic set-up that used a 30" X 40" softbox as the main light and narrower softboxes for hair lights in previous books. I decided to change it up a little for those of you with a "starter" studio kit. This particular series will also look at using Photoshop to fine tune the image to create the vision that you want. Most starter strobe kits come with several strobe heads and a medium sized umbrella. This stunning image of Brandy was created with three strobe heads. 30-degree grids were placed on two of them for the hair lights. Grids are honeycomb devices that fit into a parabolic reflector and narrow the beam of light to a specified radius. The umbrella is a somewhat harsher light source than the softbox, so the effect of this lighting scheme will be even more dramatic than when a softbox is the main light.

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A "simple" start up strobe kit is all you need to create spectacular beauty headshots. The gear needed to create this beautiful image of Brandy consisted of three strobes, an umbrella and a silver card-and a little help from Photoshop.

A beauty headshot is generally produced for commercial reasons-the point of the image is often to sell cosmetics or hair products. The lighting is clean and shadowless-the contours of your model's face are created by the make-up. However, I often use black flags along either side of my model. The flags serve two purposes: they act as a shield to block light from the hair lights from entering my lens and creating flare and they also act as a negative fill. The black absorbs some of the light from the main light and reflector and actually helps to create a subtle shadow around your model's face. The flags were in place for all of the images in this series. Be careful with the placement of your flags-especially when using a narrow gridspot for a hair light-you do not want to block the light from hitting her hair.

We begin the series with just the main light in place. Brandy is seated in front of an old drafting table with the table edge just below chest high. A strobe is hooked up to an umbrella with a black backing [to keep light from going through the umbrella]. The umbrella was positioned directly in front of Brandy; placed above the camera level and angled so the pole of the umbrella pointed right at her face. The exposure was set for f 11. The umbrella does a nice job by itself, but there are too many shadows under Brandy's nose and chin for this image to work as a beauty shot.

We placed a California SunBounce silver reflector on the table and angled it up towards Brandy. Clamps were used to hold the reflector in place. This simple change in the lighting set-up produces a dramatically different result. The front lighting is now complete.

The addition and careful placement of a reflector produces the light that makes this one of my favorite techniques. You do not need to use a fancy store bought reflector-any silver card will work. I like the combination of the harsher umbrella and the silver card for this look.

The image begins to come together with the addition of the first hair light. I mentioned that I usually use narrower softboxes for hair lights in the past, but this time I chose a spot light with a 30-degree grid. The spot light has a greater degree of contrast than the Stripdomes so I set it to the same exposure as the main light. I'll bump up the exposure of the hair light with larger light sources.

The addition of a hair light begins to separate Brandy from the backdrop and begins to add emphasis to her thick black hair.

The second hair light was also a spotlight with a 30 degree grid and completes the lighting portion of the photograph.

The second hair light shows the effect of using the spotlight better than the first and almost finishes the image. Minor retouching was done to the image using the heal and clone tools to remove stray hairs, etc.

I like the image as it is, but it didn't fit what I saw in my mind before pushing the shutter. Photoshop has long ceased to be a tool to "fix" a bad image. It is now an essential component in the photographer's creative toolbox. Some simple Photoshop enhancements will provide the shine to Brandy's hair and a "pop" to her face that I want. I captured the image in RAW so I had more options to play with. I opened the RAW image again but slide the exposure slider up to overexpose the image by 1.65 stops!

I re-processed the image to grossly overexpose the image. The red in the image is warning me the highlights are being seriously clipped! I ignored the warning and clicked OK to open the image. I selected the Move tool and held down the shift key to drag the overexposed version on top of the proper image. Holding the shift key while you drag an image from one file to another will center the dragged layer. Brandy's hair shows some beautiful highlights, but as I was warned, her skin tones are blown out.

The image looks pretty bad, but we will fix that now. The following screen capture shows the result of the next two steps. First I made a duplicate layer of the background layer and dragged it on top of the overexposed layer...and we are back to where we started from! However, it also shows the key to finishing the image: I clicked on the "add layer mask" icon at the bottom of the layers palette. You can see that it has linked a white layer mask with the properly exposed image.

The addition of the layer mask is the critical step in the final retouching of the image.

A white layer mask reveals all the data on that layer. However, choosing the paint brush tool with the layer mask activated will give you a choice of painting with white or black. In this case you want to paint with black to reveal portions of the underlying layer [because the layer mask is white]-the overexposed layer in this case. Use the opacity slider in the tool options bar to control how much of the underlying layer you want to paint in.

This screen capture shows the image after painting in the underexposed layer for her hair. It also depicts how the layer mask shows which sections of the underlying layers are allowed to show through-and the amount of that layer that is allowed to show through. The dark areas in the mask are where the overexposed layer is showing.

For this image I initially painted in the over-exposed area for her hair at 100% opacity, but this blew out the highlights more than I wanted. This now becomes a matter of personal taste, but I felt like I now drew too much attention to the highlights in Brandy's hair that were caused by the spotlight hair light.

The solution was easy: I simply switched the paint color to white, lowered the brush opacity to 50% and painted out the highlights! Note: if you hit the back slash key you can see the mask in the image which makes it easy to see where you want to paint or to modify the mask. Also the left and right square bracket keys will decrease and increase the size of your brush respectively.

The image is almost finished...but not quite!

The image is just about complete...but I still wanted more of a "pop" to Brandy's face. We've got an over-exposed version of the image at our disposal, so let's play with it a little. I chose the brush tool at a low 10% opacity and increased the size of the brush to fit just inside the contours of her face.

A combination of lighting and Photoshop tools were used to create was has become one of my favorite images.

Mahalo Brandy!

Originally Published in Professional Photographer Magazine.

Stephen Dantzig is a nationally renowned lighting expert and author of Lighting Techniques for Fashion and Glamour Photography for Film and Digital Photographers, Mastering Lighting Techniques for Outdoor and Location Digital Portrait Photography and Softbox Lighting Techniques for Professional Photographers (Amherst Media). His fourth book, Back to Basics, has been accepted for publication. He has written more than fifty articles and lessons on photographic lighting and ethics. He is a frequent contributor to RANGEFINDER Magazine and his lessons have appeared in Professional Photographer Magazine, PC Photo Magazine, Studio Photography and Design, ProPhoto West, ShootSmarter.com, ProPhotoResource.com, the Photoflex Web Photo School. His work has appeared on more than 22 magazine covers including local, regional and national markets. Some of his published works have appeared in the Amherst Media's Portrait Photographer's Handbook, Group Portrait Photography Handbook, The Best of Portraiture, The Best of Photographic Lighting (First and Second Editions), Lighting and Posing Techniques for Photographing Women, Professional Portrait Lighting Techniques and Images from Master Photographers, and Rangefinder's Professional Photography This Week Magazine (Hawaii), Pleasant Hawaii Magazine, Doll Reader, Metropolitan Home, Studio City Lifestyles Magazine, Santa Clarita Valley Living, and The Los Angeles Times. Stephen is a twenty-one time Award of Merit recipient from the Professional Photographers of Los Angeles County and has received two Awards of Merit from The Professional Photographers of Hawaii. His specialties include fashion, beauty and corporate photography. Stephen also holds a Doctor of Psychology degree from the Rutgers University Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology. He now works, teaches and resides in Honolulu, HI. View his work and purchase signed copies of his books at http://www.dantzigphotography.com. Reprints of this article are permitted as long as this resource box is attached. All text and associated images are copyright: Stephen A. Dantzig.

About the Author

Stephen Dantzig is a nationally renowned lighting expert and author of three books on lighting. His fourth book, Back to Basics, has been accepted for publication. View his work and purchase signed copies of his books at http://www.dantzigphotography.com. Reprints of this article are permitted as long as this resource box is attached. All text and associated images are copyright: Stephen A. Dantzig.