Article: Smoking IS Bad For Your Health - Smoke Photography tutorial

[Darren Turner]

Smoking IS Bad For Your Health

Darren

 

[Glen Roberts]

I like that Darren, I've fancied having a go at that myself but don't know where to start. Any chance of a set up and method used?


BTW are they all the same shot rotated and coloured different?

 

[Darren Turner]

its alot of fun Glen trust me, i only had half hour this morning to have play so didn't get many good smoke effects even though i took loads, so i just played with the best images i had........lol

This is the same image rotated and colored differently.

Method
So Basically, black card background, big thick candle burning away, camera on tripod aimed just above the candle flame & wick, flash gun off camera to the left or right, aimed roughly were the smoke from the extinguished flame will be but importantly no light from flash can illuminate the black card back ground.

I used cable release, manual focus, F5ish, lit candle, turned lights out in room so it was darkish, blew flame out and fired a few shots off camera to get something like this

then i opened raw file in cs4, upped contrast ALOT to make sure back ground was black & cropped image to get rid of unwanted edges

then you press Ctrl & I in photoshop to "Invert" the colours - white becomes black, black becomes white

now simply add a colour filter to image of any way you choose

& arrange in any pattern you fancy to create something like the initial image.

I am really new to this so only had a few goes, but it was relatively easy and i am going to be doing ALOT more........lol

Daz

 

[Pete Askew]

Nice walk through Daren and very effective. Ink dripped into water also creates some great patterns.

 

[Hamish Gill]

Great stuff mate ...
Made this into an article

 

[Thomas brookes]

Yeah great stuff!!!!

 

[Glen Roberts]

Thanks for the write up Darren. I don't have any flashes apart from the on camera one so I'd have to improvise with a spotlight from the side I think.

 

[Barry Keavney]

Good stuff Darren. And an informative technique and tutorial

 

[Darren Turner]

here is my highly advanced studio set up.........!!
(food store room at the hotel)

 

[Pete Askew]

Would spaghetti hoops work as well as tomatoes do you think?

 

[Darren Turner]

From This One ^^^^ merged to this vvvvv

 

[Pete Askew]

Excellent and I like the face in No 2!! Gels or layers?

 

[Darren Turner]

It was A Gradient Fill Layer in Cs4 (Thanks Laurie For The Help With That Bit)

 

[Glen Roberts]

Now you're just showing off...lol.

 

[Darren Turner]

Some Are A Bit Noisey, But Never Mind..........lol

 

[Hamish Gill]

Im gonna have to have a go at this!

 

[Darren Turner]

Getting Bored Yet.........?? Ha Ha Ha

Few More

Daz

 

[Darren Turner]

Getting Bored Yet.........?? Ha Ha Ha

Few More

Daz

 

[Pete Askew]

Some of those are almost balletic.

 

[Darren Turner]

Off To Google "balletic"