Playing with Flash

For the past couple of years, I have had a Canon speedlight. Only once have I fiddled around with it off camera. I never actually tried to learn it, master it or anything. Tuesday of this week was a "get to know you" kind of day with my flash. With my camera, I am able to enable the on-camera flash to act as a trigger for the external flash (Canon 430 EX II).  It was pretty cool and I just did some test photos with my silly child and her wild hair.

My bedroom is pretty dim during the day since there is not a lot of sun coming through the window. I saw the flash on the window sill (to my left) and let my subject jump around on the bed while attempting some photos. I like the lighting in this photo but there are still a few shadows on her face. The light and shadows are soft and not as harsh as they normally are when I have the flash attached to the hot-shoe on my camera. This is the SOOC version. 

To get rid of some of the shadow on her forehead and the right side of her face, I decided to try the Color Sampler tool in Photoshop.

At first, I was like what in the heck to I do with this but after a little Google and looking again at the info it was displaying my little blonde moment was ended. So- this tool is basically like the eyedropper tool but more. You can select multiple points on an image or photo and it will give you the RGB values for each of those points. Now I am going to take these values, create 2 or 3 new layers above my photo and choose a blend mode that lighten up these shadows on her skin. This what my screen looks like after selecting a few points that are well lit on her face. 

Using the paint brush tool at 0% hardness and 100% opacity, I chose two of the lighter RGB values and painted on the darker areas of her face on 3 different layers.The first layer has blend mode of 'soft light' at 100% opacity, the second layer has blend mode of 'soft light' at 60% opacity and the third layer has blend mode of 'soft light' at 50% opacity. This is the result:

Now her skin tone is a little more even and not so flat. The shadows are lifted just a bit but they are still there, which I do not mind. I just would not want those as a distraction. It is little things like this that I notice during the taking of a photo and after once I see it on the computer monitor. My final edit would be something like this:

This was a learning experience for me with the flash and Photoshop...and I am still learning. I do know that I am definitely going to be experimenting more with my flash. I love natural light but I also am not afraid to use an additional light source. Not everyone has big windows and lots of sun indoors, so it helps to learn to make your situation work for you. :)