From my point of view a woman looking forward to the birth of her child is one of the most beautiful things on the planet.
We created this image in my studio. The only light source is the diffused light coming through the translucent blind covering the window directly behind Sarah. It gives me a wrap around light that I love to work with.
This is low intensity light so I set the ISO on my camera to 1600 to give me a workable shutter speed of 1/20 second. With a shutter speed this low the camera was on a tripod. An aperture of f/8 gave me enough depth of field. The 24-105mm lens was at 45mm.
The original image was in color and I processed the color image in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). I boosted the Highlights slider to make sure the background was totally washed out. I decreased the Clarity a bit (as I often do for portraits) by dragging the Clarity slider a little to the left. I boosted the Vibrance slider. If you aren’t acquainted with ACR, check out the ACR and RAW link below.
Photoshop screen capture: Sarah and the adjustment panel for the Black and White Adjustment Layer. Click for a larger version.
In Photoshop I converted the image to black and white using a Black and White Adjustment Layer. In the adjustment panel I always open the “Preset” drop down window (see the red arrow in this screen capture) which is normally set to “Default” and I check all the options. When I do black and white portraits I usually prefer the Red Filter, Yellow Filter, or Green Filter for the Preset value. In the case of this particular photo I ended up sticking with the Default Preset.
Individual color sliders for the Black and White Adjustment Layer.
After you choose the Preset value you can tweak the sliders for the individual colors.
Sarah, Fitness Trainer
This is not the first time I have worked with Sarah as you can see in images here, here, here, here, and here. She is a professional fitness trainer in Columbus Ohio and we get together every once in a while to create images for her web site as well as personal projects.
Links
ACR and RAW: Two of the Best Things You Can Do For Your Images
People Photography Books
Excellent “How To Photograph People” Books
Photoshop & Lightroom Books
Lightroom & Photoshop: The Essential Books
The Best Books: Mastering Photoshop Series
Fitness
Body Balance by Sarah – Sarah’s web site with lots of healthy recipes.