Download Painting with Light: A Tutorial, There are few different types of light

Painting with Light: A Tutorial,
There are few different types of light painting. The type I like is a little more detailed and in my opinion, much more fun.
It’s a bit of a process and does take time. If you’re not a patient person, or the type a person that needs instant
gratification, Painting with Light may not be for you.
What you need: Camera, tripod, shutter release (wireless release is a good idea if you’re going it alone).
I like big scenes. Like the playground. Something I can spend time doing. I’ll add a few images for examples of the
process. I usually start around dusk. I want a base image to build on in the editing process. My first image is a good
exposure done with the camera on a tripod. It’s very important to frame the image in camera as you want your final
images to appear. Once you set the camera in position, you can’t move it. If you move the camera, bump the tripod,
your images wont line up and you’ll need to spend a ton of time lining layered images up in Photoshop. That’s not
something you want to do. So, be careful around the tripod.
My first image, as I said is my base image. Every image will be layered on top of the base image. My first exposure is
set for the available light scene. I use a high F-Stop, usually F11. I set my ISO around 100 to 200, depending on the
scene. I set my shutter speed to give me a proper exposure based on my F-Stop and ISO. Remember, the camera is on a
tripod so there is no problem with a long shutter speed. I’ve used shutter speeds in t 1 to 2 minute range for my base
image.
Now the fun starts. I’ll bring my shutter speed down to anywhere from 10 seconds to 30 seconds; again this depends on
what I’m painting. The playground was done with 1 minute exposures. The grave yard with 10 second exposures. This
will give you a very dark image. Don’t worry; the light will be picked up as we paint it in. This you need to experiment
with to get the look you need or want. Once I settle on the shutter speed, I’ll start the painting process.
Let’s assume we are working with a 30 second shutter speed. BTW, that’s a full 30 seconds, not 1/30 of a second. I’ll
fire the shutter and go into the scene and using various types of flash light, flash units and video lights, I’ll paint or move
the flash or light source over the part of the scene I want to illuminate in that exposure. One thing to keep in mind, with
type of painting I want to illuminate the scene not show light streaks from the flash light. You need to keep the light
from pointing toward the camera. At times if I feel like I’m pointing toward the camera I’ll block the beam, with my
hand or card board, from the camera.
I keep moving through the scene until I’m satisfied that I’ve painted everything I wanted to in the scene. From time to
time throughout the process I’ll take a look at the display just to be sure I have haven’t missed anything. Being careful
not to move the camera. The cemetery image that are here as an example, took my daughter and me at least 2 hours to
paint. With a scene like this it’s a good idea to work with an assistant, someone to work the camera and tell you where
to go in the scene.
Now that you have your 70 images of light painting, you need to process the images to complete your project. I import
all the raw images into Lightroom. I review in the Library panel to see if there are any images I don’t need or want.
Once I have my images narrowed down, from Lightroom, I open in Photoshop as a layered image. Once opened in
Photoshop, I have one image with 70 layers. This does take time to process, so go get a cup of coffee. You need to
understand layers somewhat. In the layers pallet you see every images one on top of the next on down to your base
image. If you base images (the very first image we created for the scene) is not at the bottom of the layers, you can drag
it to the bottom. Now go back to the top of the layers in the pallet. You’ll see at the top of the pallet and drop down
menu. The menu shows “Normal” right now for every layer. What you need to do is, one by one, change “Normal” to
“Lighten”. Do this for each layer as you move down the images in the layers pallet. As you change each to Lighten you
notice that each painted area in each image will now be visible through the previous layer. As you change each layer to
Lighten, more and more will become visible. One thing I will mention is that as you bring up each layer something may
pass through that you don’t want. You can use the erase tool to remove that part of that layer.
BTW you do not need to do anything you your base image. Leave that as “Normal”. Once you have completed all the
work you want in Photoshop, flatten the layers into one image layer. Close the image and save. The new image will
open back in Lightroom as a separate image. Now you get to play in Lightroom. This is where you get to have a little fun
with presets. I’ll process a few different ways, just for fun.
Well that about it. I hope this gives you a good idea as to what Painting With Light is. Feel free to contact me with any
questions.
John J. Pacetti, CPP, AFP - South Street Studios
www.southstreetstudios.com
2013 Instructor at MARS School- Photography 101, The Basics of Photography www.marschool.com