Threshold Candle Shoot & Retouch
Personal Shoot
This angle was the most fun composite I've done in a while. There was a total of 5 images I put together to give you the final image you see here. From Left to right from above.
All of these plates were planned and shot intentionally with the idea of achieving the intended final result.
(Far Right), I started with a more well lit shot so that I would have the ability to have an exposure for general detail of the product such as the face of the candle. Next over, I got an exposure that had slightly darker Shadows. This was the exposure I used to later lift the shadows in that area to have more detail. I used the shadows from the next exposure to make it darker and find the contrast that I wanted in the shadows. That same exposure was used for the candle flame that you see. The next exposure (Second from the right), was used for the one flame that is out. Finally, the far right is the smoke.
This technique would had been a lot more difficult without utilizing Tiered masking by using Pathways in Photoshop.
After blending the images together and some Frequency Separation, and color & brightness adjustments, I was able to get this final image.
