How to Get a picture like that

My name is Ralf Eyertt and there are a lot of person who asked me about my work and how I get the results.

I will show it on an example of a picture that was asked for:

First, without a good photography there will be no good result. So prepare yourself and concentrate on the picture you will taken. Do I have the right light, the right location, the right model and what shell the picture look like.

On this example I did an swimwear editorial. The pictures needs a special look to be on a contrast to normal catalog look.

I found a special location and a great model (thank you Jhannet Correa). A Makeup Artist (Nina Schaub) prepare the model for the shooting.

My wife Biggi is supporting me as a digital assistant and helps me to set the light. Sometimes I use a moving light, so Biggi holds the flash and can go with the model

In this example I used 2 fix flashes.. 1 Beauty dish (my favorite Frontlight) and a second light behind the model. To lighten up the background.

The big glass front is my special effect, not easy to find a perspective. A perspective that not will show the lights and focus on the model.

Here is the result coming out of the cam

Lens f/6.3 at 1/200s Iso 100 at my 85mm Canon lens 1.2 (My favorite lens) — Lens f/6.3 at 1/200s Iso 100 at my 85 mm Canon lens 1.2 (My favorite lens)

After the shooting I load up all images into my Adobe Bridge and start the RAW processing

This ist after RAW processing and open up in Adobe Photoshop (I use the CC)

First I start with the skin retouching. This is the important phase on every photo in the fashion and beauty work

Step 1 I use the frequency separation to separate colors and contrasts. Now working on the contrast to eliminate things. The frequency separation is the only way to do that without destroying the skin. See the result

after frequence separation — after frequency separation

Step 2 of my retouching work is the dodge and burn. That means highlight the highlights and darken the darken. This is a very fine an detailed work, takes a lot of time and experience, because you need to know what Makup Artist know, how to do a great Makeup. Your dodge and burn will bring their work pop out.

This is the result

Step 3 is to extract details. I use a special filter to do that, The Color Efex Pro 4 is my main filter tool

You can see the work on the eyes and hair

Step 4 one of my final steps is to bring a highlight to the models face. I use again the color efex pro 4 tool and choose the color contrast range tool

see the highlight in her face

Contrast Color Range tool highlights her face

Step 5 the last step is the skin toning.. Skin toning isn’t an easy work, because you have to find a color the brings the existing skin color in front.. I used an olive toning