{official} reflector optional

I was sitting on the couch yesterday, trying to think of something to do for my picture of Em for her birthday. My back deck is shaded in the afternoons and the trees give some nice bokeh. But because the sun has already started down the front of the house, I get raccoon eyes when I try to shoot back there. I have a reflector (a 42 or so inch 5-in-1 deal I got off Ebay for about $35 a few years ago) but I rarely use it. I'm always forgetting that I have it. Then I was thinking, not everyone has access to a reflector. Most of us are on budgets and kids, house, school, etc, comes first. Before I bought the reflector, I used one of those white tri-fold project boards. It worked great. But what if you don't even have one of those? Time for a little experiment ;-) I took Em outside and had her stand on the deck and shot one picture. Then I went inside, got one of Joshua's library books, checked to see if it had plain white pages in either the back or front and took it outside. I opened it up to the blank pages and had her hold it underneath her face.

Neither of these have been edited. Both were shot in RAW. I did a few minor adjustments in ACR (changed the white balance to daylight, sharpened a bit), opened them in PSE8, resized and saved. That's it.

Hello, Miss Raccoon. No catchlights in her eyes, way too dark and a bit yellow.

So much better. Nice light in her eyes, no more raccoon.



The book I used. A white piece of cardboard would work as well.


I hope y'all don't mind my sharing my little discovery with you. I thought it was a simple way to get good results with things we all have around the house (and when I'm feeling too lazy to get out the big ol' reflector ;-) ).