Working With Nude Models: Posing Secrets And Techniques

The particular type of shoot you're doing, combined with the market you're potentially shooting for, will have the most significant influence on the poses you will want to get from a model within each set of images. For example, if you're hoping to sell a specific set of pictures to a magazine or website such as Hustler or Hustler's online presence (or the thousands of other sites that feature similar content) you'll definitely need to include a large number of explicit, open-leg poses. In contrast, if you're shooting for an outlet that features "Fine-art" nude photography, there is little, if any, need to include explicit poses.

Additionally, poses that will work well when shooting "Teen" pics are very different from the ones that will work well when shooting "MILF" pics. For example, in this specific case, you would want to shoot the teen model in poses that help to emphasis the simple beauty and innocence that fans of this style desire. However, when shooting older women, you'll typically want the poses to be more overtly sexual and explicit.

It's important to know that you can easily shoot more than one unique image while the model remains in a single pose. For example, your first shot of a specific pose might include the model's full body; however, on your next few shots, you might want to zoom in on a specific body part to capture a close-up from the same pose. Additionally, as you can imagine, the same pose from a model can appear very different by simply altering your shooting angle.

Obviously, it's up to you to determine how explicit you want your work to be. However, if one of your desires is to make money with your photography as quickly and easily as possible, you'll probably want to focus on creating images for the "Adult" market (the market for "Fine-art" work is small by comparison).

Thus, if you want to shoot for "Adult" publications and websites, you'll have to include poses that contain a great deal of explicit sexuality. As I mentioned earlier, these sets require a large number of "spread-shots" and similarly erotic poses.

The type of poses that you capture on specific shoots need to be consistent with the market you are shooting the pics for. In order to learn what poses work well for different types of shoots, I suggest you do the same thing that every photographer has done: Study the work of others and experiment with different ideas. Only by studying the work of others can you eventually create a style of your own. In other words, not even Jimi Hendrix started out playing the guitar like Jimi Hendrix.

You will benefit greatly if you study the techniques that are used by photographers whose work you admire. Try to identify the subtle methods they use to make great images. If you don't have any favorite photographers at this time, simply study the magazines, websites, or galleries where you would like to see your own work appear.

A few of the photographers whose work I admire greatly are Helmut Newton, Steven Meisel, and Sante D'Orazio. Primarily, these men are known for their fashion and portrait work. However, they all have an amazingly creative touch and an uncanny ability to inject a strong sense of sexuality into everything they shoot.

Photoshop Techniques - Improve Your Photos With Local Contrast Enhancement and Curves Adjustments

Local Contrast Enhancement and Curves adjustments are both post processing techniques that can be used to enhance a photo quickly and easily. Both techniques can be applied in both Photoshop Elements as well as the full Photoshop CS versions. Most other image editing programs such as Paint Shop Pro also have similar tools available to achieve the same effects.

The Keyboard shortcuts mentioned in this article are based on the Windows version of Photoshop. If you using a Mac, where a keyboard shortcut uses the Ctrl key, use the Cmd key instead.

Local Contrast Enhancement

Local Contrast Enhancement (LCE) works by darkening or brightening areas where a transition between a dark and light tone occurs. It is a good way to add contrast to an image without darkening larger dark areas or brightening larger light areas too much.

To apply LCE to an image, start by duplicating the current image - there are a few different ways you can do this:
Select the current image layer and press Ctrl + J, orClick the layer and drag it down to the 'New layer' icon, orPress Ctrl + A to select all. Press Ctrl + Shift + C to copy merged. Now press Ctrl + V to paste, you may need to adjust the positioning of the pasted image slightly using the move tool to ensure it is exactly aligned with the original image (or you can use Ctrl + Shift + V to paste in the same position if you are using Photoshop CS5). Use this option if you want to apply the effect to a document made from multiple layers.

Now with your new layer selected, on the menu go to Filter > Other > High Pass. Choose a radius of 100 pixels for the High pass filter, then click OK.

Change the blending mode for the Highpass layer to Overlay, and reduce the effect by lowering the layer's opacity. Typically an opacity of 15-30 percent works well, though you can of course use a higher opacity for a stronger effect.

Curves adjustment

A curves adjustment is an easy way to change specific tones in an image. Although it can be used to darken or brighten a whole image, usually we will use it to increase the contrast by darkening the dark tones, and brightening the light tones.

Photoshop Elements doesn't include a real curves adjustment ability, so doing a curves adjustment isn't as easy as it is in Photoshop CS. Still, it is possible to perform curves adjustments in Photoshop Elements, you will need to start by downloading and installing the Smart Curve Curves Adjustment for Photoshop Elements.

Although Photoshop Elements does include a rudimentary curves adjustment that can be accessed via Enhance > Adjust Color > Adjust Color Curves, I would recommend installing the curves plugin for the greater control that it gives you.

The Smart Curve doesn't work as an adjustment layer, so you will first need to make a copy your image to apply the adjustment to (see the section above for how to create a copy layer). For this image I used the copy merged method as I have more than 1 layer making up the image.

With the copied layer selected, go to Filter > easy.Filter > SmartCurve. The SmartCurve window opens, and on the left you can see a box with a diagonal line going from the bottom left to top right. This represents the tones in the image, from black in the bottom left corner, to white in the top right corner.

For my image, I want to keep the bright tones roughly the same, so I click on the curve around one third in from the left edge. I want to darken the dark tones, so I click on the curve around one third in from the left edge, and then drag this point down a bit.

You can add as many points to the curve as you want, and move each point up or down, usually though you will only want to add one or two points.

In Photoshop CS, to access curves you click the adjustment layer icon, and then choose 'Curves'. In the adjustment panel you can then adjust the curve.

Local Contrast Enhancement and Curves adjustments are very useful basic Photoshop techniques to know for enhancing digital photos. Remember that with both techniques you can adjust the opacity of the layer to change how strong the effect is. Sometimes you'll want to use both techniques together, sometimes you might just want to use one of the techniques.

The benefit of these simple Photoshop techniques is that they're quick and easy to apply, so you can apply the effect, then undo it if it doesn't suit the image. Local Contrast Enhancement is particularly suited to images with a lot of low contrast texture you want to bring out. Curves adjustments are more useful for globally increasing contrast, for example for a photo shot through a dirty window.