"Smoke Trails"

My first challenge was called "Smoke Trials". Requiring minimal thought into how to interpret this challenge, I decided I wanted to do something interesting with the results.

I had a few ideas in mind, but I will talk through the shooting technique before I talk about the final images, remember, this is a digital manipulation task, shots of plain smoke will not do.

There are endless ways you can shoot smoke, so don’t be disheartened if you are reading and you don't have the equipment to do this exact shoot, just remember to experiment, you will never know until you try.

For MY shoot, I used.

Nikon D7100

18-105mm (Kit) Lens

Tripod

External Flash (Mounted on a tripod)

Pocket Wizard (Flash Sync Unit)

Black Card

Incense Sticks

Bottle

Paperclip

Before you begin the shoot, make sure the area you are shooting in can be plunged in complete darkness, for my shoot, I used a Photographic Studio, just because I had access to one. If you don't have access to a studio, simply hang think material over your windows, or wait until darkness had fallen.

Place a table up against a wall, and cover the wall using black material of some description, don’t worry about the table, it wont be in shot, however if you have a reflective table surface, it might be worth covering with a towel.

Using card, black if possible, cut out paddle-like shapes (SHOWN) and attach them to your flash unit, similar to barn doors on a studio flash, but much more low-tech and cheaper. This will give a straight 'beam' of flash-light, illuminating the smoke but not the background, allowing a flawless black background.

Mount the flash on the tripod and connect to your camera using a Flash Sync Unit. Wired Syncs will work fine, however in the interests of health and safety, wireless is preferred. Place the flash unit to the side of your set-up, I had mine directly to the right of the studio area.

Assuming your camera is already mounted on a tripod, place a paper clip at the bottom of the incense stick and place it into the bottle, the clip should stop the incense stick from falling into the bottle. Alternatively you could use an incense holder or simply blu-tack the stick facing up.

Remember to line-up the flash 'beam' with the incense stick, check that the sync is working, and set your camera to the right exposure, mine was at 1/150th, F/8 and ISO 100.

Before you turn the lights out, light the incense stick and focus on the smoke, if you have used auto focus, lock the focus down by switching to manual focus once you are happy with the result, smoke is unpredictable, so just make sure that the most of the smoke is in focus, alternatively, use a small aperture (F/8 - F/22) and focus just before the smoke, this will ensure the majority of the smoke will be in focus.

Now you are set-up, its time to turn the lights out and shoot away. Being in complete darkness, shooting is random, so don’t be disheartened if you don't get the exact result you had in mind, try wafting the smoke around and taking shots a second or so after, once the smoke has settled.

Here are the images as shot, as you can see they are pretty mediocre, but this is only the start of this task.

I will run through two techniques I have used to create smoke images, the first being this image.

To achieve this image open up your Levels pallet and adjust the blacks to get a solid black background, try not to take out too much detail in the smoke, just ensure the background is black. Now go into Image > Adjustment > Invert. This will make the background white and the smoke black, giving an almost inferred appearance. Now go to Colour Balance and have a play around until you find a tone that you like.

This next image works on the same principle but a little more intricate. Load your JPEG into Photoshop and make some Levels Adjustments to clean up the background and enhance the smoke, this is really preference, but the background needs to be fairly clean.

Using the Quick Selection Tool, select an area you desire to change the colour of, whether this is the whole lot, or a section. Once selected, make an adjustment layer for Colour Balance and play around with the colour sliders until you are satisfied. If you are using multiple colours, overlap the selections to create a clean transition. When making a multi-toned image, make sure you feather the mask by clicking the icon next to the Scales icon in the Colour balance adjustment layer palette. Alter the Feather slider until you are satisfied.

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