In a fit of nostalgia I decided to have an old Mac I had acquired refurbished and that led to me wanting to put it in a picture as a bit of spoof on the difficulties of working from home during various lockdowns. I had a clear idea of what I wanted the image to be, but setting it up with a single shot started to look more and more difficult.
The deep black background was not a problem as I had recently purchased some Vantablack cloth which absorbs around 99% of light that hits it (yeah, it is really cool). But I quickly realised messing around that I could not get the the lighting to work the way I wanted to in a single set up. It was meant to be a quick effort (I had to give the dining table back) and I did not want to mess around with much more than my Phottix M200R led light panel. So a composite shot was the obvious answer.
Only needed two shots in the end. The first lit lightly from the left to actually show the computer and the keyboard. Then the second with the light position on the keyboard lighting my face.
Then it was into PS with the images on two layers, the side light one on the top. A simple layer mask on the top image and I could paint myself and the lit keyboard in, hiding the direct light and the tabletop. Still needed to paint in a glow for the screen as the poor old Mac does not generate that much light.
Then back to Lightroom, pull back the highlights and balance the colour in my face. Clone out the logo on my jacket and put a gradient from left to right to darken that side of the image. Simple in the end.
Actually like the way it turned out and it got heaps of likes on the retro computer Facebook page :-), one for the nerds I suppose.