When you use powerful lights behind a model’s head, several issues arise. One of those issues is that light passes through the subject’s earlobes. Luckily, there is a quick fix for that, and you don’t even need Photoshop to do it. It’s easy; all you need is some gaffer’s tape. And as Glyn Dewis says, if you say to yourself that you’ll fix it in post later, drop your gear and slap yourself for being lazy:
Simply stick some tape behind your model’s ears. Make sure the tape covers the ears nicely and that the edges don’t show up over the ear. You don’t want to be bothered with cloning out rogue tape edges.
It’s important to use tape that blocks light efficiently. If the flash is powerful enough, you might need another layer. Our ear skin is thin and the light can easily pass through thus altering the color of the earlobes.
A little tape takes care of the bright ear problem.
In Dewis’s images, the issue isn’t really that bad, however, if you were to use a hard and powerful rim light, the issue might be far worse—and not even Photoshop would save you.
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Wouldn’t similar exposure in the before and after examples be relevant to your article? After looks less bright and has less highlights overall.
You are right Rob, ideally the pictures would have to be identically lit. While the light position is the same, the exposure varies a tad bit. This is probably due to the fact that the photogapher edited the photos differently, or the angle of the models head affected light passing through. However the trick stays the same. The effect the tape makes is clearly visible.