C&C Request on Recovery Technique

adbsgicom

I was messing around with a Canon 85/1.8 (nice lens) and had this one that was under exposed and had a bad shadow.

Start:


Process:
Used patch tool on harsh cheek shadow and then did little patches to blend the edges. I guess I could have done this by copying into a new layer and masking the two together to feather the edges as well. Same process on the hard shadow at the neck line. Same on shadow by eye. Ran portraiture w/o masking and then set opacity to about 50%. On base layer, copied and ran Topaz Detail2 to enhance fine details and set layer to Soft Light at about 10%. Did a little bit of screen on the eye and a desat/dodge on the white to clean it up a bit. Erased the eye area on the upper two layers (portaiture/detail).

Net:


Feedback on the process and the methodology involved would be greatly appreciated.

pathfinder

Looks pretty good to me.

I just got my copy of Topaz Detail - they were offering a 25% discount in the email ad they sent me, so I couldn't resist. I am still trying to decided if I really like it that much or not.

adbsgicom

I haven't fully embraced it as part of my flow. Just trying some various paths that I've seen used. All in all, I'd rather stay in LR. I tried a recovery path through that, and it didn't end up as well. It wasn't bad, just not good.

If you (or anyone else) has insight into steps that seem stupid or overly awkward, I'd love to learn. Is the general best practice for using the patch tool to use it on its own layer and then blend down, or use the refine-edge option prior to patching, or do what I did and do secondary patches on the places where the patch seems too obvious?

dlplumer

I use Aperture plus plugins so I cannot comment on your process, but the result looks really good

MarkR

Can't really comment on the process, but who cares? It's the results that count.

Very nice pic.

Care to share how you used Detail2? I have a hard time seeing where it was used (would likely be more obvious with a 100% crop) and I am curious about what techniques you used so that I can steal adapt them to my own uses.

adbsgicom

Detail2 was run with the microedge adjust (I think it needs to be a bit stronger). The result is blended w/ Soft Light at about 10-15% to add contrast and a bit more texture back into the skin. I've been trying to emulate a process that Neil Van Niekirk mentioned at his seminar using the Sculpture tool of LucisArts (whic annoyingly doesn't run on 16-bit RGB).

Basically the flow was:

1. Fix any blemishes
2. Fix cheek and neckline shadows and around eye with patch tool. This may have been more complex than necessary. I did a big patch, then did smaller patches around the perimeter to blend the transition.
3. History brush screen about 10% (maybe 20%) on the eye to lighten it.
4. Run Portraiture in default and save in to new layer. Set opacity to 40% and if you want, mask out parts you don't want contributing. I erased the eye completely in the new layer.
5. Copy the base layer into a new top layer. Run Detail2 on it and select MicroEdge Enhancement. I think some stronger settings are needed here though. The purpose is to add back in some contrast and skin texture. Blend this layer in SoftLight mode at 10-15%. Again, I cut out the eye completely in the merge. The goal was to emulate a flow that Neil Van Niekirk showed us at his seminar using LucisArts Sculpture for this last step.

Please share any improvements/alternatives you find in your experiments. I believe you can get similar results on the SoftLight layer from Topaz Adjust as well.