Glamour Portraits (Maybe NSFW)

anonymouscuban

I've been wanting to do a Hollywood glam portrait of my wife for quite some time. Kerry's thread inspired me to finally take a shot at it. Not exactly Hollywood 50's but I really like the way these turned out. This was a first attempt to get a feel of things. I shot all of these with two AB400s... one just to camera right up at about 8' and aiming straight down at her. The other was down low and pointing upward towards her on camera left. I used 10 degree and 20 degree honeycomb grid respectively.

Would love feedback on these.

1


2


3 - Sepia

kelvin

Very nice work.... I like the sepia the best. The first two are good but have areas that washed out in the highlights. Just my thoughts!

blaser321

I really like them good contrast great model and poses may be a little blown
but it doesn't bother me too much

adbsgicom

#3 is the clear winner for me. The eyes are so sharp and amazing there and the lighting creates a lot of contour.

Hackbone

Nice job. I really love #2.

anonymouscuban

Thanks guys... I'm curious, who else sees blown highlights? There is no clipping on the histogram and I don't see anything on my monitor. My monitor isn't calibrated so I am curious.

Here is a color shot of #2:

divamum

Nice job, Alex! I like #3, but I'd actually crop to just above her hand (w/or w/of cleavage - both work for me). Why? For me, by keeping the emphasis on her face and shoulder, the comp is better balanced and (ok, so yeah, I'm a girl and don't have the same boobies response ) I think it's actually more sultry with just the bare shoulder.

I might also clone out the ponytail to keep the look a little more polished in keeping with the rest of the image.

I love the lighting - it definitely evokes a H'wood feel! Lighting, the look away from camera, rather "majestic" pose - great stuff.

adbsgicom

Alex, I don't see anything blown in #2. #1 the forehead looks blown. Looking really hard at it, I don't think it really is, but it seems very close.
My only nit with #2 is I don't really like how the highlight hits her breast (CL). The light is much more sculpted in #3, and in #1.

anonymouscuban

Thanks Andrew and Diva. Good advice as I may have one of these printed and matted. I thought about cleaning up the hair but decided I would wait. Here is #3 cropped to 8x10.

adbsgicom

What did you do in this last conversion of #3? There are a bunch of magenta tones that crept in. #1/#2 don't have them, so I know it isn't me or your standard conversion. Somewhere your sepia changed but not fully to b/w.
Crop is nice!

briandelion

Very nice. I checked against the histogram and don't see any any blown highlights, either. #3 gets my vote along with the color one you just posted. What I do notice in #3 are seemingly random magenta cast shapes that look superimposed over some areas.

kdog

I really like the look you've achieved here, Alex. The lighting is great, hot areas (not blown) and all. Maybe it's just me, but the hand placement in 2 and 3 bugs me. The crop in #3 is better for that reason. I'm seeing a funny highlight on the rim of her nose around here nostrils in #3 though. I'm not sure if you sharpened the entire photo, but I wouldn't have sharpened that area. The color version of #2 is great too.

kdog

briandelion wrote: »

What I do notice in #3 are seemingly random magenta cast shapes that look superimposed over some areas.

Wow, I see that too, now that you mention it.

anonymouscuban

Interesting... All I did was crop that shot, but I did it from SmugMug using the crop tool. Come to think of it, I made a copy in Smug and then cropped the copy. Are you guys seeing the magenta-fication in the crop or the original too? Because I see them now that I'm look at the original.

If so, I'll have to look at the original in LR to see if maybe it happened during compression to JPG? I've had this happen before at it has to do with the Color Space I choose. Can't remember which causes it.

adbsgicom

Original as well. They aren't sepia anymore either...

Icebear

These are wonderful. The technical nits have been pointed out, but wow. Yes, in the b&w conversion in #1 the forehead looks blown, and in #2 the camera right upper shoulder looks blown, but in the color rendering, it shows clearly that it isn't. Forget the histogram. My advice is that if it looks hot in a particular rendering, fix it for that rendering.

I see what Andrew is referring to, about the light in #2, but I think that only bothers me in the b&w. Her pose and facial expression in #2 are timeless and gorgeous.. I think the color rendering of #2 is the best of a great set.

anonymouscuban

Thanks John... glad you like them.

I think I prefer these in color as well. I see what you mean about the "hot spots" in the B&W but not the color. I bumped the contrast just a tad on the B&W and that maybe why the highlights look hotter.

schmoo

This is a really awesome set. I love the lighting and I can definitely see how Kerry's initial thread is going viral. Great job with what looks like complicated setup.

anonymouscuban

schmoo wrote: »

This is a really awesome set. I love the lighting and I can definitely see how Kerry's initial thread is going viral. Great job with what looks like complicated setup.

Thanks Steph!! It might look complicated but it was actually quite simple. Just two lights with honeycombs modifiers.

Qarik

1 and 2 rock!

anonymouscuban

OK.. here is the same image exported with the three different color spaces. I only see the magenta artifacts in the ProPhotoRGB color space. How about you?

sRGB


AdobeRGB


ProPhotoRGB

adbsgicom

Agreed. Cast is only in the third. Is the profile being attached, or stripped? I always push to sRGB for web publishing.

Jeremy Winterberg

Lovely shots of your wife, Alex! #3 cropped for me.

anonymouscuban

adbsgicom wrote: »

Agreed. Cast is only in the third. Is the profile being attached, or stripped? I always push to sRGB for web publishing.

Not sure what you mean by attached or stripped?

anonymouscuban

Jeremy Winterberg wrote: »

Lovely shots of your wife, Alex! #3 cropped for me.

Thanks Jeremy. This is another version of #3. Slight adjustment in pose and also lighting. I think this is my favorite. BTW, I took Diva's suggestion here and cleaned up her pony tail. Watcha guys think... is this the what I get printed?

blaser321

wow yes

reyvee61

Alex these are fantastic and #3 is definitely my fave!
For the record, I don't see any blown highlights on my display.....
Bravo!

reyvee61

Ah, I did notice the cast in the original file posted on #3 but I was so drawn to her eyes I didn't comment on that...

adbsgicom

What was your process for setting the different modes? Did you just map to ProPhoto and then export as sRGB (which is what I meant by stripped), or did you export an image that considered to be in ProPhotoRGB (attached)?
In PS you can convert or assign, you have to convert the profile. Then at export you need to make sure you embed the profile. That said, not all web browsers respect the embedded profile; Safari does but I believe IE assumes sRGB.
In LR, you do all your work in ProPhotoRGB or AdobeRGB, but the export to jpeg path defaults to exporting as sRGB (you can change it, though). This does the conversion to the color space.

briandelion

anonymouscuban wrote: »

Thanks Jeremy. This is another version of #3. Slight adjustment in pose and also lighting. I think this is my favorite. BTW, I took Diva's suggestion here and cleaned up her pony tail. Watcha guys think... is this the what I get printed?

Although this latest is quite beautiful, I still prefer the original *3 in color. That slight difference in the turn of the head makes all the difference for me.
P.S. Pro Photo rgb color space was the magenta cast culprit on my monitor. Maybe it won't show up at all on an inkjet print.

anonymouscuban

adbsgicom wrote: »

What was your process for setting the different modes? Did you just map to ProPhoto and then export as sRGB (which is what I meant by stripped), or did you export an image that considered to be in ProPhotoRGB (attached)?
In PS you can convert or assign, you have to convert the profile. Then at export you need to make sure you embed the profile. That said, not all web browsers respect the embedded profile; Safari does but I believe IE assumes sRGB.
In LR, you do all your work in ProPhotoRGB or AdobeRGB, but the export to jpeg path defaults to exporting as sRGB (you can change it, though). This does the conversion to the color space.

Hmm... the only color space setting I made was in Lightrooms export dialog box. I chose the color space and exported it as JPG. I have no clue what color space was assigned before I exported. I assume it was AdobeRGB since I imported the raw file into LR and did all my post work within LR and CS4???