Wedding in Cyprus

alaios

Hi all,
I have been shooting in Cyprus one and a half year ago (few months after I bought my first camera since high school). I did not have external flash so I had to rely only on the natural lighting.

My friends have selected four photos for me that they wanted to keep which I also tried to post process and I am presenting here. I want to comment on my post processing I have applied for each of the four and perhaps suggest also other things that can be corrected in photoshop/lightroom?
Are you ready?

Photos are below
Alex

1. Before


1. After





2. Before


2. After





3. Before


3. After





4. Before


4. After

Matthew Saville

I love the images, however for the first and last edits, I like the "before" a little bit more. I like the deeper shadows and the colors. The middle two sets are good clean edits, though. Good work!

=Matt=

1magineer

I'm with Mathew. I also think the skin-tones—so important—are more pleasing in the unprocessed sets. Are you shooting raw, or allowing the camera to process the JPGs? I ask, because of the camera is processing the JPGs, it is doing a decent job of post-processing, which is really where the "heavy-lifting" of post processing is done: from raw to JPG. :-) If it is the auto-processing of a raw file by DxO, Capture One, or LR, then it is ALSO decent automatic post-processing in the first of each set. Hope this helps.

alaios

Hi guys,
I appreciate for your feedback. Yes adjusting skin tones is something that always bothers me. How do I "find" if I am correct or not? Perhaps an extra obstacle for me is that my monitor supports only 80% of rgb
Alex

1magineer

Actually, don't worry too much about your monitor, unless YOU are doing the printing, and need accuracy for selling final prints. MOST people have monitors with very limited colorspaces, and even though (oddly enough) a lot of phones and tablets now have better colorspaces than most peoples' monitors, I find that I can still mix something on one of my older monitors, and have it look decent on another monitor with a wider gamut. For years, I used "OK" monitors, and trusted my eyes and intuition, and my prints came back from pro labs and SmugMug with fantastic results. Now I have a 99% of sRGB monitor, and really, it is for my enjoyment and ease... especially when I am doing fine monochrome work, wherein I can see the finer steps of gray as I am working.

Now, that said, there is a pretty good article right here on SmugMug re: skin tones: http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93363-how-do-i-correct-skin-tones-

It's all about pleasing the eye, and in my personal experience, given whatever colorspace or ISO or camera sensor or post-processing software one is using, there is going to be a sweetspot... a "best bet" if you will, that will feel like things clicked into place when you hit it. Also, some post-processing apps have skin tone adjustment tools (Capture One comes to mind) that are helpful to achieving the look you want.

It's analogous to audio: I mix songs in my home studio on expensive digital to analog converters, with great pro monitors (speakers), and people will listen to them through relatively terrible vanity-brand headphones hooked to iPhones and Droids... and there is this sweet spot in a mix that will make the mix sound as best as possible whether in the car, the studio, or on overpriced vanity headphones. :-)

Hope this helps!

alaios

Hi,
great for reminding me this. Do you know if I can also apply the same in lightroom without jumping to photoshop?

Regards
Alex