Portrait of the Artist

gpgold

This is my friend who is a novelist. The shot is one from a shoot for his last novel's author photo. This one was not the one chosen, but I think it is OK. He is a cool subject. BTW- He is Chuck Rosenthal, his book "Never Let Me Go" is very powerful stuff.

regards,

Gary

rutt

Nice portrait. I'd like to see the original color version.

gpgold

rutt wrote:

Nice portrait. I'd like to see the original color version.

Here it is. No adjustment.

DavidTO

gpgold wrote:

This is my friend who is a novelist. The shot is one from a shoot for his last novel's author photo. This one was not the one chosen, but I think it is OK. He is a cool subject. BTW- He is Chuck Rosenthal, his book "Never Let Me Go" is very powerful stuff.

regards,

Gary

Wow, one of my kin.

He is a good subject. The shot could be strengthened by using a little crop top and left to re-compose. He feels a bit like he's falling out of the frame. I also would add that you need to be careful not to clip your highlights in your B/W conversion.

4labs

Very nice portrait I like the color version better. When you converted to BW you lost some detail on his forehead in particular. Just MHO..

gpgold

DavidTO wrote:

Wow, one of my kin.

He is a good subject. The shot could be strengthened by using a little crop top and left to re-compose. He feels a bit like he's falling out of the frame. I also would add that you need to be careful not to clip your highlights in your B/W conversion.

You are right about the conversion. I am still very much a beginner in the wonderful world of Photoshop. I will try your thinking on the crop. Thanks for your thoughts.

regards,

Gary

rutt

4labs wrote:

Very nice portrait I like the color version better. When you converted to BW you lost some detail on his forehead in particular. Just MHO..

That's why I asked to see the color. Probably B&W was required for the book jacket? But a more careful conversion can preserve the forehead detail. The salmon colored background isn't a plus for me, and I also find the wood grain distracting in the B&W. It's a great portrait, though, so perhaps it's worth some work to do a better B&W conversion, tone down the wall maybe using this technique , use the techniques from this thread, or similar.

gpgold

4labs wrote:

Very nice portrait I like the color version better. When you converted to BW you lost some detail on his forehead in particular. Just MHO..

I agree about the detail loss. I should probably give that another try. I needed to give them B&W for the book.

regards,

Gary

DavidTO

gpgold wrote:

I agree about the detail loss. I should probably give that another try. I needed to give them B&W for the book.

regards,

Gary

Try this technique, as quoted from Greg Gorman's site. The technique was developed by Rob Carr, I believe. It's awesome.


It's here. You need to go to the navigation bar, select Learn, and then click on the B/W Conversion tutorial. It'll download the PDF, so if you're on a slow connection, know that it's a download.

gpgold

Thank you all for the links and downloads. I'm on it!

Gary

gpgold

A new crop and background revised.

Gary

Angelo

gpgold wrote:

A new crop and background revised.

Gary

This is much, much better.

gpgold

Angelo wrote:

This is much, much better.

Hey, Angelo thanks very much. You know - I say I'm in Canoga Park. but, as you know, that's really in L.A. too. Where are you located?

regards,

Gary

DavidTO

Angelo wrote:

This is much, much better.

OK, I'm going to nit-pick.

The background IS better, but what I see is the reflection of the warm background against a now cool background, leaving me to wonder where the warm colors reflected on his face come from. I believe that this could be fixed with some careful PS work.

Other than that nit...nice work! Composition is better, background is more pleasing...

gpgold

DavidTO wrote:

OK, I'm going to nit-pick.

The background IS better, but what I see is the reflection of the warm background against a now cool background, leaving me to wonder where the warm colors reflected on his face come from. I believe that this could be fixed with some careful PS work.

Other than that nit...nice work! Composition is better, background is more pleasing...

I think this might be what you are thinking about.

Gary

DavidTO

gpgold wrote:

I think this might be what you are thinking about.

Gary

Much better. I think you could still pull it back from the eyebrow through the hand. I still see the red reflected there, but yeah, right on.

gpgold

DavidTO wrote:

Much better. I think you could still pull it back from the eyebrow through the hand. I still see the red reflected there, but yeah, right on.

I see it now, still more to do.

thanks so much,

Gary