Self-Portrait With Girlfriend

Ruin

Hi Grinners,
Long time lurker finally seeking some advice.

I took this photo today with my lovely girlfriend and just thought it was too cool to leave alone. We took probably a hundred pictures in our set today, had a lot of fun, but this one stood out to me the most. I'll first post the final (ish) version for some good C&C. Later on, if I feel I should, I can post the original for comparison.

A little setup for you... boredom overcame us and we propped the camera on the TV, took the poster off the wall and used it as a backdrop. A few days ago I got a new lens (Nikon 18-200mm VR, I love it!) and a new flash (Bower SFD35N (light, and feels cheap... was cheap, but gives great results for about $100). I lost my tripod mount, hence using the TV. This was all on a whim, and the final product spent about 5 minutes in Adobe Lightroom and about 5 more in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

I hope you enjoy! Click image for larger!



Tech Specs:
Nikon D80 w/Nikon 18-200mm (@ 50mm) | f7.1 and 1/60sec : ISO-800


The Process
Original:


First Edit:



Second Edit:

Richard

Hi there Ruin and welcome to Dgrin.

I like this shot a lot. I think it could be a bit brighter--especially the lower part of your face, but that's a nit. It looks like you two really enjoy one another. Very nice.

Regards,

Ruin

Thanks Richard. Glad you like the photo.

When I was playing with the lighting and exposure, I was really afraid of over-exposing. I guess part of the problem is our clothes. My black-ish shirt doesn't reflect the light on to my face like her lighter colored shirt does. I'll keep playing with it to see if I can get anywhere with it without having too much. Thanks for the input!

We do enjoy eachother, haha We had a lot of fun with this and will probably do more. I never relaized my wireless remote from my old N65 worked on my D80 too, so I never put any distance between myself and my camera. Lots of fun.

Moogle Pepper

You two look cute together! I like the idea and position of you and your girlfriend , very dynamic

Ruin

I appreciate it Moogle!

We have a hard time getting pictures together because of size. She's 4'11" and I'm 5'11", that full foot of difference usually lands us in the same pose every time someone says "Hey, let me take your picture!" It was a lot of fun trying to create poses that were more 'dynamic' (excellent word) and didn't keep us looking the same in every photo. I'll throw a couple more in PS and LR and report back with them later on.

In the mean time, I appreciate the feedback so far... always looking for more! Don't hold back, I can take it! Haha...

Ruin

Here's an unedited one obviously from the same set. It's another one of my favorites. Curious as to what you all think. C&C. What do you like, what don't you like, what should I do different? etc.

There's slight editing, only to correct little annoyances, like spots on the wall that really distract from the rest of the photo.

Paulcao

I think the poses are great, but i'm not sure the cropping suits the photos. I would have done a wider crop if it were me. I just don't like where the photo cuts the hands, more specifically with the second one the heads. Also, as rsinmadrid said it should be brighter..or more specfically it needs some 'pop.' I hope this helps and congrats on delurking.

Ruin

Thanks Paulcao, exactly what I was looking for. The main reason the cropping ended up the way it did was because I was using my remote to snap pictures, so if we moved, we wandered outside the frame some. It turned out better than I had hoped, but did cause some issues with cut heads, hehe.

I'll see what I can do to brighten them up a bit. It's hard given the mild green background and the darker shirts, but who knows!

gpphotos

heya, welcome

you guys have some nice chemistry in the pics. i'd def. evaluate exposure though, looks like its about half a stop under exposed, give or take 1/3 a stop. should be easy to fix in lightroom, photoshop, ect.

looks like it could also benefit from a nice CYMK conversion -> curves adjustment once the exposure is right. that should make that beautiful hair of hers just radiant.

gpphotos

i took a quickie run at this in photoshop cs2...i'll include my workflow, in case you like it and want to give it a try on more pics. If you'd rather me not post edits of your work then i will gladly take it down.



1) first thing i did is convert to CYMK mode

2) then, using the Image -> adjustments -> exposure tool i bumped it up about a half a stop

3) went into Layer -> new adjustment layer -> curves and created a layer for curves. when the window pops up, i usually put a dot right in the middle of the line. then on the little grid, i move the lower half of the line down just a tad and the upper line up just a tad...helped bring out the blue in her shirt, her hair, the green wall....but, it gave you guys some REALLY red skin (im sure her skin naturally is more magenta anyway) sooo...

4) i used the lasso tool and outlined your faces, went to Image -> adjustments -> hue/saturation, selected the red channel, and bumped it down a few notches. it didn't take much. I left it a bit on the red side because i figured that was fairly close to her natural skin tone.

5) i then lasso'd all of her hair and did the same thing, selected the red channel, and bumped it up a few notches.

6) used the shadow/highlight tool, bumped up the shadows amount about 30% or so and played with the radius slider till i liked what i saw.

7) upon close inspection, i noticed some very visible color noise, so i applied some medium color noise reduction and some light normal noise reduction. I did not use any USM (unsharp mask) because sharpening gave her hair all sorts of sharpening artifacts (probably because i increased color saturation and boosted exposure)

8) converted back to RGB and uploaded

the watch is a bit of a distraction, next time you guys do a shoot, i'd remove it. i would have cloned it out but thats a bit more involved.

disclaimer: i am a photoshop noob. if someone can get better results using a different workflow...im all ears!

Ruin

GPPhotos, That's great! I really appreciate the help. It's always great to see what someone else envisions. Excellent work, I like that a lot. It's obvious the photo went through post-processing in Photoshop. It goes against my personal photography philosophy I've had for a long time - a picture is done once the shutter works. I'm working hard to break that. In looking at other artist's work and other photos (especially here) it's evident a certain amount of tweaking is necessary - your demo of my photo is proof, it looks much better with probably 15 minutes worth of work!

It's going against the grain for me, but seeing the outcome is a bit more motivating. Now, to get used to working in CYMK mode (I've done RGB for years in game development, uff).

Thanks again, I appreciate it. Outstanding job!


Oh, you're right. I didn't even think about my watch at the time. I got so used to having it on, I rarely take it off... if you look close you can see I'm still operating in Military Time - got rather used to it.

gpphotos

im glad you liked it. it IS a bit edgy compared to your hosted file. I went a bit farther than usual on the curves because i loved the blue on black thing she had going on with her shirt. You could easily scale back on how much of each tool i used and get something a bit more "out of the camera" looking. Most of my stuff is more realistic too...esp. since ive been using lightroom to make simple adjustments to batches of photos. (yay for batch processing!)

Ruin

Gotta love LR. It's a great little program that does a lot of good to photos.

Edgy is a good word. Like I said, I'll play with it some more. Always a learning experience. I'll report back tomorrow with what I come up with.

Ruin

Spent some time in Photoshop today... did mainly color balance changes and added in some lighting. Nothing crazy or major. Let's see who's the eagle eye who notices one subtle change I did :ivar

Thoughts?


It was interesting. Please note, this is only a draft. There are some rough edges where you can see some serious changes in color, like on my chin. I know these are there. Once I get ready for a final product, I'll redo all of this. I just want some feedback on my progress.

Ruin

:lurk