* Challenge 22 - Women and Child Together

tmlphoto · September 29, 2004

"Woman and Child Together"
Comments appreciated.

lynnma · September 29, 2004

tmlphoto wrote:

"Womand and Child Together"
Comments appreciated.

Thats beautiful Thomas.. I like the duotone (is it duotone or just a filter)

really nice..

looking at it again.. is it a tinsy bit dark? maybe my monitor..

ginger_55 · September 29, 2004

I really like your entry, Thomas. If this keeps up, there is going to be a baby boom here.

Lovely photograph, the entry.

ginger

tmlphoto · September 29, 2004

lynnma wrote:

Thats beautiful Thomas.. I like the duotone (is it duotone or just a filter)

really nice.. looking at it again.. is it a tinsy bit dark? maybe my monitor..

Thanks Lynn. Not sure about the brightness, looks ok on my setup. I'm not sure what you call the toning. I just took the saturation down to about 23 and changed the hue to taste. I checked the "colorize" box in the hue /sat box. ( not sure exactly what this does). I picked this method up in a magazine article.

ginger_55 · September 29, 2004

Thomas, it looked great, did you know there was/is a bouncing, clapping thing on your wife's head. He, it, is YELLOW.

I should copy down the info from the mag article. Looks good.

But that happy yellow guy, hope he doesn't give your wife a headache, or wake up the baby.

ginger

tmlphoto · September 29, 2004

ginger_55 wrote:

Thomas, it looked great, did you know there was/is a bouncing, clapping thing on your wife's head. He, it, is YELLOW.

I should copy down the info from the mag article. Looks good.

But that happy yellow guy, hope he doesn't give your wife a headache, or wake up the baby.

ginger

He,he ginger. Not my wife though, not my kid either

. A friend. She actually had twins about six weeks ago. ( her 3rd and 4th) Kinda of a surprise. I have a picture of the twins together, but didn't think it was as strong as this one. I will have to see if I can drag up which mag I got the technique from. I think it was from "Rangefinder", from a couple of months ago.

BTW, does it look too dark to anyone else? I've got to purchase a monitor calibration gizmo sometime...

ginger_55 · September 29, 2004

It does not look too dark to me. There is a lot of talk right now about the dark vs light, and why, on a site like this vs photoshop. I have forgotten, think it is lighter here. Look towards the bottom of my thread, Baldy posted re fixing the face color on my kid, and he also posted a "here" type thing to click on, that takes you to an explanation of why this dark/light is happening.

However, yours does not look too dark to me. Overall, the sleeve on the child would be too light, if it were overall lighter, IMO.

ginger

pathfinder · September 29, 2004

tmlphoto wrote:

"Woman and Child Together"
Comments appreciated.

Thomas, I am going to be the party pooper here I think. :cry

I hope my comments will be helpful. I DO like the diagonal movement of the viewer's eye from lower left to upper right but I find I am disappointed/troubled by my inability to see a little more of the mother's face - some may find this intriguing or enchanting, but I just cannot see enough of her face to be satisfied somehow.

The technical quality of the image is excellent - the tonalities seem correct - might burn the baby's bright sleeve slightly but overall no defects in tonality. Also not too sharp, just the right quality of blur for a nice soft tone.

The soft lighting works very well - overall I think this is a well exposed photograph that suffers from a less than excellent pose in the mother. I think you have not yet captured the image you really want, but I know you can do it.

tmlphoto · September 29, 2004

pathfinder wrote:

Thomas, I am going to be the party pooper here I think. :cry

I hope my comments will be helpful. I DO like the diagonal movement of the viewer's eye from lower left to upper right but I find I am disappointed/troubled by my inability to see a little more of the mother's face - some may find this intriguing or enchanting, but I just cannot see enough of her face to be satisfied somehow.

The technical quality of the image is excellent - the tonalities seem correct - might burn the baby's bright sleeve slightly but overall no defects in tonality. Also not too sharp, just the right quality of blur for a nice soft tone.

The soft lighting works very well - overall I think this is a well exposed photograph that suffers from a less than excellent pose in the mother. I think you have not yet captured the image you really want, but I know you can do it.

Thanks for the comments Path. The mom did'nt want me to "take a picture of her". She had been up all night with her twins and thought that she looked like h*ll. So this may be all I get for now. I didn't really pose her, just asked her to hold the baby and this is what she gave me. To tell you the truth, I'm not real comfortable "posing" people. I usually just give them a general idea and then see what they give me. I think I will try burning in the sleeve as suggested. As always, your honest criticisms are welcome & appreciated.

snapapple · September 30, 2004

Mmmm babies... love em
Thomas,
My first glimps brought out the mommie in me. It's precious. I like the pose as is. It's so natural. The position we're all familiar with. This way the mother's face does not overpower the smaller baby's face. I thought the picture seemed a little dark so I played with it. If you try to add brightness, you definitely blow out the sleeve. The darks get grey too, so that's not the answer. I tried desaturating the whole thing a little. That seemed to help make it look softer and also decreased the glow on the sleeve. With the desaturation, I cloned out a few specks on the mom's face and used the blur tool set on 25% strength and blurred out the pores on the mom's forehead and nose. I also took out the line under her eye. She might appreciate that if she was tired and had no makeup on. Just my opinion, and I love to play. Oh, I also used the clone tool around the mom's hand because the gausian blur runs over a little. The area around the tip of her nose could use a little too. I missed that. I think it's a beautiful portrait. I love it.

tmlphoto · September 30, 2004

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I think I'll rework this one up from the RAW file and see if I can't improve my post work some. I'll post a new version when I'm done.

pathfinder · September 30, 2004

snapapple wrote:

Thomas,
My first glimps brought out the mommie in me. It's precious. I like the pose as is. It's so natural. The position we're all familiar with. This way the mother's face does not overpower the smaller baby's face. I thought the picture seemed a little dark so I played with it. If you try to add brightness, you definitely blow out the sleeve. The darks get grey too, so that's not the answer. I tried desaturating the whole thing a little. That seemed to help make it look softer and also decreased the glow on the sleeve. With the desaturation, I cloned out a few specks on the mom's face and used the blur tool set on 25% strength and blurred out the pores on the mom's forehead and nose. I also took out the line under her eye. She might appreciate that if she was tired and had no makeup on. Just my opinion, and I love to play. Oh, I also used the clone tool around the mom's hand because the gausian blur runs over a little. The area around the tip of her nose could use a little too. I missed that. I think it's a beautiful portrait. I love it.

Very nice work Snappy - I have to agree that you have significantly improved this image - but I still would llike to see more of mom's face - It's just me I guess

snapapple · September 30, 2004

A reference for you

tmlphoto wrote:

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I think I'll rework this one up from the RAW file and see if I can't improve my post work some. I'll post a new version when I'm done.

Thomas,
I don't know if you saw this in the other thread, but it's a great example of flesh tones in a portrait. The way he uses the warm tones in the highlighted area and cool tones in the shadows is great for a baby. Getting that skin soft and smooth is also important. Take a look.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/snap-art.shtml

tmlphoto · September 30, 2004

snapapple wrote:

Thomas,
I don't know if you saw this in the other thread, but it's a great example of flesh tones in a portrait. The way he uses the warm tones in the highlighted area and cool tones in the shadows is great for a baby. Getting that skin soft and smooth is also important. Take a look.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/snap-art.shtml

Thanks Snapapple, here is what I have so far.

snapapple · September 30, 2004

Great so far...

tmlphoto wrote:

Thanks Snapapple, here is what I have so far.

I like the mom's arm in the picture. It completes the curve. Better contrast now. Did you ditch the sepia? I think it's just B&W now right? I think a slight warm cast on the flesh helps, but it can go in later. I can't really see the detail in this small version, but when you get the skin all touched up you can post a larger version. Have you thought of darkening the background. I'm thinking it would balance with the mom's sweater and make the skin tones stand out. Not as dark as the sweater, but just a little darker. Just a thought.

tmlphoto · October 1, 2004

snapapple wrote:

I like the mom's arm in the picture. It completes the curve. Better contrast now. Did you ditch the sepia? I think it's just B&W now right? I think a slight warm cast on the flesh helps, but it can go in later. I can't really see the detail in this small version, but when you get the skin all touched up you can post a larger version. Have you thought of darkening the background. I'm thinking it would balance with the mom's sweater and make the skin tones stand out. Not as dark as the sweater, but just a little darker. Just a thought.

Here is my "final" (well maybe) version. I put it in a black frame so I could use the large version and still get it to all show up at once on the screen. The medium link is so tiny with verticle images. I did touch up the moms skin some, but want to leave it a little rough. A little realism, if you will. Thanks for the comments everyone.

snapapple · October 1, 2004

tmlphoto wrote:

Here is my "final" (well maybe) version. I put it in a black frame so I could use the large version and still get it to all show up at once on the screen. The medium link is so tiny with verticle images. I did touch up the moms skin some, but want to leave it a little rough. A little realism, if you will. Thanks for the comments everyone.

Thomas,
I hate to be a nit picker, but I still see some problems. The mom's neck has a big blurry spot and there is still some fuzzyness around her wrist and nose. When softening the lines on the neck, I use the clone tool at about 45% strength. This lightens the line but does not cover it completely. That way I preserve the original lines. Then I run the blur tool over them at 20% strength to soften out the pixels. I would use the clone tool around the wrist and face at about 45% strength. Zoom in close and go carefullly around the edges with a brush of about 5 pixels. Follow up with the a larger brush for blending. I still like it with no spots. I also added a slight warm tone.

tmlphoto · October 1, 2004

snapapple wrote:

Thomas,
I hate to be a nit picker, but I still see some problems. The mom's neck has a big blurry spot and there is still some fuzzyness around her wrist and nose. When softening the lines on the neck, I use the clone tool at about 45% strength. This lightens the line but does not cover it completely. That way I preserve the original lines. Then I run the blur tool over them at 20% strength to soften out the pixels. I would use the clone tool around the wrist and face at about 45% strength. Zoom in close and go carefullly around the edges with a brush of about 5 pixels. Follow up with the a larger brush for blending. I still like it with no spots. I also added a slight warm tone.

Thanks for the suggestions. I posted my finished photo on the challenge thread. It's still not perfect, but hopefully good enough. I haven't really done any PS beauty work on skin and such before. Its a little more challenging than cloning out power lines. Thanks again for your help.