portrait help please!

Elaine · November 19, 2006

I have done a number of things to this portrait already, but I'm still frustrated by the greenish hue on the bridge of her nose. I am using Photoshop Elements...does anyone have any ideas on how to get rid of that green?? Any other suggestions for improvement?

JimW · November 19, 2006

Elaine,

First, that’s a beautiful photo. I’m not an expert but here goes: The color seems way out of balance. I don’t know why it came out that way. I don’t know enough to go in and fix it locally. So I took it into cmyk and, at the bridge of the nose in that shadow, the readings are c-44 m-51 y-82 k-28. Okay, that’s really a lot of value for that area. Too much and too dark. Smugmug has some great help screens on skin tone values (http://www.smugmug.com/help/skin-tone). In a nutshell, the cyan should be roughly 30 to 50% of the magenta (in this area it is roughly 90% of the magenta value!). And for this kid, perhaps the yellow should be 5-15 percentage points above the magenta (but the yellow in this area is 31 points above magenta)

So I added 1 stop of exposure, then in cmyk I tried to curve the c,m & y to follow the smugmug “formula” (from their help screen). I couldn’t get it all the way, but just part of the way.

Fill flash would have helped, I think. It would brighten the eyes, provide catchlight and eliminate the shadows you’re asking about.

I think your work is really good. I love the response people are giving you with their eyes. Hope that you don’t think I’m telling you how the photo should be. I don’t mean to do that.

Jim

System · November 19, 2006

System · November 19, 2006

this little girl is a doll!-

how photogenic she is!-

if this looks like it helps any let me know and I'll go over what I did (if I can remember)-

System · November 19, 2006

was your exposure ok on this?-

what was your iso?-

can you post the original?-

System · November 19, 2006

I don't know what's going on with the pics but maybe drop your iso from 200 to 100 and look at fill flash or diffused fill flash-

ivar · November 19, 2006

It's an adorable girl, and a great shot. I do see the green as well. I have no idea why it showed up.

I had a play as well, came up with this

replace color brush, black point, white point and curves.

Elaine · November 20, 2006

Thank you all for your time and advice on this! This was a shot from only my fourth time doing a family photo shoot (all for friends), so I consider myself a novice, for sure. And the post processing...well...there's no doubt I'm a novice there!

I didn't think this shot was going to be a keeper (poor exposure), but when I saw how sweet the pose and expression was, I decided to try and salvage it. She's adorable, and every second her expression and face was changing...some good and some with eyes half shut, so I wanted to save all the good ones I could.

I use ISO 100 about 99% of the time, but this day was cloudy and with the wiggly kids, I wanted to make sure my speed was quick enough, so I went with ISO 200. I accidentally had left the exposure bias at -0.3, so it came out too dark. I am embarrassed to post the original shot! I do not have any reflectors, lights or even an external flash...trying to get better at the natural light stuff. Will fill-flash from my built-in flash work nicely??

Or will it just make things turn out flat? I guess I just need to remember to try it. I'm also using Photoshop Elements 3.0, and I haven't experimented with the channel mixer yet, so I'm not sure how that works or how to apply it. The lens I usually use is a Minolta 70-210mm (the beercan) and it seems to always make things a bit cool, so no matter what, I'm stuck doing color adjustments.

Anyway, thanks again for the compliments and help! I will try to learn some new things in my PSE so I can improve this. I'm actually a little discouraged...hoping all my shots aren't so out of balance in the color department!

I just want them to print nicely and not be disappointed with weird skin colors!

If you've made it all the way through this and wouldn't mind looking at just a few more pics (5 more), please see this gallery and tell me if you think any of the other images needs some serious re-working (she says with much trepidation!!!):
http://e-heasley.smugmug.com/gallery/2146469

Thank you!!! You'll probably hear from me again very soon!

Elaine

JimW · November 20, 2006

Elaine,

<<< Will fill-flash from my built-in flash work nicely? Or will it just make things turn out flat? >>>

If you balance the fill flash from the camera with the ambient light, then your on-camera flash does not have to flatten the photo. You only need a little pop of fill flash to brighten those facial shadows, reduce the bags under the eyes and give a nice catchlight. Also, I don’t know why your shadows are tending toward the green, but a little fill flash will help with that problem too. Basically, use a flash but turn the power down. (maybe by using your camera’s flash compensation setting?)

I think you’re already doing a lot right: long lens, open the aperture to blur the background, simple backgrounds far away. These things simplify the photo, putting the emphasis on the people, makes it look classic and classy, I think. The poses look great. With the couple, the eyes are not all lined up in a row, which is good.

What color space is your camera set to? What color space do you work in PSE? The green shadows may be a color space issue. If you’re ultimately going for prints, you might want to shoot in Adobe RGB, while sRGB is probably best for preparing photos for your website. (If you don’t prepare them in sRGB, I think Smugmud converts them anyway, because browsers don’t do AdobeRGB).

One of the ironies I found was that when you’re just getting started with PS color correction etc. is when you need it the most.

I had a Nikon D100 and it took awful dirty flat photos before I was able to do much about it in PS. So, you need to be able to post process to fix your color problems. But it’s really good practice to fix these photos. The gallery ones are similar to the first girl you posted, perhaps a little better. But they’re all very fixable. Don’t worry about 1/3 of a stop in exposure. That won’t ruin your photo. Don’t worry about ISO 100 vs 200. The difference for these is irrelevant. We’re seeing far more difference just in how our monitors look.

Jim

p.s. Wait til you learn the healing brush. The Forehands, and others, will be your best friends forever (under the eyes).

kmh · November 20, 2006

Beautiful shot! All of your photos look great (but also need adjustment). Very impressive for your fourth family shoot! Ivar, I love what you've done with the picture. Could you explain the first step a little more (I know about setting the black and white points, and a bit about curves -- did you do lots of adjustments?).

kmh · November 20, 2006

I wanted to add that I think it looks great cropped.

ivar · November 20, 2006

kmh wrote:

Beautiful shot! All of your photos look great (but also need adjustment). Very impressive for your fourth family shoot! Ivar, I love what you've done with the picture. Could you explain the first step a little more (I know about setting the black and white points, and a bit about curves -- did you do lots of adjustments?).

Thank you, I'm honored, this is the first time someone is asking me to tell them what I've done in PS

I'm just learning myself.

I used the "color replacement tool"
A lot of the pixels on the bridge of the nose were actually greenish. So i selected the color replacement tool, selected a green pixel, and a very close but not green pixel, and swiped all the areas which had a green tint. Mainly nose, and the right side of her face. I'm sure there is a better way of doing this but it made sense to me that way.

manta1900 · November 29, 2006

Elaine wrote:

I have done a number of things to this portrait already, but I'm still frustrated by the greenish hue on the bridge of her nose. I am using Photoshop Elements...does anyone have any ideas on how to get rid of that green?? Any other suggestions for improvement?

Very nice photo! T think that it only needs some color correction (IMHO)....

Sandy · November 30, 2006

I like the reworked versions, especially Jim W's. An easy way to adjust the color in a portion of a photo is to lasso the area and adjust the color balance.

DavidS · November 30, 2006

I know it needed some work, but what a wonderful capture Elaine.

Elaine · November 30, 2006

DavidS wrote:

I know it needed some work, but what a wonderful capture Elaine.

Thank you so much! I'm going to give it another try at reworking it soon...I've been working on getting pictures ready for Christmas, but I want to get back to this one.

Thanks again!

portrait help please!

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