You're Probably Tired of My Face...

Llywellyn · March 18, 2008

...but bear with me as I learn and test out some new processing tricks? :wink

I was trying for a more realistic processing finish than my usual style--less obvious clean-up and more natural colors, as well as more sharpness and DOF than I typically use. I'm practicing for an upcoming casual shoot; a friend of mine needs new headshots.

Please don't hesitate to let me know what I could improve here. This is my first go at this kind of portrait processing, so I know I can improve from here.

(Placin' it big so all the mistakes jump out!)

EXIF

Thanks for stopping by! :thumb

DMoreland · March 18, 2008

wow! this is absolutely beautiful!

CarnalSigh · March 19, 2008

1) A couple things about the background caught myeye right off the bat. The lighter color on top, with the darker on bottom....I don't feel that helps your photo at all. If you want solid colors, make it all one one tone. The line of delineation between the two seem to be slanted...higher on the right and lower on the left. Also, you can clearly see the stains of your touchup work on both the top and bottom. It looks like you cloned out a bunch of stuff to give it an even look, but it backfired on you a bit here. The quality in touch up work is, IMO, based largely upon how easy it is to tell it's been touched up.

2) As I look at the face, I keep wanting something in it to be sharp, but it's all a bit on the soft side. It's almost as if you shot with too little light, at a higher iso. This left you with questionable sharpness, lack of color saturation, and a lot of noise around the eyes. You might have wanted the low light look, but you can't always get it by using less light. Try going with more light, a lower iso, and play with your shutter speed and dof, then levels in pp to get the low light feel to it. This will also give you better sharpness. If you did shoot at a low iso with tons of light, then did u soften the focus in pp? If that's the case, exclude the eyes in softening next time. Always work towards making sure the eyes are sharp.

3) Also on the eyes.....they don't pop. Adding little bit of light, maybe a tiny bit of green, and upping the contrast a bit (all of this on a reduced opacity layer) would do wonders for this shot.

Hope this helps.

Scott_Quier · March 19, 2008

I think CarnalSigh pretty well nailed the "technical" issues. For a shot like this, it is critical that the eyes be critically sharp.

As for the composition, consider the following thoughts:

You used the wrong hand to hold the veil. We are seeing the back of your hand and it's closer to the camera than your face. This causes the hand to dominate the photo. Were you to user your other hand, we would be seeing only a portion of your fingers.
Try to avoid making a fist (or anything that comes close to that) as this tends to make any hand look more massive. This is not something you want to do with a lady's hand.
A photo like this is all about the eyes. Get in a bit closer so there is no doubt in the viewer's mind what is the center of focus. As it is, the veil, be a light color and there being so much of it, tends to draw the viewer from your eyes.

I hope this helps a bit.

macmac · March 19, 2008

Kerry, nice shot. Thanks for asking for comments. Wow, I learned some things reading them.

Llywellyn · March 19, 2008

Awesome! Thank you so much for the detailed feedback!

I had some follow-up questions for CarnalSigh, if you come back to this thread.

What you're seeing in the background is the base of a door where it meets carpet (I was sitting low with the camera high). I underexposed it to try to eliminate the distraction, but looks like I could go further. (My eyes are crap in low light, which is typically how I'm editing.) I did clone some stray wisps of hair out--is that what you mean by stains? I'm not seeing them on my calibrated moniitor (see note about my crap eyes). Could you be more specific on where you're seeing them? I'd love to nail this for next time.

I'm surprised nothing looks sharp here to you, actually. I did only spot softening on the skin (separate layer with a mask to keep the sharpness of the eyes) and also did more sharpening on the eyes on another layer. Looking at it again this morning, the eyes still look sharp to me, but again this is my first time attempting something like this, so perhaps sharp to me isn't what's actually considered sharp for this kind of portrait.

I also lightened the eyes and upped the color a little on another layer. I thought I'd gone too far and pulled it back. Looks like I can push the bar a little further here.

So I was doing everything you advised, I just need to finesse it and improve. That's really good to know! Got the steps and need to keep working them. I really appreciate it.

Scott, thank you for your notes as well. The hand choice was intentional (I tried the other and it looked more awkward and less graceful), though I see your point about the bulk of it. I had a couple with the fingers open and splayed. I'll have to look at them again.

And thank you DMoreland and macmac for your nice comments.

CarnalSigh · March 19, 2008

Hiya Kerry....Here is a labeled version of your shot to point out the smudges or stains or whatever you wish to call it. It looks like you got a little sloppy with the cloning brush. It might not show up when looking dead on at the photo, but if you are looking more down on it from a little higher angle, I can clearly see all of it.

As for sharpness, you are likely correct in that what u call sharp, I may not. It also could be in your conversion when u made the shot smaller for the web, u might have lost some sharpness in the quality. When I make a small email-sized version of one of my full size pix, I use irfanview. It allows me to easily resize it and choose the quality as well. It's a free and easy to use software. When I do it, I save at 95% quality and it results in a good sharp image that is a reasonable size, example 140kb-160kb. If you simply resize a shot, u may be losing quality without realizing it.

My main thing is up-close portraiture, and I'm not nearly an expert, but the sharpness of the eyes is critical in this type of shot, as Scott chimed in to agree with. Perhaps he saw an issue with the sharpness like I did. This shot is all about your eyes, and as such, they should be vivid and reach out and grab me. I just feel u fell a little short and since u asked for C&C, that's what I honed in on lol.

What kind of camera did u use to take this? Is it a DSLR? If not, that's likely where some of the issues stem from. I look forward to seeing more of your work. You have beautiful eyes, so don't be afraid to show them off.

Jeff

Llywellyn · March 19, 2008

Thank you!!

That is so helpful! What you see there is not lazy cloning, but lazy masking. Looks like I missed some spots on the mask for the underexposed background. I can see a couple in your diagram (which is super helpful--thank you!), but not all. I'm going to view this on my insanely bright Mac laptop to see if that brings them out.

I always save super high-res versions of my images and don't do any "save for web" due to the issues you mention. I'm going to look at my workflow a little closer and do a side-by-side comparison of pre-upload to post-upload version to see if my saving process is indeed affecting the sharpness of things. Wouldn't have thought to look there, so I appreciate the suggestion.

And know that I honestly treasure this feedback. I did ask for it, and I'm super happy I got!

I'm going to reprocess this from scratch today/tonight and see if I can't improve upon things based on this.

I use a Nikon D80 and Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 for most everything these days, and I used them for this shot with window light (I have an EXIF link in the original post if you want more of the gritty details). I did shoot it an hour later than I'd wanted, because I was working and forgot about taking it. Thus my light was less than I'd planned. So the ISO was a bit higher. And the overall shot was slightly underexposed. I thought I'd fixed it well, but it sounds like it definitely shows. :giggle

I don't do a lot of up-close portraiture, so it's enlightening to know my same-old hat tricks won't cut the mustard for something this detailed. Part of why I was trying it and some different processing.

This has been super helpful. Hopefully the next version will cut the mustard a bit better.

Thanks again, Jeff!

Llywellyn · March 19, 2008

Alrighty. Take 2:

Trying to take all the feedback into account. Better? Worse? Equally meh?

CarnalSigh · March 20, 2008

Mucho mejor !! Your eyes are great. Only thing is....u lost some skin tone. It's developed an Adam's Family kinda look lol. Tho I risk upsetting u by making adjustments to your shot, I did so merely to give you an idea of how I would have finished this one at this point. I upped the saturation a bit, brought the middle levels slider in PS over to the darker side a bit, brought the black level up a bit, then upped the contrast and lowered the brightness a little. It gave it a more of a sexy, darker feel, but I just wanted to see how it'd look.

I guess the main thing is that together we saw some issues and now have some ideers on how we might do it better next time. We are all Learners, Teachers, and Doers. I look forward to seeing more of your work.

christulk · March 20, 2008

The second shot is lovely, your eyes are fantastic!

Llywellyn · March 20, 2008

Thank you, Jeff and Chris.

To be honest, the eyes in my second version just look so nuclear to me. There are some things I like about it more, but there are other things I prefer in the first version. Perhaps a melding of the two will create an image I'm content with that will also be more pleasing to viewers.

I appreciate all the feedback. It's made me try a few things I otherwise wouldn't have, and I love learning new things. So thank you!

RBrogen · March 20, 2008

All of the tech aspects have been hit on .... the second shot the "eyes" have it!!! great looking shot!!!

You're Probably Tired of My Face...

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