Experimenting C&C

[smoke665]

Two different presentations on the same photo. The color version, I was trying for a slightly ethereal effect, grain was intentional. To me the sepia version came out to dark, but when I tried to lighten the image, it washed out overal

 

[dxqcanada1]

In the first the whites are too blown out ... attracts too much attention.
The second sepia tone is muddy ... and also the highlights are too prominent ... needs some dodging and burning ... or better balance of light to begin with.

 

[spiralout462]

Definitely to hot on camera right!

 

[smoke665]

Hard to explain, but the point was to make it appear as if she was a part of the warm natural light coming in from the right. A white umbrella reflector was placed on the left to bring light back in to the face. I intentionally overexposed slightly and bumped the ISO for the noise. The second one is a tighter crop of the first. I thought that by cropping tighter and converting to a sepia, I might alleviate some of the distraction mentioned earlier, but when I did the noise wasn't attractive. I removed the noise and smoothed the skin but then came the muddy look you referred to. I also suspect my reflector was not properly positioned or not large enough. Fortunately my little model works cheap and and loves posing so another try might be in order.