Felicia

ShutteredEye · Nov 11, 2006

Captured these shots while second shooting at a wedding a month or so ago. I had a great time, and this bride was absolutely stunning.

Puscas · Nov 12, 2006

Really like 1 and 3. Love the brick wall background. Don't like the glass background in #2, and there's a part of her dress missing. But those are minor things. And yes, she's stunning.

pascal

pascal

AprilRamone · Nov 12, 2006

Yes, she's lovely. Your post processing always looks so nice. Care to share any tips?
-April

ShutteredEye · Nov 12, 2006

AprilRamone said:
Yes, she's lovely. Your post processing always looks so nice. Care to share any tips?
-April

Honestly? I've started working on being much more subtle in what I do. I used to subscribe to the "more is more" philosophy. Now I add an effect until I can see it, then back off 20% or so.

I'll start by adjusting exposure and white balance in RAW, and then converting to a 8bit tiff file. My basic work flow is usually this in CS2:

1. A touch of contrast, never more than 7%, usually about 4 or 5.

2. A touch of USM, on a full size file about 70%, 3 pixels, 1 level threshold.

3. Next if it's people, I'll clean up the skin with a combination of healing brush, clone brush.

4. Next I'll use the non-magnetic lasso tool to promote the eyes and mouth to their own layers. Here I'll dodge the whites of the eyes, the teeth. I'll sometimes then select the iris with the lasso tool and play with curves to bring out the different colors.

5. Next I'll duplicate the background and apply gaussian blur somewhere in the range of 7-9 pixels.

6. Next I'll create a layer mask and apply the "find edges" tool. Then in that layer I'll use the levels tool, playing with the highlights and midtone sliders until I have a majority of white background with a good stencil background of the edges. Essentially this erases the blur over the edges and lets the details of the original layer show through. This way you maintain your detail while getting a creamy blur over everything else.

7. Now I titrate all three layers, blur, background, and eyes. I usually end up with the blur set at 70-80% opacity, and the eye layer at about 65% opacity, with the eye layer on top.

That's a brief overview of what I usually do. Obviously each and every picture is different and I do more or less depending. Also my black and white workflow is completely different. Hope that helps...

zx3guy2000 · Nov 12, 2006

That sounds like a lot of work! Also I have no idea what any of that means ... LOL .... **never used Photoshop or anything like it yet**

But your shots are excellent as always!!

AprilRamone · Nov 13, 2006

Yeah, that sounds pretty intense. What does USM stand for?

W.Smith · Nov 13, 2006

ShutteredEye said:
Captured these shots while second shooting at a wedding a month or so ago. I had a great time, and this bride was absolutely stunning.

The bridesmaids weren't exactly dogs either...

Why don't people marry in wedding gowns anymore?

Arch · Nov 13, 2006

AprilRamone said:
Yeah, that sounds pretty intense. What does USM stand for?

un-sharp mask

i like your technique robert... and your right, subtlety is the key....

Well taken images... the bride (and lets not forget the bridesmades!) are all very pretty... good stuff :thumbup: