How is the processing on these two? Thanks!

Biggs88 · Oct 18, 2011

Hello all. I have two photos up for review (one that I already posted on the forum a short while ago)

In the first one, I wanted to highlight the detail and "imperfections" in the face.

In the second one, I wanted to make him look as best as he could. Lightroom 3 was used on both.

Please let me know if you would have done anything different and why. (besides have him remove his cell phone from his shirt pocket in the 2nd pic :thumbup: )

One SB-600 was used in an umbrella in each photo.

Geaux · Oct 18, 2011

Hmm, the black and white one is not that bad. You lost some detail in the shirt with raising the black levels up. The second one is a little too much for me. Seems like you upped the saturation levels to bring the purple out, but that lead to oversaturating his skin and turning it red.

KenC · Oct 18, 2011

Yeah, the first works well. I don't mind the lack of detail in the shirt because this helps direct attention to his face. The second is odd because his head is cut off either by being in a shadow or by a hat or head covering merging with the background.

Biggs88 · Oct 18, 2011

Geaux said:
Hmm, the black and white one is not that bad. You lost some detail in the shirt with raising the black levels up. The second one is a little too much for me. Seems like you upped the saturation levels to bring the purple out, but that lead to oversaturating his skin and turning it red.

I did boost the sat, but I did bring the reds down a bit. I will try to play with the tones a bit more.

I was going for the "vivid" look with the purple shirt and orange lights in the subway hall behind him.

Thanks for the input!

KenC said:
Yeah, the first works well. I don't mind the lack of detail in the shirt because this helps direct attention to his face. The second is odd because his head is cut off either by being in a shadow or by a hat or head covering merging with the background.

Yep, it's a hat. I tried playing with the brush tool and bringing the exposure up in the hat but the noise present in the area (shot Jpeg fine, not raw) just looked bad. So I left it as is.

Now that I have more than one light, a "hair light" that just "kisses" the edge of the hat to allow for some separation would be ideal.