(Kid pics) Blowing out images for fun and profit

[rufus5150]

Well... except for the profit. Just playing around with photoshop on these. Any comments of course welcome.

#1

#2.

Personally, I favor the second one. And borders on these would help, wouldn't they?

 

[bigalbest]

No borders, these are nice. These might look great b&w.

 

[Los Angeles]

I like them. Do you mind sharing the PS technique

 

[jvgig]

my only gripe is that the eyes look rather artificial, almost like glass. Especially in the first one where they are so sharp and the rest of the image is soft and blown out. Blowing out the image does have its merits, but I think the first one needs some work. The 2nd works much better as the face and body are a little more defined so the eyes and other features dont look so disproportional color-wise.

1 kind of reminded me of the Cheshire cat when his head disappears and all that is left is his eyes and mouth--kind of creepy.

 

[MelodySoul]

I love the look, very ethereal. The second one is better, the first one is just a tad too doll-like I think.

 

[Senor Hound]

I love the look, very ethereal. The second one is better, the first one is just a tad too doll-like I think.

I was thinking that too. The first thing I thought was "china doll" or whatever the ones made out of porcelain are. It's a very cool look, IMO.

I think the eyes in the first one are kind of artificially intense, but its not necessarily a bad thing as much as a choice. Who ever the photo is for should look at it and tell you what they think...

 

[rufus5150]

Who ever the photo is for should look at it and tell you what they think...

They're for me. I refuse to talk to myself, though.

The first one was my first attempt at doing anything like this. It's odd, though, other than sharpening, I really didn't do much to the eyes in either photo. The simple act of bumping the exposure just brought out the blue. The first one had the catch lights accentuated a bit because they were really not there.

Do you mind sharing the PS technique

Not at all.

In Camera Raw, after setting the white balance, I bumped the exposure up until it blew out the backgrounds. Then adjusted the recovery such that it brought some of her details back. I used just a touch of 'fill' because the lighting in both situations was pretty much crap. It's really about balancing those three out to get the 'look' I was looking for. I've by no means, as you can tell, perfected it.

Once I finished with camera raw, I brought it into PS and adjusted the levels get rid of the 'haze' effect, then cloned/healed out any unwanted artifacts (in the first picture, she has a green bow slightly visible in her hair which had to go, in the second, there were some stuffed animals in the background and a pillow and the 'wood tower' back there was her toy box which only went about half way up the photo to start out with). Converted to Lab color and ran a pretty aggressive sharpen on just the Lightness layer.

That's really about it. Nothing terribly fancy.

 

[Chewbecca]

I LOVE these. Seriously. Beautiful little subject too!:mrgreen:

I think these would look excellent a tad desaturated as well.
I desaturated the first one in gimp and I liked the results.

 

[lilysmom]

Very cool! I may have to give this a shot myself.

 

[husky_mom]

I think I may be the only one besides you.. LOL.. I really like the first one... those eyes really hipnotized me...may be the china doll effect...(those dolls creep me out, but not this pic)... I really liked them both...nice!

 

[xc222]

Very beautiful, I love this shot !