My FRIENDly Model

imchristinak · May 22, 2010

My friend was gracious enough to help me practice taking pictures. Most of them are taken at thrift stores. All of them have been edited - tinkered around with the curves and color balances. C&C por favors (esp with the colors/comp...). Thanks.

(she wasn't laughing at herself. it was because i was getting ready to take the picture when i caught myself in the mirror and got jumpy. haha

really upset because my battery died... and this was the best shot although blurry. is there a way to make it sharper without making it grainer/blurrier?

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one more:

this was what i was going for, but i couldn't on my digi cam so blurred with photoshop.
what kind of lens would i use to get this kind of an effect?

Sebastian Riel Ph. · May 22, 2010

Here's a edit of your last picture. Not sure if it's much of an improvement. I didn't spend any time removing the "blur" around her feet, I mostly focused on her head and played around with some stuff. If you like to know what I did let me know.

imchristinak · May 24, 2010

Sebastian Riel Ph. said:
Here's a edit of your last picture. Not sure if it's much of an improvement. I didn't spend any time removing the "blur" around her feet, I mostly focused on her head and played around with some stuff. If you like to know what I did let me know.

yes. i would like to know what went on in the pic. =D

Sebastian Riel Ph. · May 27, 2010

#1 I duplicated the layer in photoshop
#2 Reduced the noise
#3 masked her body with a 30% opacity brush to bring back detail (except her feet, didn't spend that much time on them)
#4 Added a curve adjustment layer. A radical s curve for contrast.

Here's a picture of my layout. p.s I didn't name the layers because whats the point ? There's only 5 layers. p.p.s It seems I forgot to mention with the masked layer I believe I used a vertical motion blur

imchristinak · May 30, 2010

coool. thanks seb! looks complicated but i guess i can play around with what you've shared.

c&c's people? por favs. thank you. =D

Stillwater · May 31, 2010

On the very last one, you're going to need some fast glass like a prime or something that can run a f/stop around 2.5, but then you probably wouldn't be able to take a shot outside with it like so! Getting a shallow DoF is a lot easier inside or in studio.

As far as the tones go, I really like them, especially picture #2. What I can say is that your pictures have a very journalistic feel about them, I feel like this style might end up in a newspaper or a cool gallery installation (documentation?). Great stuff!