My husband's 3 faces & a simple set background

[CherylL]

My husband stopped shaving about a week into quarantine work from home. This is about 3 weeks of no shaving. I grabbed a few photos before he shaved it all off. He kept the mustache which is normal for him.

Any C&C welcome. How is the light fall? He has a reddish face normally, should I reduce? The crop ok? Shot too high? He was sitting and I was fairly close standing.

1. beard

2. goatee

3. normal mustache

I had him sit on the edge of the chair. I had to add a blanket & pillow to raise the black board up. The black board was too reflective so added my cheap black curtain panel. At first I had him hold the white board to bounce light up, but the shirt was way too bright. The white board worked better to block out the lower part of the window light.
In post I had to fill in some of the black background, added a tad light on the face, and darkened the shirt. The blue bounced a blue hue onto the beard so I used the Hue/Sat adjustment layer reducing the saturation and painted in. It is still visible in the first 2 photos. I didn't want to go overboard.

4. set up in the dining room

 

[Designer]

Any C&C welcome. How is the light fall? He has a reddish face normally, should I reduce? The crop ok? Shot too high? He was sitting and I was fairly close standing.

These are pretty good. I have one suggestion; just a tiny bit of light on the dark side of his hair to separate his head from the background. Like about an index card reflector just out of the frame.

 

[Derrel]

I think the goatee look is good for him.

 

[Original katomi]

I don’t do portraits so as far as c&c is concerned I will leave that to others.
Having said that I think that you could frame that 1st image and hand it on the wall.
Whilst I am no good at the technical side of photography some images tell me story
You have captured a moment in your lives

 

[Photo Lady]

Handsome and well done photography of portraits of him...

 

[smoke665]

I thought about forgoing the shaving, been several years since I've had a full beard, but with a C-Pap they just don't work well.

Overall good effort. If I had to choose it would be the first and last. As mentioned above another reflector for fill and separation would have helped. One thing you might try to even out the skin color is to add a hue adjustment layer. Go to the red channel, use the eye droppers to target the red you wish to eliminate, then slide your hue slider all the way to the left, and further refine the target area, it will show blue. Once it's refined move the hue slider back right till the red goes away. Use a mask if need be to limit the effect.

 

[tirediron]

Working with just a single window is a challenge, and you've produced a solid result. I agree that some separation would have been nice, but it would also have been difficult to do.

 

[CherylL]

Any C&C welcome. How is the light fall? He has a reddish face normally, should I reduce? The crop ok? Shot too high? He was sitting and I was fairly close standing.

These are pretty good. I have one suggestion; just a tiny bit of light on the dark side of his hair to separate his head from the background. Like about an index card reflector just out of the frame.

I have a reflector and a few white boards. I'll try this if he will sit again.

I think the goatee look is good for him.

He disliked the goatee. I think it reminds him of his not so favorite person. I liked it better than beard.

I don’t do portraits so as far as c&c is concerned I will leave that to others.
Having said that I think that you could frame that 1st image and hand it on the wall.
Whilst I am no good at the technical side of photography some images tell me story
You have captured a moment in your lives

Thanks! He liked #3 the best.

Handsome and well done photography of portraits of him...

Thanks! I won't tell him the handsome part. His ego is a little too healthy

I thought about forgoing the shaving, been several years since I've had a full beard, but with a C-Pap they just don't work well.

Overall good effort. If I had to choose it would be the first and last. As mentioned above another reflector for fill and separation would have helped. One thing you might try to even out the skin color is to add a hue adjustment layer. Go to the red channel, use the eye droppers to target the red you wish to eliminate, then slide your hue slider all the way to the left, and further refine the target area, it will show blue. Once it's refined move the hue slider back right till the red goes away. Use a mask if need be to limit the effect.

I'll try that and see if I can't tone down some of the red. His face is naturally red veined. Playing with the channels in the adjustments layers is my weak point.

 

[CherylL]

Working with just a single window is a challenge, and you've produced a solid result. I agree that some separation would have been nice, but it would also have been difficult to do.

Thanks! The separation did bother me and trying to get the black backgound pure black I lost some of the head detail.

 

[Derrel]

One can " paint on" some dodge tool to lighten areas using an adjustment brush in Lightroom.

 

[smoke665]

I'll try that and see if I can't tone down some of the red. His face is naturally red veined. Playing with the channels in the adjustments layers is my weak point.

I do it using a technique I learned from Lee Varis's book "Skin" which is a little different then this but it's basically the same principal. It allows you to quickly target the reds and blend them in, without a lot of unnecessary brush work.

 

[CherylL]

I'll try that and see if I can't tone down some of the red. His face is naturally red veined. Playing with the channels in the adjustments layers is my weak point.

I do it using a technique I learned from Lee Varis's book "Skin" which is a little different then this but it's basically the same principal. It allows you to quickly target the reds and blend them in, without a lot of unnecessary brush work.

I'll give that a try. Thanks for the link.

 

[CherylL]

Here is the re-edit. I lightened per @Derrel suggestion and reduced the red skin per @smoke665 suggestion. The tut link you shared was very useful. The upload is darker than what I am seeing in PS

 

[Derrel]

It does look too dark to me, seeing it on Android phone.

 

[terri]

It does look a little dark (on my laptop) but good job with the red lightening. I like all of them, but the best look for him IMHO is the goatee. For such a simple setup, Cheryl, you did very well!

Now he'll always have his Covid-19 portraits!