Shelby

[kathyt]

Alright, I had the chance to play with the RAW file. This image was about as close to perfect WB as you could get, it was TACK sharp, and super fun to play with. OP agreed to have this shared with everyone so that other people can learn as well. Thank you Bonnie.
I usually set my WB off of their teeth or the whites of their eyes. In her case, her teeth got me pretty close. I used LR and Portraiture for this edit. For skin, I check everything based on the RGB scale and luminance values. For her, my midtone red channel target was between 84-86%, I always start with this then the green and blue channels seem to fall into place. To get my midtone red channel into the 85% range, the first thing I do is click on the exposure field in the develop module of LR. Then I set my eye dropper tool directly over a bright midtone. (generally I use directly between the eyes) I will then keep pushing my arrow key up until I reach my target of around 85%. Once I reach that number I tweak from there. If I don't have proper exposure on the skin, I can never get accurate skin tones. Underexposed skin will give you really low values in the red channel. Keep in mind that the values will be different for different types of skin. (Fair, dark, Hispanic, etc.)
I will let you crop.

Here are my LR settings-
Exposure .81
Contrast 18
Highlights -31
Shadows +20
Whites -10
Blacks -19
Clarity -10
medium contrast curve
cloned little hairs
Sharpened eyes
ran Portraiture very lightly at the end to polish it out. The End.

Final skintone values:
R 85.1%
G 77.5%
B 69.9%

1. original
2. my edit
3. B/W

 

[tirediron]

Nice edit Kathy, but I'd suggest using the selective enhancement brush on her dress and dialling back the exposure a tad (or walking about the whites), as some of the detail's gone astray.

 

[Derrel]

Paint back in some detail too...all the beautiful photo-realism has been wiped away...there's no depth to her face...she looks flat and uninteresting. Her hair has no detail to it. Just too much broad artificiality.The whites in the dress in the B&W are a bit too bright, and are drawing attention away from her, since that white sundress is such a big part of the composition.

 

[kathyt]

Photo-realism? Show these images to her and see which one she would like to purchase. I would be asking her cash, check, or charge. I agree about the detail in the dress, and I would go back in and do a quick adjustment if it were my image/client.

 

[kathyt]

I am sure your edit would be smashing Derrel. Please grace us with your edit, and show me some photo-realism!

 

[frommrstomommy]

If anyone else wanted to take a stab at this one I'm happy to send over the raw image. (regular posters only please lol)

 

[manicmike]

My editing needs work. Think I could play around with it and see if I can replicate Kathy's work? Nice work Bonnie.

 

[manicmike]

And one more post so I'm not at 666.

 

[frommrstomommy]

My editing needs work. Think I could play around with it and see if I can replicate Kathy's work? Nice work Bonnie.

Sure. Shoot me a message with your email address and I'll send it over when I'm back at my computer. Thank you!

 

[frommrstomommy]

My editing needs work. Think I could play around with it and see if I can replicate Kathy's work? Nice work Bonnie.

Sure. Shoot me a message with your email address and I'll send it over when I'm back at my computer. Thank you!

 

[Derrel]

I am sure your edit would be smashing Derrel. Please grace us with your edit, and show me some photo-realism!

Thank you Kathy, but that's quite enough snark from you. I was just pointing out that, in my opinion, your edit killed all the detail in her hair, and her face, and the dress is blown out. It looks clownish to me. It looks overly airbrushed, and has lost a large percentage of the realism I like to see in portraiture. As far as what will sell...if all a person shows is overly-airbrushed images, that's all that will be sold.

It might has well have been shot with a 4 megapixel camera instead of a 24-MP FF Nikon. I think the key to editing is to **selectively** add smoothing, and not turn the hair to mush, and not to eliminate all the detail in the clothing and the face. Your schoolyard type of comments are not really needed. You can disagree without being churlish, I think.

 

[kathyt]

If anyone else wanted to take a stab at this one I'm happy to send over the raw image. (regular posters only please lol)

Once you get in that general range for skintones and luminance, then you can tweak it to your own taste. Either cool it down or warm it up; whatever floats your boat. The point here is to have a good workflow that will facilitate consistent results. My main goal with clients is to produce what I know will please them and what sells. That is the bottom line. I have to make a profit if I am going to be sitting behind that computer. (This is just for the business side of things)
Here is a little bit of logic behind the way I edited this image. So these are the things I know about this girl just from the RAW file.
-she is very tan
-she bleaches her teeth (I was in the dental field for ten years and I can tell from the enamel up close when I was editing)
-she has highlights in her hair
-she is dressed very trendy

With this information I am going to edit more along the lines of a senior or glamour session, because this would be more along the lines of the clients style from my experience. This client would most likely like more of a polished edit. This is what is going to sell to this genre of client. (This is my experience I am going off of)
If the client had no makeup on, very conservative clothing choices, and more of a plain Jane look, then I would edit on the really clean side, because that would be what they would expect to see. That is what would sell. This is how my brain operates during shooting and editing for clients. This kinda shuts down when I shoot for myself.
Food for thought. Take it or leave it.

 

[kathyt]

I am sure your edit would be smashing Derrel. Please grace us with your edit, and show me some photo-realism!

Thank you Kathy, but that's quite enough snark from you. I was just pointing out that, in my opinion, your edit killed all the detail in her hair, and her face, and the dress is blown out. It looks clownish to me. It looks overly airbrushed, and has lost a large percentage of the realism I like to see in portraiture. As far as what will sell...if all a person shows is overly-airbrushed images, that's all that will be sold.

It might has well have been shot with a 4 megapixel camera instead of a 24-MP FF Nikon. I think the key to editing is to **selectively** add smoothing, and not turn the hair to mush, and not to eliminate all the detail in the clothing and the face. Your schoolyard type of comments are not really needed. You can disagree without being churlish, I think.

Then go ahead and edit it the way you would so she can see a few different approaches. Please and thank you.

 

[CarreraGT]

lovely portaits shelby is a very pretty young lady.

 

[frommrstomommy]

If anyone else wanted to take a stab at this one I'm happy to send over the raw image. (regular posters only please lol)

Once you get in that general range for skintones and luminance, then you can tweak it to your own taste. Either cool it down or warm it up; whatever floats your boat. The point here is to have a good workflow that will facilitate consistent results. My main goal with clients is to produce what I know will please them and what sells. That is the bottom line. I have to make a profit if I am going to be sitting behind that computer. (This is just for the business side of things)
Here is a little bit of logic behind the way I edited this image. So these are the things I know about this girl just from the RAW file.
-she is very tan
-she bleaches her teeth (I was in the dental field for ten years and I can tell from the enamel up close when I was editing)
-she has highlights in her hair
-she is dressed very trendy

With this information I am going to edit more along the lines of a senior or glamour session, because this would be more along the lines of the clients style from my experience. This client would most likely like more of a polished edit. This is what is going to sell to this genre of client. (This is my experience I am going off of)
If the client had no makeup on, very conservative clothing choices, and more of a plain Jane look, then I would edit on the really clean side, because that would be what they would expect to see. That is what would sell. This is how my brain operates during shooting and editing for clients. This kinda shuts down when I shoot for myself.
Food for thought. Take it or leave it.

Well, I think senior/glamour is definitely suitable for her.. she's 17 and going to be a senior this coming year. haha She's trying to get into modeling.. this was her first "real shoot". Funny enough, the dress she's wearing is actually mine.. I brought it along for her to wear, but she does dress sort of trendy/boho/hippie ish. She loved my original edit but I will play with your method to work with skin tones and see what I come up with that's more "in line" with my normal edits. I have mostly been shooting families and such so the editing style is different for sure.