Shoot in the park - I tried a new way for editing the pictures

[Christians86]

[FONT=&quot]ok - before I used to go a bit too much for softening in every picture. Usually I started with sharpening, then Gaussian blur and set it to 70-80% when drawing. Then I would set the opacity to about the same - it almost to often ended up with soft skin, and the model was happy. But after speaking with a friend of mine who I hold dearly, she almost shot me because according to her they seemed to plastic. And I would have to agree in many cases, but that was never before I had waited some days after finishing editing, and looked back.
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

1. has not been touched, other than cropping

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]This is the same as above, though I have made the eyes more visible and used sharpen tool on it (30%)

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]This is the one with softning 50-60% probably

[FONT=&quot]

This is the same as above, but also I have used channels to give more contrast.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Now - I somehow think after seeing these all together, that using softening in normal portraits, not were the model is stuck in underwear/bikini and so on, I could probably just use healing brush and fix the skin, and not more than 30-50% on softening in worst case. Also - I think that using the skin contrast in the way I use it, probably should be kept off for those pictures which is intended to look a bit rough, not sweet innocent portraits. I think it gives some edge to the picture, but that a general rule for me should be to lay low on it, or what do you think?[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]ps! [/FONT]Disregard the watermark, I usually use mac, and had them sent through there, but had to make them smaller once again, and got double watermark.​

 

[JenR]

can't see the photos

 

[Christians86]

hm - that's weird. They show up at my computer. I'll have to check at work, and see what happens there

thanks.

edit;
And the obvious answer was that the hotlinking didn't work. I'll fix this later today - for unkown reasons IT security at my work allows me to use this page, but photobucket etc isn't allowed.

 

[Christians86]

Does it seem better now? Can everyone see the pictures?

 

[D-B-J]

i can see them. I feel like the flash was placed at an interesting angle here. Her eyes are too dark, which bothers me.

 

[RauschPhotography]

#4's brow line is shadowed so much that it looks like she has a unibrow.. sorry.

 

[Christians86]

The last one is the result of channels and contrast, so it has been one of those were I seriously consider dropping it, unless it does any other good. Based on the replies now, it might seem that for portrait it should be dropped maybe?

But - how is the difference between number 2 and 3 - is it sufficent with less softning. and more healing, compared to a "lot" of softning and not that much healing - although I see that saying it like that, the one maybe ruling the need for the other out, so you can boil the question down to:

how much softning in general is "good" for portrait, and how much would you use for rough pictures and fashion?

I have used to do;
gaussian blur - setting the ocpacity to 50% when drawing and the adjusting in layers to 60-70%. I'm considering now that setting it to 30% might look more natural?

 

[RL.]

I'm not a fan of the composition/angle of the "model"

 

[Christians86]

I'm not a fan of the composition/angle of the "model"

How do you think that it should have been then?
I'm maybe thinking that her face should have been turned to look at my right side, not that far to the left of me, when I'm watching the picture now. Would that have been better?

 

[Buckster]

I just ran #1 through Portraiture by Imagenomic, which I really like best for dealing with skin issues in portraits, then applied a smartsharpen. Here's the result. See what you think:

 

[Christians86]

To some degree I liked it - but in my case I got a lot of critique for softning to much, and the last picture could seem to be to much? Or am I wrong?

 

[Buckster]

Usually, that critique comes from skin that's been softened to the point where it looks like plastic. If you view this at full size, you'll see that it still looks like skin, rather than plastic. I think it's good, but it's your photo, after all, so it's up to your artistic tastes.

Just wanted to let you know about it though. It's a really good plugin for working with portraits without turning skin into plastic - really fast and without a lot of effort. There are a lot of adjustments that can be made to tweak it, but I just let it hit this with default settings.

 

[Christians86]

Usually, that critique comes from skin that's been softened to the point where it looks like plastic. If you view this at full size, you'll see that it still looks like skin, rather than plastic. I think it's good, but it's your photo, after all, so it's up to your artistic tastes.

Just wanted to let you know about it though. It's a really good plugin for working with portraits without turning skin into plastic - really fast and without a lot of effort. There are a lot of adjustments that can be made to tweak it, but I just let it hit this with default settings.

It's not that I don't agree as to how the plugin works, it was more a general question as to how far could one go?
I assume there are here as many ideas, as there is about how to do other thing...and since I have one who thinks it do to less,and one who thinks I do to much here at home, I'm a bit uncertain as to were I should draw the line, if you se?

 

[Buckster]

Usually, that critique comes from skin that's been softened to the point where it looks like plastic. If you view this at full size, you'll see that it still looks like skin, rather than plastic. I think it's good, but it's your photo, after all, so it's up to your artistic tastes.

Just wanted to let you know about it though. It's a really good plugin for working with portraits without turning skin into plastic - really fast and without a lot of effort. There are a lot of adjustments that can be made to tweak it, but I just let it hit this with default settings.

It's not that I don't agree as to how the plugin works, it was more a general question as to how far could one go?
I assume there are here as many ideas, as there is about how to do other thing...and since I have one who thinks it do to less,and one who thinks I do to much here at home, I'm a bit uncertain as to were I should draw the line, if you se?

Yes, I see your dilemma. Unfortunately, there's no firm answer; no specific line in the sand, so to speak. You could put any photo out there by anyone living or dead and, given a big enough crowd of pros and noobs, you'll get the entire spectrum from high praise to people telling you it stinks.

Such things are subjective, and only you, the photographer/artist, can answer to where to draw such subjective lines on your work, and you do so WITH your work. You must present it as YOU want it to be; as YOU want it to look; as YOU want it to be seen.

Along the way if someone suggests a change, you thank them for the input and take it into consideration. If it makes sense to YOU and YOU want to use that suggestion on that piece or in the future, it's entirely up to YOU. If you don't want to, that's okay too.

In the words of Ricky Nelson, "You can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself."

 

[Christians86]

Oh well - you're right off course. I should have known that, but I set the bar high for myself, and further down the line, I would like to start making money...so better to be asking questions now, and not later.
But my thoughts were that normal portraits should be a bit less softning, glamour/nude/bikini etc should be more, rough should be less that portraits and so on - I think that could be a way to go, but I'll have to see.

Anyway - is there other plugins that could be of use for me? I would like plugins for Photoshop that works with CS5 and Mac, and that fits with portraits, interior,nature etc, any ideas?
I have allready noted the one metioned on top here.