Too much detail

bigalbest · Aug 4, 2008

The real problem with digital these days is not a lack of detail. Look at how many portraits these days need to be re-touched so that this unflattering detail can be removed. The problem as I see it becomes shooting for less detail while maintaining crisp focus, no? My solution for portraiture has been to shoot telephoto with fill flash ever so slightly over-exposing the skin resulting in a picture that goes straight to print with none or very little post work. The challenge then becomes accurate color and exposure so that the photo can be printed at any size without revealing this unflattering detail that 99.9% of customers don't want.

Alex_B · Aug 4, 2008

I should not comment here, since my philosophy is that there is no unflattering detail. All detail is part of a person as he or she is.

but you are right, customers will often think differently.

Mike_E · Aug 4, 2008

Bigalbest, your approach looks (on this monitor anyway) as though your subject's WB is different than your background. A bit jarring.

Have you tried a blurring brush? There are any number of methods that take are quick and effective.

Garbz · Aug 5, 2008

What is wrong with using a subtle soft focus filter. You do know these come in glass form and not only as photoshop plugins too right

bigalbest · Aug 5, 2008

Mike_E said:
Bigalbest, your approach looks (on this monitor anyway) as though your subject's WB is different than your background. A bit jarring.

Have you tried a blurring brush? There are any number of methods that take are quick and effective.

I'm trying to maintain crisp focus while not revealing too much detail. Any type of blurring is unacceptable in my opinion. I'm not seeing too much of a difference in white balance, just exposure where I'm trying to get the subject to stand out slightly from the background.

Garbz said:
What is wrong with using a subtle soft focus filter. You do know these come in glass form and not only as photoshop plugins too right

Ya Garbz, that might work but also might add a processed look that I don't want either.

Robin · Aug 5, 2008

Garbz said:
What is wrong with using a subtle soft focus filter. You do know these come in glass form and not only as photoshop plugins too right

They also come in the form of pantyhose!

Alpha · Aug 5, 2008

Too much detail is a good problem to have.

I'd suggest refining your editing workflow.

bigalbest · Aug 5, 2008

Alpha said:
Too much detail is a good problem to have.

I'd suggest refining your editing workflow.

I thought you were ignoring me.

Alpha · Aug 5, 2008

Only for the duration of that thread, which ended up being senselessly lampooned by some other people who still are on my ignore list.

bigalbest · Aug 5, 2008

Alpha said:
Too much detail is a good problem to have.

I'd suggest refining your editing workflow.

Well then I'd have to disagree with you on this one, at least when it comes to portraits. Detail is awesome in product or landscape photography, but for portraits not everyone (or hardly anyone), has perfect skin. These imperfections stand out in a very unflattering way in a lot of photos resulting in the need for re-touching. Seems like a backward work flow when these details can usually be avoided using the techniques I've described. As far as refining my workflow, what do you suggest?

Alpha · Aug 5, 2008

Running surface blur or noise removal on the color channels in Lab Color mode is a quick and easy way to lightly smooth skin w/o removing too much detail. The B channel, especially, tends to have a lot of the color data in skin.

Bifurcator · Aug 5, 2008

bigalbest said:
Well then I'd have to disagree with you on this one, at least when it comes to portraits.

Me too! Why apply a bandaid to a broken leg when you can just not break your leg in the first place. I would think all that's needed here is the use of a smaller f-number (larger aperture). That will kill the detail in the BG, pop out your subject models, and give it a sense of depth at the same time. The amounts are adjustable too, so you can apply the affect in just the right amount or bracket it.

If there's too much detail in the skin textures then either a soft focus filter like Garbs suggested or something like this applied subtly and with discretion to selections of the problem areas.