Trying to learn pp!!!!! How would you edit this photo?

amg · Mar 30, 2012

HAHAHA I would like to see that....We are always telling her to grow in her eyebrows but she say they look funny!!!! Oh well she is gorgeous anyways maybe on day I will be able to capture it properly

amg · Mar 30, 2012

I am getting a good feel for lightroom now trying to achieve some of you edits my problem seems to be getting nice skin tones..... Help!!!

greybeard · Mar 30, 2012

My Turn

girl on the beach by GREYBEARD12, on Flickr

Using LR3.3 Set the color balance, added some luminance
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73917093@N06/6884576614/
Using PS5
1. Cropped a little off the left to have her looking into the scene.
2. Selected the eyes and layered an exposure to bring them up a bit
3. Selected the sky and brought the exposure down a bit.
4. Selected the head and neck and brought it up a little.
5. Added a "levels" layer to bring it all into balance.

Using LR3.3 poped up the overall exposure a little

Not real sure if I like the crop or not.

Beautiful subject.

Ysarex · Mar 30, 2012

amg said:
I am getting a good feel for lightroom now trying to achieve some of you edits my problem seems to be getting nice skin tones..... Help!!!

Not sure what you're doing with the camera in terms of white balance, but you want to start there. For example the original that you posted here is very blue. You have multiple options for white balance.

1. Try and get the white balance right for an in-camera JPEG.

a) Set the camera to auto white balance -- always fails.
b) Use the camera's white blance presets, for example in your photo here the cloudy preset may have worked -- better than "a" but not too good.
c) Get a white balance reference (WhiBal - LensAlign) and set a custom white balance -- best option under choice 1.

2. Shoot RAW and set the white balance in the RAW converter (LR in this case).

Option 2 beats option 1.

Once you have the white balance for the photo you can sample the skin tones for a Hue value and fine tune from there. I'm not a LR user and so I'm not certain on the specifics of how LR would handle an imported camera JPEG that is sRGB from the camera. I know LR's working color space is Pro Photo. With that in mind your target Hue value for adult human skin tones in the Pro Photo color space is 31 - 33. There's of course some variation but less than you might think. You want to see Hue values from the high 20s to mid, maybe high 30s (tan). Hue values under 20 or over 40 and you have a make-up disaster or reason to be thinking about medical intervention.

Joe

Mrgiggls · Mar 30, 2012

Greybeard...I cropped off a little of the right to center her more. I know that for a lot of stuff you don't want the subject in the center of the frame. But portraits can work well with the subject centered. For me the decision to center or not to center depends on what is available in the surrounding area.
Crop notwithstanding your PP work closely mirrors what I did and I think you did this image and the model well by it.

Sorry folks but I've been dying to say this, but I've been reluctant to because I'm more or less a newby around here sill. A lot of the edits to this image are WAAAAY over the top with the PP techniques. The funky surrealistic lighting and the plasticky, mannequin looking skin just end up looking tacky. But of course that is simply my opinion. When I do a portrait I want the image to be a realistic representation of the person I'm photographing, and I try to do my PP in such a way that it does not look processed. I leave the wild effects to more artistic endeavors. Sure you can be artistic and imaginative with portraits, but I think for that genre of photography the imagination and artistic embellishments are better placed on other areas, such as location, composition, props, etc.

OK....I have my mouth-piece in and a tube of Neosporin handy. Let this whippings begin.

Derrel · Mar 30, 2012

I would paint in some eyebrows on her for a start. That poor girl...I feel so sorry for young women who are told over and over that plucking out or shaving off every single eyebrow hair and then painting a thin arch across each eye looks "good". OMG...what a cruel joke she has been fed.

jake337 · Mar 30, 2012

Here's my take.

jaicatalano · Mar 30, 2012

Good job mommy medic.. I don't particularly like the photo but try Topaz to Jazz it up.

MReid said:
First of all I wouldn't, looks like you caught her in the weeds doing something else and looks slightly annoyed about it, her head is bisected from her body by the horizon.

If you must... crank the exposure up until her face is exposed properly let the background go.
You could clean those weeds out of the front of her dark sweater with the clone tool and some patience.
Click between her hands in the dark area, (hopefully will still be black after you increase the exposure? to check your color.
Take a small crop off the top and a smaller crop from the left side.
Take a look at this as a black and white with a vignette, may be a good option.

greybeard · Mar 30, 2012

Mrgiggls said:
Greybeard...I cropped off a little of the right to center her more. I know that for a lot of stuff you don't want the subject in the center of the frame. But portraits can work well with the subject centered. For me the decision to center or not to center depends on what is available in the surrounding area.
Crop notwithstanding your PP work closely mirrors what I did and I think you did this image and the model well by it.

Sorry folks but I've been dying to say this, but I've been reluctant to because I'm more or less a newby around here sill. A lot of the edits to this image are WAAAAY over the top with the PP techniques. The funky surrealistic lighting and the plasticky, mannequin looking skin just end up looking tacky. But of course that is simply my opinion. When I do a portrait I want the image to be a realistic representation of the person I'm photographing, and I try to do my PP in such a way that it does not look processed. I leave the wild effects to more artistic endeavors. Sure you can be artistic and imaginative with portraits, but I think for that genre of photography the imagination and artistic embellishments are better placed on other areas, such as location, composition, props, etc.

OK....I have my mouth-piece in and a tube of Neosporin handy. Let this whippings begin.

You and I see eye to eye (no pun) on portrait editing. Editing a portrait is like using auto-tune when editing audio. If the untrained ear or eye can notice the edit, then you have failed. (jmho)