Work In Progress Suggestions

smoke665 · Feb 25, 2018

I've been working on this one for a few hours now. May have to leave it and come back later, as I'm not happy with it yet. Any suggestions/ideas will be appreciated.
View attachment 154273

Gary A. · Feb 25, 2018

Pretty intense ... I'd take some off the top, take some off the left to center the face and a bit of darkening to the subject. Maybe, isolate the subject from the background and darken the background to detailess or near detailess.

Cortian · Feb 25, 2018

I think I agree with Gary (but not too much off the top).

smoke665 · Feb 25, 2018

Gary A. said:
Pretty intense ...

Yeah that's partly some of my issue. He has eyes that will vary from green to amber. I was working a new technique I learned to brighten and bring out the color, but even though I dropped the layer opacity way down, it still gives a look I'm not sure I wanted. I need to work the skin to even out the splotchy color, and texture. Maybe then I can bring a little more saturation back in to offset the eyes.

Gary A. said:
I'd take some off the top,

I only did a minor crop maintaining original proportions and never even noticed the space at the top. Did I mention that I sometimes have tunnel vision. LOL

407370 · Feb 25, 2018

bring out the hair. lighten with a bit of tone mapping What ya think?

Derrel · Feb 25, 2018

I would dodge the hair on the top of his head by about .3 to .4 EV, and bring the overall exposure down .3 EV. I am not especially fond of the eye placement within the upper-right quadrant of the frame, and not sure if this is a crop or an as-shot frame, but I think it needs a little taken off the left side,and some off the top, in order to make the eyes not "pull" so hard high-and-right. The original as shown image shows to me a very intense-looking man, and I like the hard-edged processing that goes with this person and expression and clothes set.

If there's anything to change it's to clone out that circular shape in the background that attaches to his neck area on the camera-left side. Gary suggested burning the backdrop way down, but I like the hint of background brightness you have as-shown, except for that doughnut!

I think the rather low-saturation to the color of the skin and scene works VERY well. There's a somewhat popular Matt K. Lightroom preset that might look good on this: Ultimate Fighter, at any level from 1,to 2 or even 3. The man, his expression, his everything, kind of calls out for a gritty, low-saturation look.

smoke665 · Feb 26, 2018

@Derrel the hair seems to be one thing mentioned by others also. In looking at it again on the OP I'd have to agree. In PS it isn't that dark, but still it won't hurt to dodge it some.

The frame is original proportions with only a very small amount cropped, I should have cropped before I posted, but don't normally do that until I'm at least mostly through with processing. Totally agree with all comments on crop, and will be incorporating into the final image.

The blemish in the background is already gone. As I said earlier, I get tunnel vision and was so focused on face nothing else mattered.

Thank you for confirming my choice of processing. The version put forth by @407370 while good is also similar to another version I abandoned, but may have to revisit. In addition to the hardness, there's a touch of sadness in the eyes and mouth, that I didn't think went with the brighter version. In addition to a slight drop in saturation the OP has a reduced opacity B&W filter layer, combined with a high pass filter layer with mask to sharpen the details. I need to let it set for a day or so then reopen the file, as I think on the comments made. Thanks to all who have made suggestions.

JonA_CT · Feb 26, 2018

I like the first edit, too. I'm not sure if anyone mentioned it because I just skimmed their comments, but the only part that bothers me is a place on his upper lip that is blurred out/has no texture. I'm guessing you removed a blemish, but it looks like he doesn't have a stubble texture on that spot compared to the rest of his upper lip.

Super intense portrait. Love it. Kelby has a strategy you might like too...if I can remember what it was called, I'll post it here. I remember that it starts with dragging the clarity slider to +100, haha.

smoke665 · Feb 26, 2018

Okay on the advise of @Derrel @407370 @Gary A. @Cortian and @JonA_CT I've incorporates everything to a degree (still had to leave my own touch on some) LOL Image cropped to an 11x14, I removed the ugly blemish in the background, dodged to highlights in the hair to make them stand out more, removed a ton of blemishes I had over looked earlier, lightened the overall face, burned some shadows, adjusted contrast curve layer. C&C is appreciated as I'd like to finish this and move on.

JRfinal 11x14.jpg by William Raber, on Flickr

smoke665 · Feb 26, 2018

JonA_CT said:
the only part that bothers me is a place on his upper lip that is blurred out/has no texture.

This is one of the scars that I debated removing but in the end, left. Like the one on the right forehead and over the eye. It's sort of who he is.

smoke665 · Feb 26, 2018

espresso2x said:
Smoke, imo your original image looks fine.

Thank you, I'm my own worst critic!!

JonA_CT · Feb 26, 2018

smoke665 said:
JonA_CT said:

the only part that bothers me is a place on his upper lip that is blurred out/has no texture.

Click to expand...

This is one of the scars that I debated removing but in the end, left. Like the one on the right forehead and over the eye. It's sort of who he is.