studio: B&W portrait (pascal)

[Oz_Beachside]

a shot from a little while ago, quite like the B&W CF cards

thanks in advance for your feedback, good bad, or ugly...

[Bunyip]

Pose, composition, tonal range all good. It just looks a little flat to me. I'd suggest a kicker light maybe on the right side to give it a little oomph.

[big pix]

Pose, composition, tonal range all good. It just looks a little flat to me. I'd suggest a kicker light maybe on the right side to give it a little oomph.

...... this would add to the shadow on the face........ a light from behind and up high would add a lot

[Matt. K]

I think this would work better if you cropped the torso out. The torso ruins the composition by dividing the image space and this weakens the overall composition. I would crop to just above the models midriff. Otherwise...I love the top half of the image. A fine portrait.

[Oz_Beachside]

I think this would work better if you cropped the torso out. The torso ruins the composition by dividing the image space and this weakens the overall composition. I would crop to just above the models midriff. Otherwise...I love the top half of the image. A fine portrait.

thanks Matt,

a little like this?

[Matt. K]

Yep! I think that's better. It now has a nice classical look to it. I notice that you have left more of the elbow in this time? Maybe crop it back to match the first image. Normally it's not recommended to cut into arms and things but somehow you've managed to break that rule in your first post and make that part of it work. Technically...the whites of her eyes could be brightened up a little and more overall contrast might help pop the image? You're working with a winning formula and I would push that combination (model and pose) to the max.

[wendellt]

i like the lines of the body everything is good, fills the frame and the model exudes an effortlessness and ease in the picture, only thing is the styling the pants dont match the top

so i cropped it as a square


looks cleaner

also re your photoshop you dont need to photoshop much in b&W apart from contrast and highlights
a good tweak with highlights and dark shadow tones will mask most imperfections
i can see you tried to lighted the background because on her arm theres a dark pixel fringe

[Matt. K]

Wendell
Cropping square was a good idea....I don't know why I didn't think of it!
One last modification I would like to see.....just for experimentation sake....add lots of film grain and a touch of noise. I suspect the image would still look great.

[zafra52]

I think I like best the square one.

[Oz_Beachside]

thanks so much for the feedback, invaluable. and from two of our Outstanding Members of the Year ...

i dont mind cropping bends in limbs, as I dont think it gives the aputated look, in particular, ends of elbows generally arent of a pleasing look. i've brightened the eyes a little, curves adjustment, and avoided USM as was getting some halo edges from it.

our combined efforts??

[Oz_Beachside]

Matt, havent used Film Grain before, so here is my first effort. do you have any suggestions for the 3 variables(Grain, Highlight, and Intensity)?

[wendellt]

ill give you another tip
ive noticed all images posted look a tiny bit soft

assuming you have a pretty sharp original image
this is what you do original image should be around 3000pixels + on the widest end right
go to image image size, whatever the longest side is key in approx half the width 1600pixels, make sure 'constrain proportions' is ticked
then go sharpen - unsharp mask 1.0, radius 1.0 amount 100%
then your going to make yoru preview image usually 800 pixles on the longest side
so go image size again key in 800 pixels
then unsharp mask 0.3 amount 100% radius
*if it looks too sharp you can go to the edit menu and and go 'fade unsharp mask' dialog box comes up move slider to 50%
then save as web choose jpeg, move quality slider to 71% or 61%
and youll end up with a sharp image

this procedure is called progressive sharpening

[biggerry]

ill give you another tip

thats a great tip! I have always wondered about sharpening when your downsizing images...

[Oz_Beachside]

ill give you another tip
ive noticed all images posted look a tiny bit soft

assuming you have a pretty sharp original image
this is what you do original image should be around 3000pixels + on the widest end right
go to image image size, whatever the longest side is key in approx half the width 1600pixels, make sure 'constrain proportions' is ticked
then go sharpen - unsharp mask 1.0, radius 1.0 amount 100%
then your going to make yoru preview image usually 800 pixles on the longest side
so go image size again key in 800 pixels
then unsharp mask 0.3 amount 100% radius
*if it looks too sharp you can go to the edit menu and and go 'fade unsharp mask' dialog box comes up move slider to 50%
then save as web choose jpeg, move quality slider to 71% or 61%
and youll end up with a sharp image

this procedure is called progressive sharpening

thanks a whole heap wendell, yes, my images are sharp when full size, and I had often received "soft" feedback, I'll employ this technique and im sure that will improve my web images.

much appreciated!

[Yi-P]

What colour is the background? If she is wearing something different to what the background is, you might try to mast out the background and increase the brightness curve of it using the channel mixer to bring her out of the background. Dark clothing and background seem to be blended in too much.

[Oz_Beachside]

thanks Yi-P. the original is a grey paper background, here I have seperated the background, is this what you mean (i just used the magic wand select tool, so excuse the rough edges).

WOW, thanks Wendell, this web version is sharper than I have ever been able to acheive, so thanks a bunch for the progressive sharpening technique.

here is a quick edit;