Portrait processing: love, hate, mehh...

[Maritimer1]

This is a quick photo of my son taken on Saturday. While looking through one of my Scott Kelby books, I saw a technique I wanted to try. What do you think? Like, hate, no reaction? (Just a jpeg snapshot.)

Feel free to show me a different technique you would have used if you so wish!


Nathan by M.J. Hencher, on Flickr



Nathan 2 by M.J. Hencher, on Flickr

[Mike Buckley]

I think that style works especially well with your tilted horizon.

[Maritimer1]

I kind of liked that part, too. It's not something I've used too much in the past. My son has a bit of a rugged look about him, so I thought this look might be OK.

[speedneeder]

I like processing and the rugged look.
I'm not a fan of the tilted horizon, but that's just the engineer in me wanting thing square and plumb

[Donald]

Because of the brightness of the light, he's narrowed down his eyes and we don't really see them. Maybe that was the intention - to make him more 'mysterious'. But as a process, I think what you have done works very well. It does create a good style that suits this sort of image.

[wlou]

Hello Myra. Yes I would say it looks a bit like a mug shot on the fly very "CSI-ish". What would the technique be called?

[Maritimer1]

Yes, the squinting was pretty bad! It was one of those spur of them moment "Stand over there so I can take your picture" shots. Over in ten seconds as there were dozens of tourists there. I would have had to either shoot into the sun or stand in the harbour to make it right

Kelby calls it the "Trendy Desaturated Look". It's basically just a desat, a play around with blending modes to see what you like and the addition of some noise. I found the technique in his "The Adobe Photoshop CS5 book".

Brian, the "purist" in me had to just shake it off so I could start playing around with PP techniques. I hear where you're coming from<LOL>.