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Thread: Two Portraits

  1. #1
    victor's Avatar
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    Two Portraits

    Last week my camera club held a studio workshop. C&C welcome on the following.

    Colour:

    Two Portraits

    and the monochrome conversion of above:


    Two Portraits


    Thanks

    Victor (David)

  2. #2
    Shadowman's Avatar
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    Re: Two Portraits

    David,

    What was your setup (backdrop, lighting, reflectors, etc.) also were the overhead lights dimmed? Are you at an elevated position or is the angle of her head just from the tilt?

  3. #3
    victor's Avatar
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    Re: Two Portraits

    John,

    Lighting as follows:

    Two Portraits


    Room lights dimmed.

    Tilt from model position no height

    Flashes 580 exII on Shoot Through. 430 EXII on Bounce Back. Both set to manual @ 1/16 th power.

    Regards

    David

  4. #4
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    Re: Two Portraits

    I really like the lighting and the position of the model. It works for me on many levels. Unfortunately, I'm left distracted by the girl's skin. I'm not sure if it was an error on your part by over sharpening the image, or if it's naturally that porous, but if it's the latter, and you spent some time smoothing it out, I think they would be top notch photos.

  5. #5
    rpcrowe's Avatar
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    Re: Two Portraits

    IMO, for a lady with her skin type, flat frontal lighting would be more flattering. She has quite a few skin blemishes which seem to be very noticable due to the lighting. You can notice this when you look at the blemish near the corner of her left eye... It has a distinct shadow to the image left of the blemish and highlight at the image right. This would be from the reflected umbrella light from camera right. Conversely, the blemishes along the center of her face have the distinct shadow at image right. This would be from the shoot-through umbrella at camera left.

    I think that flat and difuused frontal lighting would have lessened the impact of the blemishes. Of course, some post processing could also assist but, I always like to get the best image in camera and do the least post procesing.

    Now, when shooting a male, the blemishes just might add to the "character" of the face. However, few ladies want a character portrait.


    Additionally, have the images been a bit over sharpened (especially the B&W image)
    Last edited by rpcrowe; 2nd October 2012 at 04:20 PM.

  6. #6
    Shadowman's Avatar
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    Re: Two Portraits

    David,

    For me, the shoulders, hands, forehead, and chin are very well lit. There does seem to be some cast shadow from the second reflector. Hair and clothing blends well with the background. Was the lighting setup the suggestion of the instructor or could group add their input.
    I am new to portraiture and find the setup very challenging. We did a setup last week with one 1000W bulb facing into the reflecting umbrella and used a silver reflector on the opposite side. Most of our images had a dark shadow on the silver reflector side. This week we plan to use two lights.

  7. #7
    victor's Avatar
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    Re: Two Portraits

    I have worked the images with a blur layer is CS5 and brushed this adjustment on at very low level of opacity.

    The only sharpening applied was on export from LR4. The lighting set was by me at the start of the workshop for our canon members and two further umbrellas were positioned for the Nikon Shooters by their sides. Both fired independently of each other.

    I hope the CS5 processing has softened the skin tones now.

    Many thanks for your very constructive comments I agree with Richard.. This is the first time we have set this up at the club ...

    Images reworked..

    Two Portraits


    Two Portraits

    Regards

    Victor

  8. #8

    Re: Two Portraits

    Hey Victor the rework has done miracles for the young ladies looks in these images. Awesome job sir! I had a lady (friend) tell me once not to take a close up of her (wrinkles) and all. So I backed up then zoomed in did the skin softening and she liked it a lot.
    If you can add a little contrast and structure to the irises of her eyes and brighten the whites of her eyes ever so little this will draw attention of the viewer straight to her eyes. I tried it in Nik Viveza 2 and it looked great.

  9. #9
    victor's Avatar
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    Re: Two Portraits

    Dear All,

    Many thanks for your feed back. Very much appreciated from a newbie to portraits.

    Regards

    David

  10. #10
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    Re: Two Portraits

    I have known very few females who enjoy an accurate rendition of their skin texture when it is anything but baby smooth. I am pretty sure that the smoothing of your subject's skin would be well received by her.

  11. #11
    victor's Avatar
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    Re: Two Portraits

    Thanks Richard. Much appreciated.

    regards

    David

  12. #12

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    Re: Two Portraits

    Only my two cents worth, for my liking I find the colours to strong / deep, and would think, that the skin blemishes would have shown up much less.......

    just me.........

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