NON Square Cropped Portraits - (nSCP's) - Archive

[Colin Southern]

Cheers Colin

Hi Steve,

Just gave it a quick going over. Basic issue was you've pushed the exposure a bit too far; expose to the right is great in theory, but there is a risk of losing highlight detail (as was starting to happen here) - for this kind of shot you're actually better to bring the exposure back 1/2 a stop. Other than that, I just quickly did the usual (sharpening, subtle vignette, matte etc).

How do the levels look to you now? (I'm still "on alert" regarding your monitor levels).

[arith]

Hi Steve,

Just gave it a quick going over. Basic issue was you've pushed the exposure a bit too far; expose to the right is great in theory, but there is a risk of losing highlight detail (as was starting to happen here) - for this kind of shot you're actually better to bring the exposure back 1/2 a stop. Other than that, I just quickly did the usual (sharpening, subtle vignette, matte etc).



How do the levels look to you now? (I'm still "on alert" regarding your monitor levels).

It looks absolutely smashing Colin. I use the chart in DPreview.com and can see all the shades, but it is only a cheap Samsung HD monitor driven by some complicated windows nVidia stuff on a basic graphics card with only 512MB memory and 8 processors, which actually is not a lot nowadays. cheers

[Colin Southern]

It looks absolutely smashing Colin. I use the chart in DPreview.com and can see all the shades, but it is only a cheap Samsung HD monitor driven by some complicated windows nVidia stuff on a basic graphics card with only 512MB memory and 8 processors, which actually is not a lot nowadays. cheers

Good to hear that it's not a monitor issue then. I did 90% of the processing in ACR (which I'm assuming that you used) ... just wondering what settings you dial in on the basic tab?

[arith]

Cheers Colin; I had another go to get it back using memory, luckily the CR2 was moved to my HDD only because it was done for somebody else and previously I worked from the CF card and so ACR had no memory of what I did. I don't keep CR2 files anymore.

Temp 5600
Tint 14
Exposure 0
Recovery 50
Fill 38
Black 10 ( I always choose 8-10)
Brightness 50
Contrast 25
Clarity 0
Vibrance 0
Saturation 0

[Colin Southern]

Cheers Colin; I had another go to get it back using memory, luckily the CR2 was moved to my HDD only because it was done for somebody else and previously I worked from the CF card and so ACR had no memory of what I did. I don't keep CR2 files anymore.

Temp 5600
Tint 14
Exposure 0
Recovery 50
Fill 38
Black 10 ( I always choose 8-10)
Brightness 50
Contrast 25
Clarity 0
Vibrance 0
Saturation 0

Hi Steve,

Try these and see how it looks ...

Temp 5450
Tint +20
Exposure -1
Recovery 24
Fill 22
Black 5
Brightness 60
Contrast 25
Clarity 0
Vibrance +13
Saturation -3

Other than that, all I did in PS was capture sharpening (300% @ 0.3) - Content sharpening (40% @ 4) - minor burning (midtones) to brighter skin portions - vignette - matte / writing etc

[arith]

Cheers Colin

[Colin Southern]

Cheers Colin

Steve,

If it helps, I just redid the retouch and captured it. It's a 60MB file that runs under Microsoft Media Player for around 4 1/2 minutes if you'd like to see the steps I did (I can send you a download link).

[arith]

Yes please Colin

[Sahil]

PS: Here's an example of what I mean (while I wait for Formula 1 qualifying!)

WOW! That conversion looks great. I haven't tried my hand on B&W conversions, much. How did you do that? I tried channel mixer & B&W setting. But couldn't get any closer.
Mind revealing the settings?

I will post whatever improvements I could do, minus cloning out the circular window, as Dave had mentioned. Had a hectic day & am too tired to try it. I tried it and it messed up near the edges of her jacket. Will give it another shot tomorrow morning.

[carregwen]

PS: Here's an example of what I mean (while I wait for Formula 1 qualifying!)

That's a nice conversion, Colin, and a great shot by you, Sahil. The BW does look better. I like the hand at the front.

[Alis]

PS: Here's an example of what I mean (while I wait for Formula 1 qualifying!)

Sahil and Colin! Great work!

[Alis]

Hi Steve,

Try these and see how it looks ...

Temp 5450
Tint +20
Exposure -1
Recovery 24
Fill 22
Black 5
Brightness 60
Contrast 25
Clarity 0
Vibrance +13
Saturation -3

Other than that, all I did in PS was capture sharpening (300% @ 0.3) - Content sharpening (40% @ 4) - minor burning (midtones) to brighter skin portions - vignette - matte / writing etc

For me, this was the best way to learn PP, Steve. Colin did one of these for me and after that I have been on my own (well, sort of ). In photography, I am pretty much illiterate. Not much reading, and when you do that, such a starting point is priceless. Hopefully, we will see more portraits from you here

[Alis]

Steve,

If it helps, I just redid the retouch and captured it. It's a 60MB file that runs under Microsoft Media Player for around 4 1/2 minutes if you'd like to see the steps I did (I can send you a download link).

Colin, if it is not secret, could you share it with us as well?

[arith]

Cheers Ali.

[Alis]

For a jumping monkey, this is I think pretty sharp:

[Colin Southern]

WOW! That conversion looks great. I haven't tried my hand on B&W conversions, much. How did you do that? I tried channel mixer & B&W setting. But couldn't get any closer.
Mind revealing the settings?

Hi Sahil,

The grayscale conversion part was easy - no fancy channel mixers or anything like that ... I just throw on a HSB layer - tick "colourise" - set the hue to 38 and then the saturation to around 8% (you guessed it - it's not a true grayscale, but my little "add a touch of sepia" fools approx 100% of people .

In terms of the rest of the conversion, I can't really remember all the steps, and they probably don't necessarily apply to working on an original anyway. I knocked the exposure back about a stop and put a 0.5 pixel gaussean blur across the image though (I remember that bit!).

[Colin Southern]

Colin, if it is not secret, could you share it with us as well?

Hi Ali,

It's no secret -- I'm just not sure what the best way to get it to everyone who's interested is (the zipped file is 60MB - the unzipped file is 90+ MB) - also, it's a full screen capture (1920 x 1080) - so I'm not sure how it would look unless played at at least that size - plus, I don't have the ability to add audio. I sent it to Steve via sendthisfile that can only be downloaded 3 times - so how about we let Steve download it first - give us some feedback - and then I'll send the link to a couple of others if anyone's still interested? (I'd rather not upload it too many times at the moment as my daughter has been watching lots of online videos during these school holidays and has used must of my bandwidth for the month (with 2 weeks still to go) ... and I get put back to dialup speed if we use much more)

[Alis]

Hi Ali,

It's no secret -- I'm just not sure what the best way to get it to everyone who's interested is (the zipped file is 60MB - the unzipped file is 90+ MB) - also, it's a full screen capture (1920 x 1080) - so I'm not sure how it would look unless played at at least that size - plus, I don't have the ability to add audio. I sent it to Steve via sendthisfile that can only be downloaded 3 times - so how about we let Steve download it first - give us some feedback - and then I'll send the link to a couple of others if anyone's still interested? (I'd rather not upload it too many times at the moment as my daughter has been watching lots of online videos during these school holidays and has used must of my bandwidth for the month (with 2 weeks still to go) ... and I get put back to dialup speed if we use much more)

Don't worry. I thought it will be as simple as sharing the link, but did not know all the other stuff with your connection. I thought Comcast was terrible, apparently you guys have your own Comcast over there!

[Colin Southern]

Don't worry. I thought it will be as simple as sharing the link, but did not know all the other stuff with your connection. I thought Comcast was terrible, apparently you guys have your own Comcast over there!

Yeah -- it's a problem

I thought of uploading to youtube, but I doubt that the resolution would be effective. The cruel twist is that at home I'm on a 20GB plan, and use all 20GB whereas at work I'm on a 40GB plan, and only use about 3GB (I needed the bigger plan to get a free fixed IP address).

[arith]

Hi Colin; it is very good but would benefit from even greater resolution. Subtitles or audio also add to the bandwidth and I don't know if it would be viable considering charges for bandwidth. I think I've seen some HD in youtube, possibly to do with sensor cleaning. cheers Brilliant work.