Professional Portrait

[julievive]

hi i tried making a professional portrait because i love editing pictures

my try:

 

[MindBender]

The glow on the first and third ones is a bit much and doesn't add anything to the image, it looks faked... the second image is blended nicely though and it brings up the object focus.

 

[Gaussian]

julievive, please read this post:

http://www.photoshopgurus.com/forum/index.php?topic=8418.msg88358#msg88358

It's now the 3rd time had to attach the images for you. :\

And if it's because you can't images (most of them over 256kb); use Save for Web instead, it has a preview and will show you that a quality setting of 60 is enough to make your images 65KB without them looking bad on forums like ours.

About your images; in all images (especially 2 and 3) you've blown out the highlights in some important areas like the face, try to avoid that.

 

[MindBender]

in all images (especially 2 and 3) you've blown out the highlights in some important areas like the face

The highlights aren't blown... they're just disproportionate. I'm betting you're using an LCD monitor? I've noticed this a lot recently, been meaning to look into a solution. Modern consumer LCDs have boosted the brightness way past where it should be and it's making well exposed images appear to have blown highlights. Throwing a color meter of some sort over those images shows that there is color data in the highlights (not in the girls dress... that's blown to smithereens, but it's not in her face). I'm starting to think we're going to have to start designing specifically for consumer level LCDs. The way that we had to start thinking in sRGB 2.5g for web a few years ago, we'll have to start thinking in terms of overbright displays.

That said... Gaussian has a point, one I was was alluding to but didn't explain well enough. The problem with the highlights is that they don't look natural. They look Photoshopped. When you're adding a blurred glow it should be very very subtle and used to enhance the overall lighting and color. With any kind of artwork, but photo retouching in particular, subtlety is the key.

$0.02

 

[Gaussian]

The highlights aren't blown... they're just disproportionate.

In Lab mode I see a jump for lightness from low eighties to 95+, that's pretty much blown out in my book, even when it's not pure white.

I'm betting you're using an LCD monitor?

Yes, I use an LCD monitor, but my computer is not connected yet (we just moved) and I was browsing the forum on my daughter's computer with a CRT (and a descent one).

 

[MindBender]

In Lab mode I see a jump for lightness from low eighties to 95+, that's pretty much blown out in my book, even when it's not pure white.

If you zoom in and sample the pixels say on the bridge of the girl's nose or her forehead, not only do they sample as disparate but below white. That's actually the definition of "not blown". hehe. They don't look great, but they don't look great in the original file either... there is picture there, it's just washed out and the glow exacerbated it. In fact, I just overlaid the two images of the girl and did a fixed point sample. The lum jumps from 89 to 96. Yeah, it's high... but it's not extreme enough to blow out the detail. The dress is another story. hehe It certainly wouldn't be printable.

Yes, I use an LCD monitor, but my computer is not connected yet (we just moved) and I was browsing the forum on my daughter's computer with a CRT (and a descent one).

More of a general observation than anything. Wasn't being accusatory, simply something that I've noticed recently. Now that LCD monitors are coming down in price and are getting brighter... we're seeing a trend in images that look overly bright. The "snowblind" effect as it's being referred to. They just have never gotten color right on consumer LCD. They look nice and the contrast / brightness / saturation looks pleasing enough (assuming you can adjust them) but from a color accuracy and image editing standpoint... they're still a pain in the ass. On the upside, you generally don't have to calibrate them as often as CRTs once you get a good setting.

 

[Gaussian]

If you zoom in and sample the pixels say on the bridge of the girl's nose or her forehead, not only do they sample as disparate but below white. That's actually the definition of "not blown".

Photographers with a background in film call this blown out highlights and don't need to test with eyedropper and info palette to know they're right. One shouldn?t critique by saying ?Your highlights are fine, since they?re not 255,255,255, only ?disproportionate? hehe.

Never forget that photography doesn?t equal image editing, photographers have different ways of looking at things.

 

[MindBender]

Photographers with a background in film call this blown out highlights and don't need to test with eye dropper and info palette to know they're right.

*rolls eyes*

One shouldn?t critique by saying ?Your highlights are fine, since they?re not 255,255,255, only ?disproportionate? hehe.

I wasn't saying the highlights are fine... they are blown on the dress area, but the face area doesn't have the highlights blown and it doesn't look that bad. It's also in the realm where, if needed, the image could be edited still since there is picture data there to work with. You could also "blow out" a section of a photograph with any color you wanted to... it's more about the consistency of the area and the visual presentation. In this case, the original photo has a highlight that's a little too strong and should be toned down and taken into consideration before applying stylization to it... but that isn't a problem with the edit, that's a problem with the original photo. In the case of the girl's face, the highlights aren't hot enough to make it appear completely blown out, and if it were printed, they would print image detail because of the pixel data contained in the highlight area.

Also... the comment "The highlights aren't blown... they're just disproportionate." was a comment to your post, not a critique of the work. I was talking about the technical aspects, not offering specific advice about the post. One shouldn't critique by saying, "You didn't do it right, don't do it that way."

Never forget that photography doesn?t equal image editing

Of course not, but don't forget that image editing is born of photography. It's a tool that deals specifically with photography in this case. So the two are necessarily connected. Since the question was about image editing and not photography, it's reasonable to assume that discussing image editing techniques is entirely germane. Adjustments aside, to even fix the original photograph problems would require image editing at this point since I'm assuming those shots couldn't be retaken.

photographers have different ways of looking at things.

Having worked with, as, and around professional photographers over the last 20+ years, I'm well aware of that. It is definitely an interesting and dynamic field to be involved with.