Handsleight (magician portrait)

[RustBeltRaw]

I made Anthony's portrait a week ago, and finally had time to process it. Keen to hear everyone's thoughts. Advanced critique, unfiltered gut reactions, and nit-picking are encouraged.



Process (bit complicated) will be explained by request.

[Paniaa]

Hi Lex
Love the lighting and colours. Did like the pose, because I particularly like diagonals, but I think would have preferred the ball to be further from his face. The black background lends the magical mystery which emphasises 'magic is here' His right hand leads us to the eyes - surely the magician's main tool.

[Shadowman]

Very interesting, perfect color for magic.

[IzzieK]

I love the overall feeling of the shot...and I agree, the ball should be further from his face...

[RustBeltRaw]

...I think would have preferred the ball to be further from his face.

I agree, the ball should be further from his face...

May I ask why? I'm not against the idea, but what's the reason? Enlarging the sphere, seeing more of Anthony's face or hands...?

The black background lends the magical mystery which emphasises 'magic is here' His right hand leads us to the eyes - surely the magician's main tool.

This was originally a pretty standard portrait, but I brought out trace colors and burned much of it to blackness. I'm developing a serious taste for black backgrounds. Don't tell the purists, but I may have amplified the catchlights a bit, too.

[IzzieK]

May I ask why? I'm not against the idea, but what's the reason? Enlarging the sphere, seeing more of Anthony's face or hands...?

I will ask you -- why not? Have you tried both? Did you like it better? Why? Didn't you? Why? Why not ask yourself these same question? Then you have three versions -- yours, yours and yours. Which one did you prefer? Then you can upload it here and we can drool over it (or not...) Does this make any sense?

[FrankMi]

I will ask you -- why not? Have you tried both? Did you like it better? Why? Didn't you? Why? Why not ask yourself these same question? Then you have three versions -- yours, yours and yours. Which one did you prefer? Then you can upload it here and we can drool over it (or not...) Does this make any sense?

I agree Izzie. The seeds of new discovery are often found in exploring the 'what if' question.

[Manfred M]

Lex, while I really do like the grittiness of many of your images, I find that this one does not quite work as well as your other postings.

I find that I like the dark, cool and mysterious direction you are trying to take the image, but find the white on the hand a bit too bright and find that it overpowers the rest of the image. I’m also not sure if the warm tones one the nose and face work that well; but that is a fairly minor thing. What I do like is the way that the lighting brings out the lines in his hands. The ball in front of the face; I agree with the other comments.

I do like the dark and mysterious background, but think that a bit more shadow detail might be in order, if just to bring something into the image. The dark shapeless mass on the bottom left is begging for something to balance out the frame.

[RustBeltRaw]

...this one does not quite work as well as your other postings ... hand a bit too bright ... not sure if the warm tones one the nose and face work ... a bit more shadow detail might be in order, if just to bring something into the image ... begging for something to balance out the frame.

You hit basically the same list of concerns I have. I think I need to throttle back a bit and try a subtler edit. Preferably without the plaid shirt - the garish pattern was part of why I went really low-key. Do you know a good way to recover local highlights without looking incredibly obvious? Highlights slider, burning, and local curve adjustments aren't cutting it to my eyes. Unfortunately, he moved his hands away from the butter zone for the flash lighting the sphere, and I got a crazy highlight. In the frame where he has the best, highly-focused expression, too.

...why not?

Excellent question. New edit on the way.

[Manfred M]

You hit basically the same list of concerns I have. I think I need to throttle back a bit and try a subtler edit. Preferably without the plaid shirt - the garish pattern was part of why I went really low-key. Do you know a good way to recover local highlights without looking incredibly obvious? Highlights slider, burning, and local curve adjustments aren't cutting it to my eyes. Unfortunately, he moved his hands away from the butter zone for the flash lighting the sphere, and I got a crazy highlight. In the frame where he has the best, highly-focused expression, too.


Excellent question. New edit on the way.

This is one of those shots that I would probably try to reconstruct in layers, based on the raw content. I don’t know what the original capture looks like, so I’m just guessing.

1. Make a selection of the hand using a clipping mask and turn down the intensity of the bright hand. I suspect a standard dodge is going to go gray on you too quickly.

2. In ACR, play with the red, magenta and purple sliders on the HSL / grayscale tab. I’d probably start with the Luminance tab and would try to see what I could do with the warm tones in the face to neutralize them a bit during the RAW conversion.

3. With the shirt, I’d make a selection there and with a clipping mask, convert it to B&W and then apply a blue photo filter and try to bring some blue texture in.

4. I’m not sure about the detail around the hat, but if you could add a bit of a soft, almost rim-light effect to separate it from the background, that might work.

5. I might be tempted to enlarge the catch lights, but tone them down a bit to see how that works,

[Paniaa]

Lex, I would have like to see more of the face particularly the orientation of the mouth - smiling? frowning? calm? mysterious? I think it might have reinforced the necessary 'mystery'. Does that make sense?

[RustBeltRaw]

Lex, I would have like to see more of the face particularly the orientation of the mouth - smiling? frowning? calm? mysterious? I think it might have reinforced the necessary 'mystery'. Does that make sense?

It does, but selecting a shot with a partially-obscured face was aimed at achieving that mysterious air. Sounds like I missed, so I'll try again.

[RustBeltRaw]

New version. Cleaner, but less drama. Reserving my opinions until I hear everyone else's.

[FrankMi]

Less drama, perhaps, Lex, but more than enough mystery to keep one interested! Here you can see the concentration in the eyes. Nice artistry!

You might want to subdue the impact of the window frame though...

[Loose Canon]

Hey Lex!

I like both of these.

The first one looks posterized to me. This one not. Maybe somewhere in between? Guess the hot spot on the sphere was unavoidable?

[RustBeltRaw]

The first one looks posterized to me. This one not.

Likely. I pushed the first one's colors and sharpness pretty bloody hard.

Maybe somewhere in between? Guess the hot spot on the sphere was unavoidable?

Pretty much. I was shooting a snooted, blue-gelled flash into the bottom. The idea was to use the sphere as a shaper to cast light on Anthony's face and hands. It worked, but it was really unpredictable. I removed the softbox reflections from the sphere, but that hot spot is a bugger, especially in this shot with the sphere's color different from the light.

You might want to subdue the impact of the window frame though...

Wasn't sure if I went far enough with the background burn. Sounds like no. There's some selective desaturation at work too - since no one's commented on it, I guess I didn't overdo it.

[Kyle]

Both pictures are great but I really like the first one. It has a huge sense of mystery. It's a very powerful picture. Makes you think for a moment that just maybe it's not an illusion. The lighting, colours and background all help with that.

[Manfred M]

Hi Lex - I was out of town on business, so have fallen behind a bit on some of the things I wanted to follow up on.

First of all; your second image is technically very good; from composition, to capture to post-processing. It just isn't typical of the type of work you tend to post; raw and gritty images. You've done some interesting work in post - you appear to have killed the saturation in the background quite nicely. The monochrome works for me. I assume you hit his shirt a bit as well?

I agree; I don't particularly like the hot spot on the glass ball; have you tried using one of the content aware tools to tone it down / eliminate it? Anyhow, I played around with your image a bit and think that this is a bit more along the lines of what you usually post.

[RustBeltRaw]

It just isn't typical of the type of work you tend to post; raw and gritty images. You've done some interesting work in post - you appear to have killed the saturation in the background quite nicely.

Worth noting that I have no particular attachment to the gritty look, other than that it seems to work for the subjects I'm working with lately. I probably would have done something different for a female magician, or another gent with a different personality.

The monochrome works for me. I assume you hit his shirt a bit as well?

Pretty hard, but the difference isn't as great as you'd think. His shirt was a faint blue, which was already largely neutral thanks to white balance. A little extra desaturation took it down even further, but I hope I missed the selective color look.

I agree; I don't particularly like the hot spot on the glass ball; have you tried using one of the content aware tools to tone it down / eliminate it?

How exactly did you do that? It worked brilliantly, and I would love to have that technique in my arsenal. I think you hit a good middle ground on the shot's dark areas. The first one was exaggerated, but compared to yours, I think my second edit backed off too far.

[Manfred M]

How exactly did you do that? It worked brilliantly, and I would love to have that technique in my arsenal. I think you hit a good middle ground on the shot's dark areas. The first one was exaggerated, but compared to yours, I think my second edit backed off too far.

Photoshop CC (I seem to remeber CS6 has this too), I used the patch tool, made the selection with the lasso approach the patch tool uses. I used the "Content Aware" option (it's under the "Normal" pull-down menu on the patch tool. I sampled in the areas outside of the hot spot; I needed three different iterations to get it down to the version I posted.

In terms of the mood; I applied a pretty heavy-duty vignette to the image to darken the edges of the image and direct the viewer's eyes to the subject.