Pushkar Girl #1 - C&C Welcome

[Manfred M]

Going back to the original post; Raj mentioned her green eyes - I have to say I really don't see those here, I think they are masked by the WB and catch-light contrast.

Dave - I suspect you are 100% correct. Here is an enlarged view of the eye taken from the unedited (by me) image that Raj posted. I can't ever remember seeing catchlights that big.



I ran into something similar many years ago with an Indian woman who had strangely coloured, extremely shiny eyes. She was wearing blue-tinted contact lenses that did this. In this image, the resolution is fairly low, so I can't tell for sure (I can't make out any edges where the contact lens ends on the eye, but there are definitely signs that this could be what is happening here.

[Dave Humphries]

She was wearing blue-tinted contact lenses that did this.

Yes, now you mention that, I saw another image recently, probably here at CiC, where I was convinced the colour of the subject's eyes were due to contact lenses. I didn't comment, and now I cannot remember whose image that was either - seems my memory is rubbish too

[fotugraphy]

Another interesting image to critique... I remember being in Pushkar at the camel market last November.

1. The image seems to have a red cast to it. Did you do this on purpose or is this the way the image turned out? One of the reasons I ask is that this image is all about the girl's eyes, and having the whites of her eyes looking too pink is a bit distracting. The huge catchlights (and your reflection in them) are quite interesting and are what makes this image.

2. Is there any reason you decided to left the left 1/3 of this image. It adds nothing to the image and while I know some well known head shot photographers (Peter Hurley) have adopted this style, I'm not a great fan of it in this instance. I suspect a square crop might be a better choice here.

3. I might be tempted to crop some of the bottom off in this image. I suspect this image would look better if you cropped slightly into her chin. That would eliminate the little white line that is running into her chin.

4. I know you like it dark, but I would still brighten it up a touch to bring out some more features in her face.

5. I might also do a bit of skin smoothing and touching up with that lighter image. I use the Imagenomics Portrait plugin (quite expensive) for some of my portrait work. I would also add a slight vignette to the image.

6. Something I didn't do in my edit was to remove the red lines in the whites of her eyes. If I were working on the original I would also do some in process sharpening of her eyes and eye lashes and probably a touch of work on her lips as well. I would be very careful on whitening her eyes as these can look unreal and almost spooky if overdone.

thanks a lot for your kind review and suggestion. Crop is really looking great

[fotugraphy]

Striking image and I really like Manfred,s edit.

Dave

thanks a lot for your kind review and suggestion

[fotugraphy]

+1 from me. Those eyes make the shot.

thanks a lot for valuable review and suggestion

[fotugraphy]

John - you make an interesting observation and to some extent, I see your point. While I see the processing I did resulted in more of a portrait look, I'm intrigued at what point the "inner innocence" got lost in the PP work. I virtually always throw out my in-process files when I do a critique on the image, so I had to rebuild my edits from scratch, so the final product will be close, but not an exact match to my original posting. Let me walk through each step I did to see if you can help me see where this transformation took place.

Raj - if you wish me to take down any of my edits. please let me know.


The best way to see the changes from edit to edit is to open the first image in Lightbox and to use the arrows to scroll through each successive change.



Step 0 - This is Raj's original posting. The starting point. I find it is too dark and has a significant warm colour cast.





Step 1 Correct the colour cast





Step 2 - Brighten up the image






Step 3 I find that the first two steps in my edit reintroduced a bit too much warmth into the skin tones, so I desaturated the whole image slightly.





Step 4 I find that the lighting in the image and the impact of the edits really bring out some of the blemishes and skin issues with this subject, so I did a fairly heavy-handed cleanup of moles and other minor skin issues.





Step 5 Use of Imaginomic Portrait plugin to clean up the harsh look of the skin. This plugin does a wonderful job in softening the skin of girls and women. The reason I used it here is that I found that the lighting and edits resulted in skin that is just to textured for someone this young.





Step 6 Crop. As I mentioned in my original post, I find that the image needs a minor crop on the bottom to remove some extraneous materials below the chin and a heavy crop on the left to get rid of the material that does not contribute to the image. When I did my original edit, this was actually one of my first steps.

The net effect of the crop is that the the subject appears to be a lot larger so some of the colour / tone and texture issues really come out when the shot is cropped.






Step 7 In process sharpening, reducing reds in the white part of the eye and cleaning up the lips. This is something I wrote about in my original post, but didn't do to the image. I'm a bit limited to what I wanted to attempt, given the relatively small size / format of the image that Raj posted. Nicely said, it is too easy to get unwanted artifacts at the level I would normally edit the eyes and the lips.




Just for continuity, here is Raj's original, cropped to final edit format.




Thoughts or comments?

these edits are really awesome. Really helping me to learn a lot please feel free to edit any of my images in the future too

[fotugraphy]

I think one has to be careful before substantially editing another author's image. Whilst I admire Manfred's skills and the final image, is it what Raj intended? What we the 'critics' see is not necessarily what the photographer envisaged. In this case Raj requested C & C so maybe it is acceptable. Helpful suggestions are always welcome even if we the photographer choose to differ because they do not meet our vision.
Maybe I'm missing the point here but I would still recommend caution. I left this forum the last time because my images were being publicly edited out of all recognition. I don't know it all and learn something new every day from this and other fora but I know what I photographed, why I photographed it and how I would like the image to look even if I didn't quite achieve that aim. Help in achieving that aim is as I say always welcome.
Maybe the onus is on the publisher seeking guidance to clearly state what they are trying achieve when seeking guidance rather than invite a free for all.
I mean no offence to either Raj, Manfred whose skills are consummate , or any other contributor.

thanks a lot for your concern sir, i'm very much open to the critics and sometimes editing will help us to learn in a better way. Please feel free to edit my images too

[fotugraphy]

I do.

First I should say that (apparently) I am rubbish at guessing people's ages (others tell me I differ from their estimate by as much as a decade), so perhaps I'm not the best person to comment, but here goes anyway ...

I think a lot of this is down to the size of the image as presented and the apparent intimacy conveyed by the closer crop. I suggest that most of us wouldn't be that close to a 12 year old, unless perhaps our own children, when familial emotions over-rule all others. I think it is psychological and based on our personal experiences, so I guess dentists and doctors; people who are used to literally being so close to people of this age, might have a different viewpoint, but that's mine.

With this image, she appears* to be wearing lipstick, which adds to the illusion of 'age beyond her years' when combined with the tighter crop.
* although I may be being fooled by a combination of a slightly damper lower lip and her native/natural skin colouring, which I am not familiar with. I don't find the change of WB affects my judgement of her age.

I suspect that subconsciously we judge kid's ages by their height, general body development, gait, language skills, even teeth - and we cannot see any of those things here - we only have the face. There's just not enough context - and going by the face alone (presented this close) - I agree she looks like a woman. It is knowing she's only 12 that then makes us uncomfortable with that.




I also find these portrait threads very useful, Manfred sees so much more than I do, the little subtle things that make a difference, I guess if I shot more portraits, I'd eventually get there too.


Going back to the original post; Raj mentioned her green eyes - I have to say I really don't see those here, I think they are masked by the WB and catch-light contrast.

Thanks a lot for your kind review and sharing the wonderful knowledge. You can check the snapshot of this gal n me

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...5393922&type=3

[fotugraphy]

Dave - I suspect you are 100% correct. Here is an enlarged view of the eye taken from the unedited (by me) image that Raj posted. I can't ever remember seeing catchlights that big.



I ran into something similar many years ago with an Indian woman who had strangely coloured, extremely shiny eyes. She was wearing blue-tinted contact lenses that did this. In this image, the resolution is fairly low, so I can't tell for sure (I can't make out any edges where the contact lens ends on the eye, but there are definitely signs that this could be what is happening here.

Its her real eyes. She is very poor gal and a nomad and cant afford contact lenses. Unfortunately her father died 6 months back. She is living with her mother and 5 bro and sisters.

[Manfred M]

Its her real eyes. She is very poor gal and a nomad and cant afford contact lenses. Unfortunately her father died 6 months back. She is living with her mother and 5 bro and sisters.

Thanks for the information, Raj. What you say is certainly not surprising.

I just remembered where I say somewhat similarly reflective eyes; two years ago when we were in Ethiopia, we visited a Borana village and a woman there had these highly reflective eyes as well. She too would have been far too poor to have contacts, I wonder if this is some kind of medical conditions?

[Shadowman]

Thanks for the information, Raj. What you say is certainly not surprising.

I just remembered where I say somewhat similarly reflective eyes; two years ago when we were in Ethiopia, we visited a Borana village and a woman there had these highly reflective eyes as well. She too would have been far too poor to have contacts, I wonder if this is some kind of medical conditions?

Could it (the reflective eyes) have more to do with time of day?

[Manfred M]

Could it (the reflective eyes) have more to do with time of day?

I don't think so. I took other images like this one in the village and saw nothing like this in any of the other images.

[Shadowman]

I don't think so. I took other images like this one in the village and saw nothing like this in any of the other images.

I ask because if you look at the reflection in her eyes the landscape looks to be bathed in light.

[Manfred M]

I ask because if you look at the reflection in her eyes the landscape looks to be bathed in light.

I suspect that the effect is more noticeable when there is something bright to reflect. If you look at the image that Raj took, it too reflects a bright background (and of course Raj is mirrored in his subjects eyes as well).

That being said, if this were the case, we should see this effect in a lot more images than we do. What seems to strike us is how unusually reflective these particular eyes are. It is certainly not something I have run across all that often before.

[fotugraphy]

Thanks for the information, Raj. What you say is certainly not surprising.

I just remembered where I say somewhat similarly reflective eyes; two years ago when we were in Ethiopia, we visited a Borana village and a woman there had these highly reflective eyes as well. She too would have been far too poor to have contacts, I wonder if this is some kind of medical conditions?

Very Interesting Reflections