Portrait

[Digital]

C&C welcomed.
Bruce

[Shadowman]

Hi Bruce

For me, too many zones of focus/softness, you've managed to achieve the desired focus on the eyes but the soft focus in other areas are a bit of a distraction. For men you don't need to do soft focus on contours/edges as you might do on a female portrait. On other areas such as the shoulders the processing has given a 2-dimensional effect where in other areas we see perhaps too much 3-dimensional aspects.

[Digital]

John, thanks for your helpful comments.

For this portrait I used PortraitPro software, and I did tend to soften the features using this software. I understand the effects of softening the features on a female subject as opposed to a male. I wanted to get CiC reaction to my methods. I may post some female shots using this software at a later date.


Bruce

[Shadowman]

John, thanks for your helpful comments.

For this portrait I used PortraitPro software, and I did tend to soften the features using this software. I understand the effects of softening the features on a female subject as opposed to a male. I wanted to get CiC reaction to my methods. I may post some female shots using this software at a later date.


Bruce

Bruce,

Did you use the specific filters in PP such as glamourous, full lighting? For men sometimes all you need is attention to the eyes, let everything else fall as it may.

[Digital]

John, I did use the glamor filter; however I did not use full lighting. I think you have brought up some valid points.


Bruce

[Manfred M]

Bruce - to continue on the vein of John's comments, the portrait filters tend to be mostly aimed at when you shoot women. These effects tend to accentuate feminine qualities - soft skin, reduced wrinkles, etc. This is really the exact opposite of how we tend to portray men, where wrinkles, scars, etc. are really viewed more as a badge of honour, rather than a defect that needs to be corrected. Don't bother with Portrait Pro if you are shooting men. I have tried Portrait Pro in the past and find that it is not particularly good on women either, as it is a bit too heavy-handed for my taste and shows rather obvious signs of it being used.

A couple of things about the pose; in general, straight on looks don't work all that well as they emphasize symmetry, whereas most human faces are not symmetrical. Turning the head even slightly will generally give far stronger results.

The other issue I see here is the lighting; the shot shows a hot spot on the subject's forehead, but the bottom part of the face is rather dark and in the need of some fill lighting. Take a look at the hints from Colin at the top of this thread on doing portraits. School of Portraiture - Links to Lessons 1 through 8

[Wandjina]

Bruce, you have used very simple lighting from directly behind the camera resulting in a bright spot of the model's forehead. Also I have the feeling that the model is looking slightly over your left shoulder rather than directly at you. It may have been better to move the light to one side, have the model turn his head slightly so that he is not front on to the camera and ensure his eyes are looking directly into the camera lens. I think that more creative lighting, such as "Rembrant lighting," would help to bring out the model's character.
You have done well to not get any reflections from the lens of his spectacles.

[Wandjina]

+1 to Manfred's comments. We must have been writing our comments at the same time as his post beat mine by 3 minutes!

[dem]

Sorry to be negative but this is really bad... I mean the pose, the shirt, the lighting are already quite problematic (this is fine, this is just part of the learning curve), but the image is completely destroyed in post processing. Look at the skin texture - it varies between normal and plastic. The chin and the neck are one big blurry spot. There is a big smudge going from his neck across the collar. His left temple looks seriously wounded (I really hope it doesn't look like this in real life).

[billtils]

... but the image is completely destroyed in post processing. Look at the skin texture - it varies between normal and plastic. The chin and the neck are one big blurry spot. There is a big smudge going from his neck across the collar. His left temple looks seriously wounded ...

Bruce

These are typical of Portrait Pro not used properly. It can give great images of female subjects but needs LOTS of care, and, as has been mentioned, really has nothing (positive) to offer processing of shots of male models (well, not real world ones at any rate).

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Bruce,

Looks like the light was from above (bounced flash?) with a bit thrown forward for catchlights.

While I concur with the above thoughts, one positive to take away is the lack of reflection in his glasses. That said, the shirt button has caught it and I'd probably crop it out because of this - or if it hadn't caught a reflection, I might have cropped a tad lower so we got the whole button, not half.

The other positive is that we all learn far more from our mistakes than getting it right (sometimes accidentally)

... and we're all here to learn.

Don't be discouraged,
Dave

[Digital]

Thanks to Manfred, Martin, Dem, Bill, and Dave for your very helpful comments.


Bruce

[Digital]

C&C welcomed. Bruce

[mugge]

Bruce, very well executed portrait. Maybe give the ear RHS a bit of breathing space
Cheers Ole

[Wandjina]

This is much better than your first portrait, Bruce. Well done! ..... and +1 for Ole's comment. It is a little tightly cropped on the sides.

[billtils]

Good one Bruce. Try the suggestions made about cropping, and see what you think.

[Manfred M]

Bruce - I'm not at my usual computer right now, but the image looks very orange to me. Is your white balance correct on this shot?

[William W]

Bruce, for that second portrait, were there Fluorescent Lights powered on?

***

Bruce - I'm not at my usual computer right now, but the image looks very orange to me. Is your white balance correct on this shot?

I think it is possible that there were Fluorescent Lights overhead and they were powered on.

The flash was dispersed smoothly, but there was still an influence of the Fluoros, which was then attempted to be corrected.

It looks to me like a cast caused by mixed lighting (Fluoros) which can be tedious in Post Production.

Maybe I am wrong, but I am too tired and it is too late at night to try a CC on it to corroborate my guess. Hope Bruce answers.

WW

[Digital]

Cropped differently - changed WB to Fluorescent.
Bruce