Portrait of a Young Lady

[Digital]

C&C most welcomed.
Bruce

[lovelife65]

In my non-existant skills in portraits, the tones and colors on this look very off to me. Looks like some PP problems. I see lots of very unusual tones on her skin around the borders of her hair, etc.

Otherwise, great model

[Manfred M]

Bruce - you have something strange going on with this image; I see yellow and magenta artifacts on her forehead and other places. These almost look like bruising, but the pattern doesn't look like bruising. As Sharon has said, the skin tones don't look quite right and I'm not sure you have even nailed the focus.

It's going to take a bit of work to diagnose what is happening here. Would you mind posting an unedited version of this image?

[Shadowman]

Nice effort, there's a bit of light leak on the background that is distracting and also the crop at bottom is a bit severe. great capture of her personality.

[Digital]

Manfred, this is SOOC>
Bruce

[Manfred M]

The lighting here is a bit odd; is that red light fixture we see in the back used elsewhere, as this could be the reason. There is also that bit of a glow that John mentioned; no obvious source for that visible here.

I spent a few minutes just correcting the colour and opening up the eyes a bit. There are a number of hot spots and shadpws that need more work than I have time for right now.

[Digital]

Manfred, thanks for your commenting, and editing. This picture was taken behind the bar at a local restaurant.
There is a red colored oval that rings the bar installed just below the ceiling. The flash was bounced very near or on the oval itself. This could account for the red tinge.
I took a pic of the scene prior to the series of the photos w/o the flash. The ambient light was insignificant.
Based in this, I believe that any color shift was due to the bounced light directly off that oval or very near it.
The glow could be caused by one of a series of spotlights, set into the above mentioned oval at regular intervals. This is the only theory I have to account for this glow. As an aside, when I took the pic w/o the flash there was no model in the photo, hence the spotlight did not have anything to reflect off of.

Any thoughts and/or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.


Bruce

[Stagecoach]

What I find interesting is that in colour correcting the original (post 5) the very noticeable difference of yellow/magenta areas as on the forehead are no longer seen.

Does that suggest it was something in the processing of the image in post 1 that caused it?

[Digital]

Grahame, thanks for commenting. In post #1 PortraitPro was utilized. I have not noticed any major color shift using this software before. Your idea though is a very sound one.

Bruce

BTW: In LR I did some other PP that could account for this color shift before utilizing PortraitPro.

[Manfred M]

There is a red colored oval that rings the bar installed just below the ceiling. The flash was bounced very near or on the oval itself. This could account for the red tinge.

That certainly makes sense, as the reflected light will take on the colour of the surface(s) it is reflecting from. Normally when one uses bounce flash, one does so in an environment where there are neutral coloured walls and ceilings to prevent this from happening.

I took a pic of the scene prior to the series of the photos w/o the flash. The ambient light was insignificant.

This is typically what happens and the reason we use flash. The ambient light levels are too low to impact the image; that's why we add flash.

The glow could be caused by one of a series of spotlights, set into the above mentioned oval at regular intervals. This is the only theory I have to account for this glow. As an aside, when I took the pic w/o the flash there was no model in the photo, hence the spotlight did not have anything to reflect off of.

This again makes sense. Hair lights are often used in photography to separate the subject's hair from the background. In this spot in the image, you can see how this lighting technique works.

[rpcrowe]

When I bounce flash, I try to use a reflecting card to direct some of the light forward.

I have used business cards, brochures and my bare hand to do this. However, I like the Joe Demb Flash Diffuser Pro best of all....

But, this little "shower cap" reflector diffuser works despite its size and simplicity.

https://photos.smugmug.com/Travel/CH...ountain-X2.jpg

I use this withe the flash head pointed straight up. The inside of the "shower cap" is a metallic reflector cloth which directs some of the diffused and bounced flash forward. It is somewhat wasteful of flash power but, can fit in a shirt pocket when needed...

[Digital]

Richard, after viewing Neil van Niekerk"s videos, and reading his book "The Direction and Quality of Light", I am becoming skeptical of the merits of throwing light directly toward the subject. I was a advocate of Gary Fong"s Lightsphere. I have one. Am no longer a fan of this method. All diffusers, I believe, do throw light forward; however I am coming to to the conclusion that this is not the most advantageous method to light your subject. One of van Neikerk's "things" is his so called black foamie thing (aka BFT). For on-camera flash the BFT is used to block the light from the flash from directly hitting the subject while allowing you to bounce the flash off a wall so the light source expands into a softbox effect for what van Neikerk's believes is more flattering light. Based on photos of his subjects I agree with this.
Now, that I have said all this, let me add that the above statements of mine may not apply to pet photography, which I know very little about.

Bruce

[Manfred M]

Richard, after viewing Neil van Niekerk"s videos, and reading his book "The Direction and Quality of Light", I am becoming skeptical of the merits of throwing light directly toward the subject. I was a advocate of Gary Fong"s Lightsphere. I have one. Am no longer a fan of this method. All diffusers, I believe, do throw light forward; however I am coming to to the conclusion that this is not the most advantageous method to light your subject. One of van Neikerk's "things" is his so called black foamie thing (aka BFT). For on-camera flash the BFT is used to block the light from the flash from directly hitting the subject while allowing you to bounce the flash off a wall so the light source expands into a softbox effect for what van Neikerk's believes is more flattering light. Based on photos of his subjects I agree with this.
Now, that I have said all this, let me add that the above statements of mine may not apply to pet photography, which I know very little about.

Bruce

Bruce - the answer is always "it depends".

When doing closeup head shots like this one, getting catch lights in the eyes is something you want as it gives the eyes "life". You have done this in this shot. For much of the work in van Niekirk does, the face is not as prominent so the catch lights don't matter. One of the reasons I like shooting with a large octabox is that I get nice soft light AND large (when compared to a Speedlight), round catch lights.

I use the BFT as well, if I want to keep direct light off the face. In more formal settings using studio flash, I will use large flags on c-stands to manage the light that hits the subject. Bounce flash is not well controlled light, but is often the best option where we need to add light, but don't have the equipment or time for a better light setup.

[Digital]

Manfred, thanks for your comments.


Bruce