A simple portrait of a young woman

[Antonio Correia]

Natural light, no reflectors, nothing special.

[Shadowman]

Nice shot.

[Antonio Correia]

Nice shot.

John, that is too short as a comment !
Thank you anyway. Have a nice week end !

[Shadowman]

John, that is too short as a comment !
Thank you anyway. Have a nice week end !

Antonio,

Were you expecting more, your description suggested the shot either didn't mean that much to you or you were confident in the quality of the result.

[Antonio Correia]

Antonio,

Were you expecting more, your description suggested the shot either didn't mean that much to you or you were confident in the quality of the result.

I am a liar !
I do like the portrait very much ! Clean, sharp and with a glimpse of beautiful bokeh.
Going to print it in baryta paper and offer it to the young woman.

[Manfred M]

Antonio - I have three issues with your portrait:

1. A bit of a cyan colour cast on my screen;

2. The bright highlights along the top of the frame are distracting (and challenging to deal with); and

3. I don't like the gap without her shirt along the left hand side.

I'd probably do something along these lines...

[Antonio Correia]

Thank you Manfred for your constructive comment.

This was shot in a park, in open air. I was aware that the background was/is important and I do have asked her to move to a place where it would not be so distracting. the result is not the best, indeed...

I have however to admit that the white areas above her head are very hard to fix. Well, for me that is.
When taking her picture I fixed a little of her shirt but not enough perhaps. I wouldn't like to touch it.

On the other hand I am not interested in a much too perfect portrait. I am a pixel peeper - or I tend to be more and more - and that is something I want to run away from, as much as I can. Contradictory, isn't it ?

About the magenta I can't tell you if you are wrong on not. In my monitor - calibrated - it looks OK. When I will print it I will see the final result and make adicional adjustments if necessary.

Thank you Manfred !
Have a nice week end !
Cheers !

[Manfred M]

About the magenta I can't tell you if you are wrong on not. In my monitor - calibrated - it looks OK. When I will print it I will see the final result and make adicional adjustments if necessary

Actually, I said the issue was a cyan cast, i.e the red channel.

I am viewing your image on my calibrated and profiled sRGB and Adobe RGB compliant screen.

[rpcrowe]

I agree that this did appear a bit on the cyan side and I also like the tighter crop.

However, this lady's expression is really warm and natural, which is sometimes difficult to achieve when shooting a non-professional model...

[xpatUSA]

Actually, I said the issue was a cyan cast, i.e the red channel.

At first, I was puzzled by the reference to the red channel, what with red being opposite cyan in most color circles, e.g. HSL. However, a quick open in RT showed that the T-shirt was indeed lacking in red - hence a cyan cast.

By golly, a quick poke with the WB color-picker fixed that right away:



Amazing what improvement was gained with just one 16px-square click on the right shoulder. Skin, eyes - and even the 'Mickey Mouse' highlights!

[Manfred M]

At first, I was puzzled by the reference to the red channel, what with red being opposite cyan in most color circles

Basic colour theory Ted:

Too much cyan -> remove cyan = add red;
Too much magenta => remove magenta = add green; and
Too much yellow => remove yellow = add blue.

[lovelife65]

I love this portrait. (the edits from Ted improve it, adding some color and sharpness).
She looks natural, love that she has "texture" in her skin and her smile is warm and inviting.
Nicely done!

[Antonio Correia]

Thank you for the comments, everybody ! You are terrific !
As correctly suggested I worked a bit and came to this result.
I can now clearly see how wrong I was !

[xpatUSA]

I love this portrait. (the edits from Ted improve it, adding some color and sharpness).
She looks natural, love that she has "texture" in her skin and her smile is warm and inviting.
Nicely done!

Thank you Sharon. Just so's we're clear, all I did was a single click on the white fabric to set the color balance. No other edits, such as adding color, sharpening, etc. were done.

[lovelife65]

Thank you Sharon. Just so's we're clear, all I did was a single click on the white fabric to set the color balance. No other edits, such as adding color, sharpening, etc. were done.

I knew that, but it has improved the image for sure.. and maybe that is all that is needed. I think resetting the color balance did indeed improve the colors.

[joebranko]

Beautiful portrait! It is helpful that I can look at someone else's work and gain an education by reading the analysis and suggestions.
Thanks Antonio for posting this. This is truly a learning site.

[Manfred M]

Thank you Sharon. Just so's we're clear, all I did was a single click on the white fabric to set the color balance. No other edits, such as adding color, sharpening, etc. were done.

The method works well, so long as you click on the "right spot". I do use it fairly often, but one has to click in different places to find one that works well. Even then, I find I often do a tiny bit of tweaking of the colour channel. I find Antoinio's latest version just a touch too yellow for my taste and might push the blues up a tiny bit.

Laundry detergents often contain optical bleaching agents that fluoresce blue under sunlight, so this slight push to yellow is not unexpected if the colour sample is taken from clothing.

[Antonio Correia]

...This is truly a learning site.

Oh yes it is !

[rpcrowe]

I just realized something after looking at this image for a long time. It could also be a smashing B&W image...

[Antonio Correia]

I just realized something after looking at this image for a long time. It could also be a smashing B&W image...

Richard... no.