April in Silhouette - Nude

[Manfred M]

I'm a member of the Photographic Society of America (PSA) Digital Dialogue Group 61.

We post one image a month here for other, generally extremely knowledgeable photographers to critique. This nude silhouette of April is what I what I will be sending it for October.

The shot shows that one can get some reasonably interesting shots without having to spend a lot of money on special tools. My main tool here is a cheap Dollar Store shower curtain liner that I back lit. I carefully set the light to ensure that the whites were not clipped and the shadow details were not crushed and used the base ISO setting on my camera to ensure maximum dynamic range.

This shot took very little post processing; eliminating a few shadows and creases on the shower curtain and eliminating a few stray hairs. I'm going to include the SOOC shot to show what I started with.


1. Final cropped image





2. SOOC shot

[mugge]

Manfred, I think there is a faint line under the model's breast that is not quite in the right position. I am looking a millimeters.
Cheers Ole

[Manfred M]

Manfred, I think there is a faint line under the model's breast that is not quite in the right position. I am looking a millimeters.
Cheers Ole

There are other places where I have left small amounts of reflection in the image; the small of the back, another ones dividing the arms, etc. They help add detail to the image. I looked at removing them, but put them back in because these small details improve the image, in my view.

[Shadowman]

Nicely framed and processed.

[Round Tuit]

There are other places where I have left small amounts of reflection in the image; the small of the back, another ones dividing the arms, etc. They help add detail to the image. I looked at removing them, but put them back in because these small details improve the image, in my view.

You seem to have introduced artifacts at the small of her back just below the waist line that were not there in the sooc version. You may want to touch those up before you post it to the PSA site.

[Manfred M]

You seem to have introduced artifacts at the small of her back just below the waist line that were not there in the sooc version. You may want to touch those up before you post it to the PSA site.

They are definitely in the SOOC version, but not as visible. I had originally removed them, but felt the image works better with them in place as they add nuances that add separation to certain parts of the image. What you are seeing is the back lighting wrapping around the subject; this is typically referred to as "rim light" in standard portraiture when it is used. It's there throughout the image, but because the background is white, it is more or less masked out.

Here is a closeup view of the arms where the effect is quite visible. Without the lighting, the arms blend together and the shot does not work as well.

[Round Tuit]

They are definitely in the SOOC version, but not as visible. I had originally removed them, but felt the image works better with them in place as they add nuances that add separation to certain parts of the image. What you are seeing is the back lighting wrapping around the subject; this is typically referred to as "rim light" in standard portraiture when it is used. It's there throughout the image, but because the background is white, it is more or less masked out.

Here is a closeup view of the arms where the effect is quite visible. Without the lighting, the arms blend together and the shot does not work as well.

I am not talking about the rim lighting. Look at these two pictures. The left is your sooc which shows the rim lighting, the right shows the jagged artifacts:

[Manfred M]

I am not talking about the rim lighting. Look at these two pictures. The left is your sooc which shows the rim lighting, the right shows the jagged artifacts:

Yes, it's there but of no consequence. The maximum height of the PSA submission is 768 pixels high, so things like that don't show up. If I were to print the image, I would take a lot more care. The artifact comes from the mask I used to even out the background.

There's a rule of diminishing returns in photography too. If it can't be seen, it's not worth spending time on.

For this size of image, it's a 5 second fix. Applying an 8 pixel blur to the mask makes that issue go away.




The Digital Dialogue group I am part of at the PSA can be seen here:


http://psadigital.org/group61/

[pschlute]

Like it. The tiny amount of detail in the small of her back is great.