Isnt that a pretty smile?

[meltimtiman]

I was doing some street photogarphy when this old lady suddenly appeared about 3 feet from my camera wearing a very pretty smile. Was using a 70-200mm f/4 lens then and wasnt able to move back, thus the very tight shot. If only I was able to move back just a foot, it would have been so much better.

[jiro]

Very nice, Mel. Question: "Did you introduce some post processing?" Seems like her skin is too shiny. Just my observation. Asian people are at most very friendly.

[tb72]

nice shot, did you try a square format and b&w conversion to highlight the skin texture ?

[tb72]

a quick test of crop with b&w. if you don't like it feel free to tell me and I will remove it

[meltimtiman]

Hi Jiro and Thierry. Thanks for viewing this picture

@ Jiro: Yes, I did some post processing using CS5 and some Topaz and Nic plug ins. I tried to remove the shine but I tend to loose the details and roughness of the skin. Maybe you could teach me how.

@ Thierry: I never thought of cropping the top and bottom part for the square look would make it so much better. The B&W conversion looks good too. And please dont remove it.

Thanks for the time you spent viewing this picture most especially your effort in making the comments and suggestions. I appreciate it a lot. My learning curve is on the way up again.

[jiro]

Mel, this is just my opinion on the image so I hope you won't be offended.

She looks like a very soft-spoken woman so I think the post-processing 'should' reflect that on her image. On the original one, her skin is too dark. I am actually uneasy on what I am saying right now since I haven't actually seen her in person so bear with me on this one. I was thinking, the contrast must have been adjusted too high on the image. The dark areas on her eyes are too deep. I want to see some extra details on those areas to soften her image. I tried to work on your image to explain my point so I hope you don't mind if I showed it here.



Again, Mel, this is how I would probably interpret her with respect to her age and character. With regard to your question about toning down the shiny part on her face, what I normally do is to make a new transparent layer, put it on top of the original layer, sample a part of her skin tone that is middle toned (in this case the lighter area on her neck) and paint this on the bright areas of her skin on the new transparent layer. I normally set the FLOW (not the opacity) of the brush to 50% so in case I am not sure on the intensity I can simply brush some more on it in the process. Then, I convert this transparent layer to a COLOR blending mode. In this manner, I am only combining the color information of this layer to the original layer. Then, lastly, I backed down on the opacity of this layer depending on my taste. Hope this helps, Tim. I also added a frame to your image. I think it makes your image look more professional. Thanks for being a sport.

[meltimtiman]

Hi Jiro. Hey thanks for the tutorial on how to tone down the shine. I'll try this sometime. As to your rending the picture, I like it very much. I can see more of the details on her face and that is how I would have done it if only I knew how.

I'm very much a newbie on photography and photo editing and tips like these are well noted. Again, thanks for your time spent on viewing this photo, improving it, and for the tips. I appreciate it a lot.

Mel