Well personally, John, I think that the original is a nice portrait. Maybe just a touch on the yellow side and a tiny bit of selective sharpening might help. But I wouldn't do much else with it.
Well the larger image has all sorts of issues. Selective over-saturation, left near a radiation source? I think you my have posted in error. The image viewed via the thumbnail is not too bad. There is a WB issue that can be corrected if the image was shot in RAW. It is not over sharpened but the camera has a rather unflattering habit of highlighting the lumps and bumps we usually ignore or simply do not see because of the lighting. If it is bothering you you could do a bit of skin smoothing but I think what we are seeing is skin texture. This is usually considered as flattering in males and can look odd if too much smoothing is done. Have you tried a b/w conversion?I cant quite work out if you have some clipping on the forehead or whether it is the way the light is catching the smoothness of the skin.
well, it opens in UFRaw really blue. Then, my lack of experience keeps me from getting it back to this warm original. By the time im done it looks totally tweaked?
The large image was from a raw file. The thumbnail is the cameras jpg. When I open the raw file the blue from his eyes are smeared into the whites also. Maybe its saved settings in UFRaw. I cant seem to tone it down enough. I'm just now attempting to understand the histogragm also.
When in UFRaw try selecting Camera White Balance or Auto White Balance from the drop down menu and start your tweaks from there. Or you could use the dropper Click a point on the image that should have no colour (mid gray or white) Click the eye dropper icon and the white balance is automatically corrected. This does not always work out to well but if you start at Auto WB from the drop down you can then make minor adjustments on the temperature slider (it does not take much to overdo it). Even more sensitive is the green slider. This adjusts the green and magenta tones in the image but should be used with care. If you go too far you can always click on Auto WB from the drop down and start again.
Jiro, funny thing is.....I was working on an image of a box of crayons and when I was done I had the sliders and color balance really dialed in. Worked for me I guess.
Good for you, then. I was surprised as to how you arrived at that first image so what I did was to reverse-adjust the small thumbnail image. I adjusted the white balance and the vibrance sliders on mine and was able to arrive very near the one you got. The small thumbnail image is really acceptable. Just a minor white balance correction and it's a keeper.