NON Square Cropped Portraits - (nSCP's) - Archive

[Alis]

100% O2 and smoking is a VERY risky manouvere!

Ali,

To be honest, a couple of things bother me about your greyscale shot ...

1. I don't think that the greyscale conversion is optimal - to my eye it looks too contrasty (hair too dark, and a lot of the skin too light), and

2. There's an abberation on the young chap's (sorry, I don't know his name) left cheek -- looks a bit like "spider veins" (if that's the right term for it) ... would look better if they were cloned out, in my opinion.

Would be interesting to see how it looked in ACR with a little more fill light and a little less exposure.

Thanks, Colin. It is driving me crazy. I look at some good high contrast B&W pictures (not Ansel Adams, just ordinary people doing it) and no matter what I do, seems like I can not get there. Something I am doing is not right!

If you want, I can send you the RAW file, and see how you do it. You have to tell me what steps you took though

By the way, technically those are arteries not veins, called "telangiectasis". But you are right about a need to clone them out, specially in the black and white version.

[Colin Southern]

If you want, I can send you the RAW file, and see how you do it. You have to tell me what steps you took though

OK - send it on through

[Alis]

OK - send it on through

Thanks a lot, Colin. Take your time Here is the link:

https://www.yousendit.com/download/Y...QXBlaFR2Wmc9PQ

[Colin Southern]

Thanks a lot, Colin. Take your time

Hi Ali,

I was on the phone, holding for Apple customer service ... so as I'm sure you can appreciate, I had a LOT of time to do this

Not sure if you'll like or not - it's not very contrasty, mostly because I don't like high contrast in this kind of portraiture - it can probably be improved upon though.

ACR settings were ...

Exposure = -0.5
Recovery = 100
Fill Light = 16
Blacks = 5
Brightness = +40
Contrast = +25
Saturation = -100

[Antonio Correia]

... How about grabbing yourself something like a 500MB card and limiting yourself to that for an outing ... just to FORCE yourself to use the space wisely (although deleting in the field is perfectly acceptable).

This reminds me the time when we were out to take pictures and the film had 36 expos. when not 24 !!

We had to think before we shoot even if another 24/36 expos film was in the pocket.

I tend to shoot as less as posible with as much care as I can paying attention to everything before clicking.

What is not completely true in sports situations these days.

[Antonio Correia]

... About you picture, is it shot in a mine or something? Are those relics he discovered?!

Comantong Cave, Malaysia, Borneo Island.

The place is very difficult to photograph.
It is a cave, low light, 3200 ISO f/2.8 slow speed in the limit or over the handhold ...
Only with a lens like the 16-35 f/2.8 or wider (or one like the Canon 24-105 f/4.0 with IS ? ) this is possible.
I had sustained my breath, legs apart, arms close to the body and took several shots.
In the cave men collect the nests from swallows, climbing through bamboo scaffolds endangering their lives ...
The nests are sold in Japan at huge prices cooked as sup.
I really wanted to taste but it was not available ...
The smell in the cave is kind of disgusting, interesting, strange and aggressive: the mixture of the excrement of the birds from many many years ... ammonia smell !
There are "towns" of cockroaches on the walls. Interesting.
Excrements may fall on your head !

[Alis]

Not sure if you'll like or not - it's not very contrasty, mostly because I don't like high contrast in this kind of portraiture - it can probably be improved upon though.

Thanks a lot, Colin. This is actually nice and I like it. I was at this point basically when I imported the image into PS and then I used the curves to make it more "contrasty". I think I sometimes overdo it because that is what I see in other people's black and white images, and to be honest, I like a lot of them. So, it is a matter of taste apprently. In your version, there is basically no deep dark (clipped black) areas at all if I am not wrong.

Thanks again.

Alis

[Colin Southern]

Thanks a lot, Colin. This is actually nice and I like it. I was at this point basically when I imported the image into PS and then I used the curves to make it more "contrasty". I think I sometimes overdo it because that is what I see in other people's black and white images, and to be honest, I like a lot of them. So, it is a matter of taste apprently. In your version, there is basically no deep dark (clipped black) areas at all if I am not wrong.

Thanks again.

Alis

Hi Ali,

I think that the thing to remember is that skin tones are not normally highlights (they're usually mid-tones), and in your version of it pushing the contrast had pushed the midtones too far towards being highlights, giving the skin an un-natural appearance.

In my version you'd probably find that raising the black clipping point (or perhaps a curve) would improve it more - I doubt that it would be a problem to darken the shadow areas, just so long as the midtones aren't made too bright.

The other "complicating factor" is that there was a small bright area on his face towards the left of the frame (that's why I used highlight recovery - I've found it quite handy in portraiture for evening out things).

[Susan]

Could you be so kind as to enlarge the image ?


DAVEs NOTE: Done it for you Susan.
Sorry Antonio, I missed that post yesterday

Don't be sorry. You are doing a great job.
But the best is that Susan places her photos the right way getting you free of this small work.

I think i missed something here ---- confused. sigh.

[Colin Southern]

I think i missed something here ---- confused. sigh.

Don't worry Susan - we're all confused here, but as we gain more experience we're just as confused, but on a higher level and about more important things

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Susan,

Sorry to confuse, the bit you missed was making the attachment bigger in the post,
Antonio asked you to make it bigger,
But I did it,
Then I think Antonio wrote the above,
All before you next logged on

Not sure if you still need this, but here's how;
How do I post images here?

But it really doesn't matter that much as I can do it in <30s and that's with typing "added image inline" with only two fingers, or thumbs in my case

Colin is absolutely right (as usual)

Cheers,

[Antonio Correia]

Square version

[Antonio Correia]

[Alis]

[Antonio Correia]

Thank you Alis for not forgetting this thread.
"Our" young man look pretty good in this photo. He is growing up...
I can see that you were very careful on verticals.
His face has all the black and white tones...
Nice work Alis

[Antonio Correia]

My contribution for today with an old picture of mines.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Alis,

Yes I like this too, well done.

Was it all natural light as the EXIF suggests?

Cheers,

[Alis]

Thanks, Antonio and Dave. I like it too. Actually, the color version looked pretty good to me.

And yes, Dave. It was all natural light. It was a sunny day here in Boston. But Summer is almost over.

I have not forgotten this thread, Antonio. A Mardi Gras type parade was coming up and I was hoping to get a ton of portraits from that. I just came back from it and pretty disappointed. I will post a few of them here as soon as I sort them out.

Thanks again for the comments.

Alis

[Alis]

This is shot today at a parade in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I have to say I am yet to see a descent parade in this big country. This was really disorganized, not possible to focus on anyone as everyone was in the streets, mingling with the dancers, they were also moving so fast, I did not a chance to take a few good pictures (that part is I guess my fault, not too fast with adjusting the setting on my camera ). Anyway, it was what it was:

[Alis]

The fruit lady: