Monkey Grinder

[Higgmeister]

Here you guys/gals go. I've done a bit of whipping so here is your chance to whip back:D.
A little bit of history first. This is pretty much full frame with slight cropping on the sides and a little off the top. It is a 35mm film scan from a shot I took in '97. I would have had a 70-200mm cheapo zoom with moderate telephoto for this. I've played with it for a few years now and it's not quite right yet. I've printed it on different inkjet printers and like it, but I want more from it. Now, I've looked at it too long and don't know where to go. It now sits in my online gallery and hasn't been touched for a long time, but I'd love to finish it. Whip-it good!!

Title: Pensive
http://www.pbase.com/higgmeister/image/41242469.jpg

Thanks for any input,
Chris

Note: I may have posted this in the past, but can't remember when or if.

[wxwax]

I like it. Interesting subject, interesting poses, nice bokeh.

Things that would make it better, IMHO? It's soft. Looks like a combo of camera shake and shallow depth of field. The grinder's face is a little soft and the monkey's face seems out of focus.

In post, I'd have been tempted to bring down the brightness of the street around the organ grinder, as it's so naturally bright.

Pretty cool shot, tho. :nod

[rutt]

Sid's suggestion is on target.

I used shadow/highlight with 0 shadow correction and 50/50 highlights to bring some of the highlights back. Then took to LAB and steeped the dark end of the L curve and symetric steepening of both the A and B curves. The L curve move established right black on the hat and monkey and the A+B move increased saturation so it would glow a little. Then I sharpened. I've never used a scanner, but those who have say you always have to sharpen scanned images.

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/31708409-O.jpg

What kind of scanner did you use? Is there a higher res version?

[Higgmeister]

:clap Once I read Sids post, I could see it. Actually, it jumped right out at me. Sometimes I can't see the forest because the trees are in the way.
Your work on this shot is wonderful:thumb, it's getting real close. I hadn't put this through PSCS2 yet (Originally scanned in as PS6) as I was wanted to get some more ideas. It had some crude sharpening from way back but needed more. The high res version is 65Meg (4000 dpi) in PSD. I have a Canoscan 4000 that I use with my film and slides. I may actually rescan this in 48 bit mode since CS2 can handle this. I'm now using the TML sharpening toolkit and really like it.

I'm going to give this a try. If you are wanting to play with this shot, PM me and I can get a copy to you.

Thanks Rutt,
Chris

[gubbs]

I like it too! Rutt did a great job with enriching the colours & contrast. It's a shame that "Danke" is cut through at the bottom, I think it would be good to see it all or get rid of it completely :dunno

I also wondered how andy's tri-x pan look (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=2045) would work on this one :dunno

[rutt]

I'm going to give this a try. If you are wanting to play with this shot, PM me and I can get a copy to you.

Thanks Rutt,


I think it would be more fun to help you get the result you want than for me to do it for you and I think it would be more constructive for everyone else if we did it publicly in this forum. I didn't do anything very different than I do with most shots I work on. It will work zillions of times better on the high res, deep pixel version that comes out of the scanner. Maybe you'll even be able to get some detail in the monkey's fur.

Here is the workflow I use for 90% of the shots I work on (including this one.)

Shadow/highlight to recover detail. In this case there was no shadow detail to recover so the shadow amount was 0. Big numbers (50/50) worked well to darken the background.
Convert to LAB (You might want to read this thread if you are intimidated by LAB: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=2042)
L curve: move endpoints inward asymetrically to establish black and white points. Use mouse alt-click to see where on the curve a particular point is.
A+B curves: steepen symetrically to increase saturation. A little goes a long way. Move each endpoint inward between 5 1nd 10 for starers.
Unsharp mask. See my two tutorials: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=10408 and http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=10409
Done


I'll be watching this thread to see how you do and to help if you want it.

[Higgmeister]

I think it would be more fun to help you get the result you want than for me to do it for you and I think it would be more constructive for everyone else if we did it publicly in this forum.
I'll be watching this thread to see how you do and to help if you want it.

I too was thinking the same thing. We see critiques and wonder what eventually becomes of them. I'm going to rescan this shot in a higher sample rate. I'll apply the changes from suggestions that I've received and post back to here. I appreciate all the suggestions and look forward to finishing this shot.

Here is also a suggestion from Thomas (tmlphoto) that I wanted to include here as I think it's valid:

"To me the focus of this shot is the faces. I suggest cropping even more giving emphasis to the faces, but leave enough of the street to give the shot a sense of location. I also cloned out the handle and added a little more blur to the background to isolated the man/monkey a little more."


Thanks again to all for the critiques,
Chris