Damon influence showing

[rutt]

Last Friday at the skating rink in Central Park, I got this. I don't know exactly what it is about it that reminds me of Damon. I think it's the way it picks out just one subject in a crowd. Normally, I'd fight to fix the blown out spot on his cheek, but in this case, this is exactly the jpg the camera made. Next thing you know, I'll do some high contrast B&Ws.

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/11944218-L.jpg

[rutt]

Well I lied a little. I did fight to fix the blown out face, but now I like the original better. Goes to show. Normally this is the kind of challenge that just makes my day, but in this case I think I won the battle but lost the war.

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/11944295-L.jpg

[mgound]

Great shot. The first one seems more "Real" to me. I like it a lot!

[pathfinder]

John, a great capture of this red headed young man. I think you have all you need for a great image, but that neither of these are quite there yet.


This is your first image
http://pathfinder.smugmug.com/photos/12253646-M.jpg

This is your second image that I suspect you ran through shadow highlight - Just kind of that appearance to me - flat, kind of softer light
http://pathfinder.smugmug.com/photos/12253647-M.jpg

I downloaded both from dgrin ( 800 pixel images ) and stacked them. That is I opened both in PS, and ctrl-a, ctrl-c and then ctrl-v to stack the lighter version directly on top of the darker version.. I then used the Exclude blend mode and the up, down, right, left arrows to align the images pixel perfect.
I then switched to the soft light blending mode and moved the slider to about 50% Seemed better to my eye - less contrast of the first with the blown cheek, but more than the flatter version. I then added a radial blur with a black brush as an overlay layer to burn in the corners slightly. "The print is never done, until the corners are burned in"

This really only took about 3 minutes to do, if I did not have to download and re up load the images. And these would be better if done on the original filies not the dgrin 800 pixel images. I had not really thought of using the image from shadow-highlights adjustment as a layer to blend with the original image and then blending in soft light or overrlay or what ever, but I think this is something that bears exploration. Any thoughts, John or others?

http://pathfinder.smugmug.com/photos/12253645-L.jpg

[rutt]

Yours looks very good on my monitor. It was shot in raw, so maybe what we are really talking about here is some variant of the dynamic range exhancements we kicked around before. In this case, the extremes aren't so extreme, so it should be easier. I'll try that, perhaps. This isn't someone I know, it's a street candid, so I don't know how much attentiion it will get in the near future. On the other hand, it might save me from doing something that needs to be done.

[snapapple]

Pathfinder,
You did a great job here. I liked the original shot for it's vibrance and naturalness. The second one was flat and lifeless. The final version fills in the blown out area without losing any of the life. Great job.

And Rutt, you're right about the "Damon" feeling. It must be the "face in the crowd" effect. Maybe you should try it in high contrast b&w. :D

[pathfinder]

Pathfinder,
You did a great job here. I liked the original shot for it's vibrance and naturalness. The second one was flat and lifeless. The final version fills in the blown out area without losing any of the life. Great job.

And Rutt, you're right about the "Damon" feeling. It must be the "face in the crowd" effect. Maybe you should try it in high contrast b&w. :D


Here is a quick rendition of my editing recast in B&W. This is a nice capture on John's part - a real feeling of connection/intimacy with the subject.

http://pathfinder.smugmug.com/photos/12257215-L.jpg

Real high contrast is going to blow out the highlights again I fear, Snappy.

[damonff]

honored...humbled...

my contribution

http://NomadPhotography.smugmug.com/photos/12259682-M.jpg

and one from the hmo the other day...

http://NomadPhotography.smugmug.com/photos/12177062-M.jpg

[rutt]

Well, not to beat a dead horse when it's down, so to speak, I went another round with this image. PF just did too good a job. I didn't burn the corners, but I do think it looks pretty good new. It's skating pretty close to the sRGB gamut, though, so it might not look the same to everyone. Looks pretty good printed on matte paper, though:

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/12275924-L.jpg

[ian408]

Rutt, Great shot. I like how your subject seems to be looking through the
lens and viewfinder directly at the viewer.

Ian

[Thiago Sigrist]

I agree with you, rutt! Picking a subject in the middle of the crowd is really cool, and Damon does it so well... :-)

Not only your photo is a great example of that kind of photography, it's also an example of what I call "RAW madness". I'll explain: I always shoot RAW with my D70 (can't do that with the Sony), and sometimes there's a particular picture that has to undergo LOTS of developments in ACR to look right. And that's usually because of blown highlights. They drive me mad!

So, not only your post made me feel great, because of the nice photo, but it also made me laugh, since it appears I'm not the only one to fight those blown highlights! :-)

Thanks so much for sharing!

Take care!

-- thiago

[pathfinder]

Well, not to beat a dead horse when it's down, so to speak, I went another round with this image. PF just did too good a job. I didn't burn the corners, but I do think it looks pretty good new. It's skating pretty close to the sRGB gamut, though, so it might not look the same to everyone. Looks pretty good printed on matte paper, though:

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/12275924-M.jpg

Very good job indeed, John,:thumb even if the corners are too light and let your viewer's eye escape! :D

[rutt]

The final recepie was to use two different raw conversions and then use the FM DRI program to merge them. Took some experiments to make that work, the default setting didn't seem to do anything, but with a radius tweak of 10, it worked pretty well. Then I used curves first in LAB and then in CMYK to tone down the red on his chin (I think reflected from the hat in front of him) and then reestablish contrast.

It's nice when a striking image like this can be substantially improved with technique that's just barely within my reach.