portrait post job - critique requested...

[gregneil]

Hi y'all... I'm trying to improve my post-processing technique for portraits, and would love any feedback or advice anyone might have. (BTW, if this is the wrong place for a post like this, sorry!!, and please move me to a better spot!) This is a standard portrait I did a couple days ago for my parents. They needed something basic for a church newspaper. I've posted the original and my processed final - although the actual final will probably have a square crop...

Original:
http://gregneil.smugmug.com/photos/238670152-L.jpg

Final:
http://gregneil.smugmug.com/photos/238669429-L.jpg

I tried to follow a number of the steps in an old portrait post workflow thread on dgrin (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=22524) that I've bookmarked... I'll run down the basic steps I did to get this result, and perhaps those of you who know Photoshop better than me can hint at other directions I may have taken to improve upon the final...

* Used Curves in CMYK mode to improve color balance slightly - pulled down the magenta curve a bit.
* Created duplicate layer, used "apply image" to create a "green channel" B&W image, set blending mode to luminosity... done to increase contrast.
* Converted to LAB, then flattened
* Used shadow & highlight tool to bring out the colors and textures in the clothing. (about 10%) I had tried to use a hair light to give a little separation between the clothes and the background, but I was getting a nasty glare off my Dad's bald spot, and he only had a few minutes to get the shot so I decided to just bag it. No point having a hair light if the subject's got no hair, I guess.... ;)
* created 2 duplicate layers, and used "apply image" on each, one as an a channel overlay, the other as a b channel overlay.
* I played with the blend of the two, and decided this one looked best blended about 80% b, and 100% a, so merged the 2 layers at that ratio.
* found an opacity mix I liked for the overlay layer and the original layer, around 40 - 50%.
* flattened image for sharpening
* did Lightness channel sharpening, both conventional and "high radius low amount". I think I may have overdone the conventional sharpening a little bit...
* did a little blemish removal using the spot healing brush - mostly on my mom's neck and my dad's nose. also removed a few stray hairs up top.


OK, so that was that. If you've read this far, thanks for indulging me. If you have any thoughts on how I could have done a better job in post, that'd be great. Any thoughts in general on the photo would be much appreciated as well... but I'm mostly concerned about improving in my processing.

Thanks!

[pyrtek]

I actually prefer the original. Your retouched version looks too yellow and too
contrasty, to my eyes. The picture is so well photographed that all it really
needs is a simple levels adjustment, in my opinion. Something like this:

BEFORE:

http://gregneil.smugmug.com/photos/238670152-L.jpg

AFTER:

http://bertold.zenfolio.com/img/v3/p513976187.jpg

[Elaine]

:agree

[gregneil]

Thanks for the quick feedback. I was afraid that might be the case... I guess I'm trying to figure out why I'm never overly pleased with my portraits. I usually just do a simple curves adjustment, and maybe a little color balance, but they always just feel like a "picture" to me. And then I look at other portraits, and they look so much more professional, but I can't place the difference. So I've been trying some different techniques to try and give more life to my photos.

Maybe I'm just harder on my own work than I am on others? I don't know... I'm just looking for a way to really make my images come to life.

Thanks again for the comments, I think sometimes I think about it too much. :)

[pyrtek]

Thanks for the quick feedback. I was afraid that might be the case... I guess I'm trying to figure out why I'm never overly pleased with my portraits. I usually just do a simple curves adjustment, and maybe a little color balance, but they always just feel like a "picture" to me.
And that's what they're supposed to feel like. Your original image is
beautifully lit and your parents' expressions are wonderful. That's it. You're done!

And then I look at other portraits, and they look so much more professional, but I can't place the difference. So I've been trying some different techniques to try and give more life to my photos.
Professional or unnatural? I think your original looks very professional.
You achieved a fantastic result in-camera and that is rarer and rarer, these days.


Maybe I'm just harder on my own work than I am on others? I don't know... I'm just looking for a way to really make my images come to life.

Thanks again for the comments, I think sometimes I think about it too much. :)
I think so too. :)

[pathfinder]

:agree
Me too Elaine.

[Duffy Pratt]

The original is a very nice shot, but it does have some room for improvement. Parts of the father's hair is reading negative in the B channel (in LAB). For the most part, only a certain type of bingo playing woman has blue hair. To confirm this, her shirt, which is almost certainly white, is also reading on the blue side. Her face is also a bit too magenta for my taste.

I applied a set of curves, setting a white point, and warming up the shirt and the hair. In the process of this set of curves, I also got the skin tones where I wanted them (YMMV). Then I decided to up the contrast a bit by applying the Green channel on a Luminosity layer in normal mode (at 30% here). Ordinarily I would reverse these steps.

Then I moved to LAB. I brighted the picture a bit with a slight curve on the L channel. Then I did Dan Margulis' overlay trick, applying the A and B channels to themselves in Overlay mode at layer opacity of 40%. This was too much in the bright areas but did well on the clothing, so I added an inverted luminosity mask to the layer.

It probably all sounds alot more complicated than it is. Read the sticky threads on the Dan Margulis books, and you will learn all about these techniques. They are really pretty simple.

Here is the result.

Oh, and my other comment on your original is I like the original composition better than your crop. I don't like the disconnected forearm effect. But again, that may just be me.

Duffy

[pyrtek]

Here is the result.

They look perfectly healthy, if slightly underexposed, in the original, but you
made them look like they have yellow fever. This is just my opinion, of course,
but they really look ill in your retouch.

[edgework]

I'd suggest that there is always a need to improve detail and contrast. Your thinking is absolutely correct. The original is dead, solely due to the compressed tonal range. THe lightest areas in both faces are giving readings like midtones.

Try this: set a curve adjustment layer in luminosity mode. Then play with the green curve to enhance the contrast/detail. Anchor your three-quarter tones and shadows (they're dark enough) and pull your quarter-tones down to taste. Once your faces come sufficiently alive, then add a second curve layer in normal mode and increase the yellow content with the blue curve. (Again, your thinking was correct. Yellow is deficient in the original).

increasing contrast through the green/magtenta channel in luminosity mode is a dandy little shortcut when dealing with flat faces.

The coats can have their detail brought out with a shadow/highlight adjustment; fairly strong amount but narrow tonal range to avoid messing with the faces.

As for the moves you made, I'll mention my favorite Rule-of-Thumb, which I first encountered as the Rule of 70: any move you think looks really good, will look much better the next day if you knock it back to 70% of it's original strength. I think your image would look much better (and effectively address the points raised by others in this thread) if you tried that approach.

[jjbong]

As for the moves you made, I'll mention my favorite Rule-of-Thumb, which I first encountered as the Rule of 70: any move you think looks really good, will look much better the next day if you knock it back to 70% of it's original strength. I think your image would look much better (and effectively address the points raised by others in this thread) if you tried that approach.
What a great principle. I also like the implied taking another look the next day. It's so easy to get caught up in improving various details that you miss whether the overall picture is getting better or worse (at least for me).