Best eyes...

[rabidcow]

Again, doing shots for a local school, these two seniors were voted as having the "best eyes" by their peers. So here is the shot, and I must say, they both have wonderful eyes!

*edit* 50mm 1.8, 1/200th, /2.8, ISO 400, LSPJ and my own "tone glow" ps action in pp.

[Curtis N]

Very nice!
How about trying some selective sharpening to really make those eyes pop?

[RebelMom5]

Ditto ^^^ Otherwise great photo...

[Actionphotog]

Curious what the orginal photo looks like?
Your "Tone Glow" does nothing for the eyes and makes their faces to bright.

[rabidcow]

Curious what the orginal photo looks like?
Your "Tone Glow" does nothing for the eyes and makes their faces to bright.

If I need to do something for the eyes, than I am taking away from the students who were voted "best eyes", and it would also mean that the original image that I captured was not good. I hate relying on Photoshop, I hate that so many "photograghers" out there rely on Photoshop to "fix" their images. Post processing should be reserved for those images that REQUIRE it or for special effects, no different than if you were developing in the darkroom.

That said, I chose to run my action on this image in order to add impact to the image. This effect does, as you pointed out, blow out skin tones, and in doing so, creates a soft "enchanted" glow that is an amazing success with my clients. It is an effect that I offer on request only, as I do not like to mess with my original images unless I have no other choice.

The "Tone Glow" action is a mix of soft focus and color channel manipulation with the idea of blowing out skin tones.

Here is the original.

[Fer]

Very nice!

[PEACHMAN]

Hey, I'm an eye man and these are great....nice idea for a shot and it worked out well..

[Curtis N]

I hate that so many "photograghers" out there rely on Photoshop to "fix" their images. Post processing should be reserved for those images that REQUIRE it or for special effects, no different than if you were developing in the darkroom.While there is some validity to what you say, and I also have a certain distaste for "overprocessed" images, I think it's important to note that a certain amount of sharpening is necessary just to counteract the softening effects of the anti-aliasing from the camera's image processor.

We do a lot of things with software that used to be done with photographic equipment (soft focus lenses, filters, film selection, etc.) or darkroom techniques (dodging, burning, cropping). Post-processing is an important part of digital photography.

[rabidcow]

Point taken.

I did not mean to sound harsh in that post, and after reading it I see where I could have come across that way.

I do have a workflow for my digital images, and TLR output sharpening is usually a part of it, (opacity reduced to 52-60%) especially when printing 11x14 or larger. The limitations of the CMOS do mandate a degree of pp in order to bring out the inherent sharpness of many images, that point is agreed, I was just throwing up a mini-rant about the philosophy of many new photographers. Just shoot it and then fix it is poor photography.

I do my own studio work, and I can afford to play around in Photoshop for most of my jobs, but I also work for a major photography company that focuses on school yearbooks, events, dances, sports, yadda yadda, yadda...and I cannot afford to "just shoot and fix it later". I need to shoot, download, throw out the bad, and turn in the good, quickly. After a day of shooting and filling up around 6 gigs worth of memory cards, you can see where "fixing it later" is out of the question.

I just prefer to get it right the first time, though it does not always happen. I am a firm believer in the "old school" of photography.

Thanks for the comments everyone!