Black fringe

[JW22]

Can someone tell me what the black fringe is around the subject? Is there anyway to get rid of it?

[poloman]

I don't see a black fringe. Your image is very small. Try 800 pixels on the longest side.

[JW22]

I can't seem to get it bigger without going over the 100K limit.
Am I doing it wrong?
I've cropped it to 500x800 pixels at 72 pixels/inch resolution but its still way over 100K when I try and upload it.

[tdodd]

To get the picture under 100KB with increased dimensions just reduce the quality somewhat when you resize. With all the white space the picture should compress very easily. I'm not sure what the quality setting options are in CS2 but in Lightroom I would start with 7/10 and drop to 5/10 if I had to. With this picture you could probably go to 9/10 and it would compress enough.

[JW22]

I hope this is bigger...

[JW22]

the fringe stands out areound the skin areas - fingers etc...

[tdodd]

Jill, it's still really too small but your crop has given me an idea. Can you crop much tighter, to show just his midsection, including both hands just below the fingers and up to his elbows and then post that as a larger image. Better yet perhaps, can you make a 100% crop of either of his hands so we can see the details of the problem in full, without needing to see the whole picture.

My guess from what we can see at the moment is either shadows on his right hand side just creeping into the shot from behind him, as the main lighting is from his left, or some sort of quirk through over-sharpening or contrast enhancement but the picture hardly looks over-sharpened to me and the contrast seems fine too so I really can't think what else might be wrong. I'm sure a tight crop at 100% will help get to the bottom of the problem. Please post something with contrast edges with the background on both the left and right hand sides - either arm or his left hand.

[JW22]

Let's try this one...

[tdodd]

This crop now shows the problem and it does look odd. Have you performed any editing in Photoshop other than cropping and resizing? I'm no expert in these matters, so this is a wild guess, but it looks to me like the sort of problem you might get when you lassoo and cut and paste an object and get a pixel or two picked up that you should not. It certainly doesn't look like a natural phenomenon. I'm afraid I'm stumped. Hopefully someone with more knowledge of studio lighting and Photoshop can jump in with the right answer. Good luck :)

[poloman]

It looks edited to me too. With that much white around, I wouldn't think that there would be a black line.
Have you checked the subject to make sure it isn't him?:):)
It looks like most of the problem is on the underside of the hands. Are your lights too high for the subject?

[Benji]

Years ago the late great Dean Collins taught a technique where he would place two large pieces of foamcore painted black, one on each side of the subject and just out of camera range. They would do exactly what you show above.

Benji

[JW22]

The photo has only really been color adjusted and cropped in photoshop. I wasn't lassoed or cut out ect..

So maybe I should get my drywall up soon and hope that the fringe goes away?

I've got the room framed - so now I guess I have to steal some drywall!

[achristian]

It looks to me as if you used an unsharp mask and changed the threshold levels quite a bit. I have done that before in the past. Just playing with a picture real quick, I was able to sharpen some of the edges on my face so that I had a sort of black line around my neck and jaw. I am not 100% sure this is the cause, but am speaking on some of the work on photos I did in the past.