Lady of the House

Very nice. I like the lighting.

Lovely shot, I like the processing.

I like the lighting and the processing.

I like the lady...
Seriously though, it's a combination of the lighting, composition, positioning and simplicity for me.
A lovely image which works in so many respects.

Well done photo for sure but on my screen I'm seeing a lot of dots on her arm.

Pitter wrote in post #17644773
Well done photo for sure but on my screen I'm seeing a lot of dots on her arm.

Likewise, but those are particular features. That's just the way she is.

Thank you all for your comments.

Pitter: I have a rule for _not_ removing anything that model would have after 2 weeks from shot, in this case, moles. They make a feature like Alveric said. I did however create a masking layer for those, just to see how the shot would benefit from removing them but decided not to include it on export.

About lighting: light was quite low on this shot , about same height as models face (you can see it from reflection on eye and shadow next to her nose). If I remember right, both diffusers were on deep octa (to spill more light to bg) and about 1,5m from model and 2-2,5m from bg.

About pp: Quite simple, since she had great makeup to work with skin cleaning was minimal. Then Hue/sat layer set to colorize background, set on 'color' mode and masking model mostly out from it. Then DnB and negative DnB layers. And lastly texture, noise-layer and sharpening layers.

Really nice!

Yes ok I see, gives the image a certain "vérté" but two weeks ? How did you arrive at that timeline?

Pitter wrote in post #17645317
Yes ok I see, gives the image a certain "vérté" but two weeks ? How did you arrive at that timeline?

Might be a figure of speech, a literary way to describe pimples, razor cuts and other skin accidents that mar a countenance without being an inherent part of it.

I follow a similar approach and I do tell clients that I'm happy to clone out such accidents, but I shall not remove moles, whiten teeth, smooth out wrinkles, or use the liquify filter to make them look what they are not. What they are is what they get.

Like Alveric said, 'Two weeks' is just my rule of thumb or generalization of any temporary marks on skin. Works also on non-photography related issues.

This is a great classic portrait. My only nitpick is that her face is noticeably a different skin tone than her body. This is probably more to do with her makeup than anything you did.

She looks so regal and in charge. Matches the title of the thread very well.

Fantastic job! Is the "old master's style" specifically one-light? It seems there could be more light falling on the model's left arm, just a bit. I think I understand the look you are creating and you did a great job already but I agree that the face seems a different tone. If you went with another light for fill you could raise the current light at the same angle and possibly add a fill at near camera level and angle to get just a bit more light to fall on the left arm and keeping the face properly lit. This is an amazing shot and I am only speculating on what could be done to improve...it seems you want C&C by saying you are looking more and more into this style so I apologize if you weren't looking for C&C! Also, I'm curious what you call a thin DOF for this shot? The background looks great and works perfect from what I can tell, curious what kind of DOF you used and how much it changed the look.