Candid Concentration

Taken on the sly from across a room with a point and shoot. Ahh, the focus. CC, editing, comments, etc., absolutely welcome. Enjoy!

R.ticle One

my English is very bad, but I will try to think

I like the photography but I see the flash very hard, the skin is sobreexposed and a shade in the wall is reflected.

it would try to retire me a little the model and to put a diffusing material to him to the flash

greetings...

Carlos Fuentes wrote in post #2183514
my English is very bad, but I will try to think

I like the photography but I see the flash very hard, the skin is sobreexposed and a shade in the wall is reflected.

it would try to retire me a little the model and to put a diffusing material to him to the flash

greetings...

Thanks! So, do you mean that the skin is overexposed, and you can see her shadow on the wall. Unfortunately, she is probably back in Japan, and I don't know if I could take this again - it was an "in the moment, as it happened" shot.

Since I can't take it again, mmm, does anyone have any suggestions on how to PS this to make a bit better? Thanks all.

R.ticle One

Carlos Fuentes wrote in post #2183514
my English is very bad, but I will try to think

I like the photography but I see the flash very hard, the skin is sobreexposed and a shade in the wall is reflected.

it would try to retire me a little the model and to put a diffusing material to him to the flash

greetings...

I think you did pretty well with your critique and I agree with it.

The flash looks to be direct (on-board unit?) and is causing a hard shadow on the wall. The hands do seem to be blown out, or at least nearly so.

I would run it thru CS2 with Shadows/highligts reducing the glare on the hands, boosting the mid-tone contrast a bit. I ran it thru the CS2 Neat Image plugin to smooth it all out a bit. It didn't need any sharpening.

Titus213 wrote in post #2183677
I think you did pretty well with your critique and I agree with it.

The flash looks to be direct (on-board unit?) and is causing a hard shadow on the wall. The hands do seem to be blown out, or at least nearly so.

I would run it thru CS2 with Shadows/highligts reducing the glare on the hands, boosting the mid-tone contrast a bit. I ran it thru the CS2 Neat Image plugin to smooth it all out a bit. It didn't need any sharpening.

Ahh, thank you! Now, I just, and I mean, today, upgraded to CS2...I know of the Shadow and Highlights control from playing around, but do you have any suggestions of specific settings? I don't yet have Neat Image, but hopefully can get it soon.

Yep, you're totally right about the onboard flash, and in the brief moment she had that look on her face, I failed to think of, or make anything handy to, diffuse the flash. On my monitor, the hands don't seem blown out, they may be a bit, but I can still see grey tones and transitions of light and dark - my monitor is not calibrated, however, based on any number of free calibration tests online featuring the "can you differentiate all these black to grey to very light grey to white squares" questions, I can.

Thanks so much for any suggestions and your observations.

R.ticle One

My monitor is calibrated with the simple Adobe Gamma program that should be on your control panel. Prints I get are amazingly accurate to the monitor with no printing correction.

Playing with my new screen capture program this is what I've got:

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Titus213 wrote in post #2183841
My monitor is calibrated with the simple Adobe Gamma program that should be on your control panel. Prints I get are amazingly accurate to the monitor with no printing correction.

Playing with my new screen capture program this is what I've got:

Right - I've set the settings as you did - however, in the meantime, I had been playing with the canvas texturizer - I don't know if it did any good, but I thought the results as an experiment were alright - however, the settings you provided on your screenshot look quite different than what I got with the same adjustments. Missing contrast, etc. Due to the texturizer, or...?

Would you believe it, that my monitor won't let me adjust my contrast? It's a Dell 24 inch LCD - I can adjust the brightness, but it freezes the contrast at 50%, not allowing for the first step of the Adobe Gamma calibration process!

Well, thanks for your continued assitance, I really do appreciate it.

I personally like darker shots, so this is my edit:

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png'

How did you remove the shadow so well? I tried using the clone tool, but it really didn't look that great, due to a loss of detail in her hair which was intermingled with the wall shadow itself. Heh, sorry, bit of a Photshop CS2 newbie still - a fantastic program, but I've only had it for less than half a day.

Thanks so much.

R.ticle One

SkWeEkiE wrote in post #2184790
I personally like darker shots, so this is my edit:

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png'

I just adjusted the levels down, toned down the highlights, and quickly removed the shadow. i am laying down right now, so my hand was shaky.

R.ticle One wrote in post #2184936
How did you remove the shadow so well? I tried using the clone tool, but it really didn't look that great, due to a loss of detail in her hair which was intermingled with the wall shadow itself. Heh, sorry, bit of a Photshop CS2 newbie still - a fantastic program, but I've only had it for less than half a day.

Thanks so much.

R.ticle One

I don't really know how i did it.... i just selected the clone tool, selected the area to the right (darker grey area) and then went over the shadow... and it just covered it up! i wish i could give more info, but that is literally all i did. hope this helps some! (i am still a newbie too)

I think this shot is basically covered, but I like her watch!

Hey! Everyone! Thanks for all you have offered. Yeah, as Shutter22 said, this shot is probably covered (and yes, as I first started with the pic, I thought, "hey, that is a nice watch!")

Well, between all of the posted examples, (SkWeEkiE I played with the clone tool a bit more) - I kind of did between everything suggested, I still kept the subtle frame and retexturized it, I like the PP effect on occasion, took out the wall shadow, etc. Hope it's good!

Great thanks to all!

R.ticle One

great result ..... thanks for the photography and PS lessons...

Yes, everyone, thanks to you all!
R.ticle One

I agree with CARLOS, great resulting photo "R"!