Semi-Formal - A Touch of Blue

This is a candid of a friend of my daughter when they were getting ready to leave for a semi-formal. It was taken with a Canon 5D and 24-105L f/4 IS in Av, ISO800, f/4, and 1/15s (gotta love that IS), with a 580EX for fill. I was fooling around in Lightroom with the One Touch Wow Presets and came up with this effect... it pulls the blue in her eyes even. What do you think?

I like the effect, but I think it would look a little cooler with adding some more blue into the eyes in PP.

-Tom

The partial conversion doesnt work for me. I am finding the blue too shiny and distracting

Well I actually did the whole thing in Lightroom... so no post processing. I may go back into PS CS2 and enhance the eyes, but I was really doing this to fool around with Lighroom.

The blue dress is not enhanced... that is the actual color of the dress and looks identical to the color version of the image. I actually like that about the picture... different strokes for different folks I guess.

One thing I do see is I need to crop most of the top out to just above her head... it looks better that way to me.

Selective coloring has recently been voted the most overdone PP trick in the Post Processing forum.

All kidding aside, I think it's a very nice image. I like the shade of blue.

Lord_Malone wrote in post #2905353
Selective coloring has recently been voted the most overdone PP trick in the Post Processing forum.

All kidding aside, I think it's a very nice image. I like the shade of blue.

Maybe... its the first one I've ever done. Usually they don't do it for me, but this shade of blue was pretty cool so I gave it a whirl. Being that it was a one click effect, it didn't require a great deal of effort.

Sorry, it's too "in your face" for my liking.

The dress is lovely, the subject lovlier and its a sharp enough shot and well exposed. A step to the left would have avoided the lamp shade - to me, more distracting than the colourplay...

beautiful mind wrote in post #2905175
The partial conversion doesnt work for me. I am finding the blue too shiny and distracting

I'd have to agree here. Perhaps desaturate the blue a bit?

Well I guess I just about struck out on this one... but hey... I love it so all is not lost! As for the lamp... this was really not a very planned shot... and in the original color version, the lamp actually adds some great backlight and character to the shot. The image looks better cropping some of that down, but I'm not going to mess with reposting since most people don't seem to dig the shot anyways.

My wife wants to know who makes THAT dress...

NewattheGame wrote in post #2909492
My wife wants to know who makes THAT dress...

If you are serious, I'll find out.

You may as well find out & tell, because my wife asked the same thing.

convergent wrote in post #2906622
Well I guess I just about struck out on this one... but hey... I love it so all is not lost! As for the lamp... this was really not a very planned shot... and in the original color version, the lamp actually adds some great backlight and character to the shot. The image looks better cropping some of that down, but I'm not going to mess with reposting since most people don't seem to dig the shot anyways.

I dig the shot really dig it! However, selective coloring is one of those things that can really enhance an image if done well, or detract from a good image when not done well enough. I think when I first started to mess around with pp'ing images selective coloring was one of the first things I tried and I failed miserably nothing even close to what you have posted here. With the dress left blue it becomes the focus of the entire image. Its a great dress and its a nice blue but I don't think that the selective coloring was necessary for it to stick out in the image especially because now the girl looks like a ghost in a bright blue dress. There are a couple things you could play around with that might help. 1. Try leaving the girl and the dress in color while the background is left black and white.
2. Try desaturating the different areas maybe the background 95%, her skin 70%, and the dress 50%, or however you like.

With all that being said I'm not a pro and haven't really been taking pictures all that long. Also in the end all that really matters is if you like it! No to people look at the same thing the same way!

Good luck, and if you make changes please post I'd love to see them.