This is a negative scan. Not very high resolution, but the full size file is like 700kb and looks pretty good blown up. Darkened it a bit, and boosted the contrast, then softened it a touch. Just wondering what, if anything you might suggest I do to this shot. My main goal with B & W is to get a milky smooth soft feel to it without losing the sharpness. Hard to do as you know.

I am not a 'pro' at anything, but to me, it does look all warm and soft and silky and I like how you cropped it. Nice job!

Sherry

Well I added a dab of Sepia tone to warm the photo up some. Of course its up to you to look at the photo and "feel" what makes you happier with this nice photo

Thanks for the comments. I like that sepia look. I might do a version like that for the finished package. Thanks for the suggestion.

resized by 3x.

adjusted contrast.

added a usm

masked as show all.

darkened eyes and lips in mask.

blurred all on image layer in mask group (eyes and lips wouldnt be affected here)

used a white brush on mask to un-mask some edges, the jewelry and a few highlights in the hair. this shows up stuff on the usm layer beneath the mask layer

copy merge and paste to new layer.

cropped and re-lit the whole using 'illumination' in psp.

smudged out some artifacting.

basically, your description of 'sharp' and 'smooth' conflict. you cant have both on the same pixel. it's either sharp or it's smooth. but, globally, you can have sharp areas and blurred (smooth) areas. the eyes and almost always left sharp. backgrounds are commonly blurred. so, i used a mix. i sharpened the eyes and lips and also the jewelry and certain edges, like her face edge and some highlights in the hair. also a bit on the hands. the rest i just left with the slight blurring.

you could even add something like a diffuse glow on the blurred parts, if you wanted.

Love to work on B&W's. Question - was this originally a color photo? If it was, you have some other options to play with.

My version -
Duplicated the background layer twice. Blending mode on e set to SCREEN and the other set to MULTIPLY.

Add a LEVELs adjustment layer on the top of the stack. Adjust to taste

Apply heavy Gaussian Blur to the background layer.

Other thing to consider - Use the BURN tool on the eyebrows and lips
Use the Dodge tool to increase highlights in her hair.

This was shot on a Canon T50 using B&W film. I was looking for a smooth soft look while preserving as much sharpness as possible. I think my final shot looks good, but was wanting some suggestions for making it look even better without gaining that *processed* look.

Dont know what exactly you are chasing, I created a duplicate and ran equalize on it and then slightly gaussian blurred it before dropping the opacity to around 25% and setting the blending mode to overlay..... and a version without the gaussian blur

Here's an OOB take on it. I also "glamorized the skin tones a bit.

How do you like it?

Stosh

It's definitely interesting. If the rest of her body was in better shape photographically, that would be a great idea as a print. Thanks for your take on it. Something about that ultra smooth glamourized skin really bugs me. I don't find it attractive at all in this kind of shot. In some of the more bright colored shots it looks kewl, but not in my genre. Thanks tho.

Stosh - How did you do that with the picture border?

Does anyone have the steps that she did above with the photograph border? Would really appreciate some direction on this. I have the perfect picture I would like to do this with for my daughter. I have PS CS2.

Thanks again for any help. Keri

Hi Keri

This may help
http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161043

And Swampy's excellent video here
http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=269

Also there is a Forum here.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/oob/

Hope this Helps.


Ken.

Thank you so much. I'll try it as soon as I can.

No problem Keri

I just found another one

http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/university/tutorials/outofbounds_ew.shtml


Ken.

Well, I won't repeat the other good advice above - and it covers all of my observations about your retouching.

My biggest problems with the photo has to do with the way that you took it and your visualization of the end product.

This close to her face you should see "life" in her eyes. The whites should be white with a stong sense of illumination and reflection in them. You should be able to see the details in her irises! I like the back-lighting on her hair and shoulders but you needed another light source for her face, ideally a soft-box but you could probably get by with a soft reflector. To me this is a fundamental fault.

Second, look at your cropped photo and try to put the original one out of your mind. I am a habitual close-cropper, but you've created a context problem that, for me anyway, once you see it, you cannot stop seeing it! She looks like she is sitting! And that makes the positioning of her arms look very unnatural.

Is this apparent to everyone else??