A Light Retouch

[byRo]

a picture is worth a thousand words

Now there's a beautiful blue lady!

Rô

[SteveB2005]

Mig, I like the "special effect" you did on the gal. It came off like an illustration for a concept. And yes, she is beautiful no matter what anyone says. I should know, I shot over 100 photos of her in the park. steveb

[Jeronimas]

Originally Posted by SteveB2005

Mig, I like the "special effect" you did on the gal. It came off like an illustration for a concept. And yes, she is beautiful no matter what anyone says. I should know, I shot over 100 photos of her in the park. steveb

I made a mistake , I was trying to say, that blue color just don't fit with that image, that's all, nothing about a beauty.

[Kraellin]

nancyj,

ok, good. glad the rant wasnt at me.

mostly, i agree with you about the numbers thing. i find 'the numbers' tend to ignore other conditions, especially lighting. a fixed 'norm' always tends to give me the willys.

i do find this discussion interesting. you're attributing the recent 'tanned' look to hollywood, or their influence. i may have misunderstood you earlier then. i was referring to just an untouched, untanned skin; sort of its 'normal' state for a given person. my comments were directed at that and not the tanned stuff. so, ok.

you also mention the artificial whiting of skin with powder and egg whites. i wonder if that was a similar condition to why men wore powdered wigs. the wigs came about, at least to my understanding, as a health issue. back then, head lice was very common. shaving and wigging the head was done as a preventive measure...at least in part. i'm sure there was also a fad reason also, but i have heard the wig thing attributed to being a health issue.

so, that makes me wonder in general, where do all these trends and fads and considerations on 'beauty and ugliness' come from? it might make for an interesting book. 'skin tones, beauty, history of'. was hollywood the big influence on the tanned look? were powdered wigs a health thing? did women use egg whites and powder as a health thing also, or was this for some other beauty reason or consideration? it might well be an interesting study in cultural considerations on beauty and ugliness and the history thereof.

and then, taking all that, apply it to retouching, restoration and colorization.

in addition, was ted turner correct in colorizing all those old black and white movies, and if so, why, and if not, why? and, did he do a decent job by retouchpro standards?

and like you and Ro rightfully pointed out, some cultures favored paler skins. where did that come from? did my point of blood and death really have any bearing on today's considerations? all interesting points to study.

i've also been wondering of late, since we're in a bit of a digital revolution/evolution here, how did the earlier, analog methods of retouching affect our cultural considerations of what looks right in a magazine ad or a hollywood movie? were those old boys better or worse than today? if they had a harder time with a more limited set of tools, did that affect our overall considerations by the jobs they were able to do back then? as a for instance, i remember Life magazine and how the pictures all tended to look a bit grainy compared to today's. the saturation was less as well. so what influence did all this have?

i've also noticed in the forums here, that there can be quite a striking difference in results on the same image. this thread is no different. is this due to skill, calibration, perceptions of the individual, simple considerations of what looks 'right' or 'wrong' or 'beautiful' or not? it's an interesting study. i know first hand that perceptions are not always the same. and i'm talking about physical perceptions here, like sight and sound. not everyone sees things exactly the same regardless of monitor calibration. i remember as a kid having an arguement with a brother over whether a piece of metal was painted a very dark green or whether it was black. i swore it was dark green and he swore it was black. we never did come to an agreement (and frankly, he still owes me $5 on a bet made on the subject ) so, even perceptions can vary.

so, yes, i tend to agree that 'by the numbers' is a very limited way to assess and evaluate an image.

craig

[NancyJ]

The large wigs were made fashionable in europe by Louis XIII, who was prematurely bald. Later on, lighter coloured wigs became popular and fashionable , but the technology just didnt exist to make a stable bleached wig - hence the powder. FWIW, wigs were just as full of lice etc as hair, but considerably easier to maintain as you could give your wig to a nitpicker to delouse.
The egg whites and lead powder were not a health concern! Quite the opposite, lead is terribly bad for you Fashions were largely created by Royalty - who did very little, therefore were very pale - they stayed in doors and were attended to etc, they did no manual labor, thus the 'healthy outdoorsy look' was associated with peasants - very unfashionable. The whiter your skin, the less work you did, therefore the richer you must be, is basically how that one went.

Generally speaking 'the common masses' have always emulated high status figures, even just a century ago, that was often a royal figure or the head of state. With mass media that has now become popular actors and musicians. In early films, the female stars often had dark hair, pale skin and dark lipstick because thats what looked good on B&W film.
One of the reasons 'holywood' is in california, is the light is very good for filming and spend a lot of time in the sun and your hair gets lighter and you skin gets darker, so that becomes the fashion - its a reverse of the 'royalty look'.
Now we have the full realisation of the effects of sun damage on the skin - cancer, premature aging etc. and the media fashion seems to be moving away from that look and back towards a paler tone. We've seen here many threads asking how to get that very white look in skin of late - fashion is fickle

As to the thing with your brother, if you are more artistically inclined than him then it is likely that it was green - an artistically trained eye is capable of perceiving more colours than most people.

[Kraellin]

nancyj,

excellent! and thank you. that made a lot of sense.

fascinating, isnt it. and certainly fickle!

craig

[NancyJ]

Originally Posted by Kraellin

nancyj,

excellent! and thank you. that made a lot of sense.

fascinating, isnt it. and certainly fickle!

craig

Thats not even to get into divergent subcultures that purposefully subvert the 'norm' and seek to be 'different', ironically, by doing so they form fashion cliques of their own and are just as much subject to rules of fashion and current trends within that subculture - people with thier own truely unique personal style are VERY rare!!!

Something else of note, cultures with very little diversity in characteristics often value that which is different to the 'norm', such as arabian cultures very much valuing blondes - I went to tunisia as a child and my blonde hair and blue eyes were a valuable asset - I believe my parents were offered several camels/donkeys for me This could be an instinctual thing rather than cultural - it makes sense as a population to want to increase the gene pool.
In the UK and the US where there has been a lot of conquering and immigration etc we have a much more genetic diversity, we've got from the palest platinum blondes to the blackest black and everything in between.
Whereas more insular cultures have very little variance in genetic traits.

[Kraellin]

I believe my parents were offered several camels/donkeys for me

done! (now where the heck do i find some camels?)

This could be an instinctual thing rather than cultural

i would guess that it's probably more of a 'rare being more valuable' thing, but ok. if gold were as common as dirt it would have a lot less value. in a culture where dark hair and dark eyes were the commonplace, then light and light would tend to be prised for no other reason than scarcity, with the exception of some cultural taboo.

craig