Critiques - - Critique Picture - Be Critical

phillip6653 · #1 05-21-2007, 01:01 PM

This is a picture of my daughter she is 3 weeks old. I have not done much to retouch the picture just converted it to back and white. Is there anything that I can do to make this picture better, retouching or anything that I could have done when taking the picture. I am not a professional photographer but I am looking for profection. So ANYTHING even something small please let me know what you would change.

Thanks to everyone in advance,
Terrence

Swampy · #2 05-21-2007, 01:26 PM

Terrance... She's darling!

The white headband got completely blown out in the camera. I did a selective color adjustment on white and added some pixels back (black) so that I could colorize her little head band.

Your photo is very flat. Could probably use a small "s" curve to bring up some contrast.

Photomaster · #3 05-21-2007, 08:44 PM

I agree with Swampy.

In the attached image I:
Used the Healing Brush in Photoshop to remove the white specks from the skin;
Applied NIK Dynamic Contrast filter then the Dynamic Skin Softner;
Unsharp Mask;
Lightened the scalp using a 50% gray overlay.

Beautiful baby!!

duwayne · #4 05-21-2007, 08:59 PM

Can you post the color version? A different mixing of the color channels or B&W conversion may give better results.

phillip6653 · #5 05-21-2007, 09:13 PM

Thank you for everyone that has posted. I am attaching a changed picture let me know what you think. I will also attach a color version.

Thanks

Mchilly · #6 05-22-2007, 11:35 PM

I put my version I don't know if you like it...

MadChapelier · #7 05-24-2007, 02:06 PM

I don't know if you wanted to see how the color picture could look retouched or if you wanted it to be gray scale but I went ahead and did the color since it's easier to kill the color than to bring it back to life.

Here's what all I did:
1. Lots of red in this picture - I notice that a lot of pictures need to have the red and oftentimes green toned down to restore a natural color.
2. I softened the skin using Reduce Noise (powerful tool if used correctly) and brushed in some color to help with the splotchiness of baby skin on the forehead and shoulder.
3. I multiplied the blue channel onto the whole image to help bring down the brightness. I may have backed it off slightly but I can't recall.
4. I used the healing brush to remove spots and specks as well as the brush tool in case the healing brush was stubborn.

Those are the main things I did to the image to make it look this way. It may be too blue - it's hard for me to tell since I'm partially color blind but to my eyes it looked natural.

TheVeed · #8 05-24-2007, 03:10 PM

I did a very quick color and tone tweak, and a tiny bit of healing brush.

On the white headband, I used a Curve set to Luminosity, and moved Green, to bring out detail.

Overall, I moved things around in Curves, and did overall hue/saturation shifts, focusing on the red and yellow colors.

TheVeed · #9 05-24-2007, 03:19 PM

Whoops, I'm on my work computer, and didn't realize I was using a different color workspace (and on top of that, didn't save the psd.)

Here's what it was supposed to look like, minus the graininess.

Graphics23 · #10 05-26-2007, 07:40 AM

I decided to bring out as much detail as possible under the assumption you may want to remember every little feature of this stage in her life.

To that end I started with a series of channel blends.

I noticed the red channel is almost completely blown out. To fix this I blended the blue channel into the red using linear burn at 30%. This caused a slight greenish cast to the skin. To remove the cast I blended the blue channel into the green using darken at 70%. These two blends brought the color where I wanted it to be at this point. Now she really stands out from the background and the skin tones are more pleasing.

Next I did a luminosity blend using the green channel and did a slight contrast adjustment to the blend. Then I converted to LAB without flattening.

I flattened in LAB. Then I duped the background layer and applied a couple of overlay blends into the A&B channels. This made the colors really hot but was done knowing I intended to control the effect with opacity. So I reduced opacity to 60%. Then, still on the same layer, I sharpened the L using USM at 500, 1, 0, with an inverted L channel as a mask. Then I deselected and did hiraloam to the L at 50, 20, 5. Then I did a curves adjustment to the L to bring down the hot spot on the nose. These changes added lots of shape to the face and brought out most of the detail I was looking for. At this point I flattened and converted to sRGB. Almost done.

Now to bring back detail to the headband. I converted the original image to CMYK, as this version seemed to have the most detail in the headband. I used the M to create an alpha channel to isolate the headband and part of the blanket. Then I selected the headband and copied it to a new layer. I set this layer to multiply and duped it several times. I then hid the background layer and merged all visible layers. I dragged this layer over to my working copy, set it to luminosity and reduced opacity to 78%. I then ran USM at 200, 1, 0 and used Fade to select darken. Then I flattened the layers and did a final review.

I felt the image had gotten a little dark so the last tweak was to lower the gamma to .8 using the Exposure command.

So here's a version in all her detailed glory! What do you think?

Oh, and by the way, congratulations!

Regards,

Michael

Swampy · #11 05-26-2007, 07:42 AM

Michael... Welcome to RTP!

Excellent work on this shot and thank you for the detailed explanation!

Graphics23 · #12 05-26-2007, 08:02 AM

Hi Swampy!

Thanks for the welcome. Nice to see a fellow NAPPster here.

I don't usually contribute to these kinds of threads, but something about this shot called out to me. I felt I could present a version that differed enough from what others have done to make it worth the effort. That, and I've been meaning to contribute more to the various forums in which I lurk. So I thought I'd give it a shot.

I'm also working on doing some technical writing, hence the detailed explanation.

Any critique on either the image, the workflow, or the writing?

Regards,

Michael

Swampy · #13 05-26-2007, 09:10 AM

Michael..

You do well with the technical writing. The above was very clear and easy to follow. It may be a bit much for a beginner, but for mid-advanced level 'shoppers, it was a great lesson in channels and LAB.

lurch · #14 05-26-2007, 03:23 PM

Michael,

Superb job with both the retouch and the writing. Your skill and experience in both really shows. Channeling Dan Margulis?

duwayne · #15 05-26-2007, 03:32 PM

Side note - I have an excellent book titled "The Photoshop Channels Book" by Scott Kelby. It's quite amazing what can be done with channels. I highly recommend it for Photoshop users at the mid to high end capability levels.