Virtue Of Innocence

[beezy40]

This is a shot of my son Kyle, who is the best model for my photography
money can't buy. After the photo session, I pushed all my NEFs into PHS CS3, converted them into JPEGS, cleaned up some spots, and blemishes with the clone, heal, and stamp tools. Then I pulled out some bona fide actions, ran a couple of them, them copied all my layers to one single layer, while preserving the originals, duplicated them, ran a high pass filter, then masked the whole layer for selective sharpening of the eye, knee, and lip regions. Then finally, I sharpened the whole image slightly, with the unsharp mask filter. Shot details: Nikon D80 F4 @ 1/100s
ISO 200 using my 28-70 mm F/2.8-4D Sigma glass, or lens.

Nikon D80/ AF Nikkor 70-300mm 1:4-5.6G/ Sigma DG 28-70mm
1:2.8-4/ Nikon 50mm f/1.4D AF Nikkor/ Nikon SB600 Flash
"Truth is the light illuminating my images"


"Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly." - Robert Schuller
"You don't take a photograph, you make it." - Ansel Adams

[0lBaldy]

To me the color looks very yellow.
I use these charts sometimes to get close to the colors I am seeking

[CathyH]

Hi beezy
the one think that bothers me is that his ear blends in with the background. And maybe blurred the left blue knee. Here is an example, I didn't change the colors, but thanks Oldbaldy for the color charts they look like a great referance.
cathy

[bazza64]

Hi Beezy40,

Can I suggest you use your 70-300mm lens and set it at 105-130mm to take the photo of your son, this will eliminate the 'ballooning' effect on his face.(If this was the effect you were after then please disregard this message)

Regards;
Barry.

[beezy40]

All of you have some very valid points, some more than others. bazza64, my vision was to highlight my sons dynamic smile, which included his whole head, and a portion of his arm. In a nutshell, this was a concious choice. CathyH, excellent thought process, your edit definitely adds more than take away. Last but not least 0lBaldy, your comment IMHO, made the most impact.
This image is really too yellow, and no, I do not know how to operate any of the charts you posted. So in closing, If you, or anyone else here, can teach me, or direct me to other links, so I can learn how to operate a color calibration chart, it would be appreciated beyond measure. Because, if I don't learn this particular aspect of my workflow, all my images in the future are in danger, and we can't afford that, at least I know I can't. Thanks A mill...

Nikon D80/ AF Nikkor 70-300mm 1:4-5.6G/ Sigma DG 28-70mm
1:2.8-4/ Nikon 50mm f/1.4D AF Nikkor/ Nikon SB600 Flash
"Truth is the light illuminating my images"

"Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly." - Robert Schuller
"You don't take a photograph, you make it." - Ansel Adams

[TommyO]

Beezy,
I know you had another post concerning the color correction of skin tones and color charts. I thought I would also share an idea.

Since it seems you are learning color correction, there are a few steps that can quicken your workflow in the mean time without having to buy any third-party filters/plug-in's.

It is not hard to make some simple color correction and then limit it to just one area. Basically, use the variations tool to get the color close, then simply add a mask, invert it (so no correction comes through), then paint with a low opacity soft brush to reveal it where needed. Short, simple and fairly accurate. If you need more adjustment, you can tweak it with a simple Hue/Sat layer. But this usually comes very close.

The attached thumbnails may help. One shows the variations screen. The other shows the result after two clicks (one: more blue, one: more cyan) and about 20 seconds of work. You could then mask to reveal the changes only on his face if you like. I simply took a snapshot of the final variations dialog box.

[Karlington]

To color correct skin I use the "by the numbers"-technique. Basicly you should have yellow a bit higher than magenta and cyan 1/3-1/5 of what magenta is. Googled and found this thread here on RP http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/pho...n-numbers.html

Well well!
Good luck!

[chillin]

I think you should tone down the yellow, use the high pass filter on the green channel only, clean the blue channel.
To do the vignette I would use a gray layer with black gradient & soft light blend. Below is my interpretation...

[Verywierd]

Not to criticize anyone, but there seems to be a bias against warm light in portraits these days. What ever happend to golden evening sunlight, fireplace glow, household tungsten lights, heck even candles? Why does skin always have to look like it is lit with neutral white balanced light or have a corpse like grey pallor? Just because the fashion magazines like it, and tanning is less popular, that doesn't make neutral white lighting for skin a law of photography.

[chillin]

Originally Posted by Verywierd

Not to criticize anyone, but there seems to be a bias against warm light in portraits these days. What ever happend to golden evening sunlight, fireplace glow, household tungsten lights, heck even candles? Why does skin always have to look like it is lit with neutral white balanced light or have a corpse like grey pallor? Just because the fashion magazines like it, and tanning is less popular, that doesn't make neutral white lighting for skin a law of photography.

In this case, I like the "before" colors better than the "after".

[Verywierd]

Originally Posted by chillin

In this case, I like the "before" colors better than the "after".

I have no argument with that, although of course the photographer might have a particular look in mind.

[Sinisa]

beezy40, why would you convert your raw files into jpegs to do your corrections?!

it's such a basic thing!!!

[dmrdm]

Guess I'd have to ask the same question SINISA is, why?

If you don't want to put a ton of work into it, as you have CS3, the easiest would be to open your NEF photo in the RAW editor and just use thetemperature slider (the first slider on the basic tab) and move it to the left to cool it (the blue area). The HSL tab will also do wonders. If you shoot RAW, you might was well use the RAW editor to make your life easy.

[beezy40]

beezy40, why would you convert your raw files into jpegs to do your corrections?!

it's such a basic thing!!!

Because, my monitor actually needs calibrating, and the tweaks I felt were
necessary to complete my vision, I couldn't achieve in Adobe Camera Raw.
I needed to push the image into PHS CS3 to tweak. But first things first, I really do need to calibrate my laptop monitor. Thanks to all who commented, all your thought processes were very informative.

[Sinisa]

you need to process your raw files and save them as 16bit PSD or TIFF. then you do corrections.

you should NEVER do any corrections to JPEGS. this is abc of digital imaging.