[BriC]

Hi! This is my very frist post here. My sister asked me to retouch her wedding pics. The one posted is the only one I have done so far. I wanted to slim her up without giving the impression that I did. I had to smoothe the front of her dress down. The finnished image I thought looked good in black and white. The pics were taken by a 'professional photographer', but it looks to me like they were just taken with a good camera. They don't portray the romantic, soft wedding photo feel to me.
I have had no 'formal' photoshop training, but I have taught myself what I know by reading and watching videos and other assorted tutorials :-)
Please let me know what you think. I will GREATLY value any imput, suggestions, or critisism. Thanks!!!
-BriC

[Dreamypix]

BriC-
I love what you did! It is very subtle how you slimmed her up, but not noticable without a side by side look at the original. I like the background as well, very studio like. I think the black and white fits very well. Have you tried a sepia tone as well? Was this a crop from a bigger photo or was this the original shot? I think it would be better if you could see her bouquet more..but if it's not there, not much you can do about that.

My thoughts on the "professional". Anyone with a fancy camera can call themselves a professional if your willing to pay them. In this particular photo, there is bad lighting, a bad color cast, no catchlights in the eyes so they look dull and lifeless and a very bad angle. If they had any training at all they would have seen this before they took the picture. The Angle alone is what aggrivates me! This particular angle can make your sister look bigger than she really is because of shooting below can widen your subject. They should have taken the shot at eye level/from above slightly (which is also great for double chins) I really hope your sister got some better pictures than this from the photographer. And that it didn't cost her an arm and a leg! Some things you can "fix" in photoshop, but you can't beat getting it right the first time.

Sorry if that was alittle blunt-

~Amber~

[BriC]

Thanks so much, Amber! That is just the type of feedback that I need. I had hoped that without a side by side comparison, you wouldn't be left with the thought that the photo had been 'slimmed'. It would make me feel bad if my sis thought, "wow, he had to slim my fat a@* up!".
I agree that the angle was terrible. I also suspect that the photographer should have asked my sis not to press her arms by her side. I think that is another reason her arms in particular appeared large.
When you saw my sis at the wedding, "fat" wasn't at all what was thought. But the pics, however, look alarmingly fat by comparison to her in real life.
I really wanted the overall finished pic - even to people who saw her AT the wedding - to not appear totally retouched or manipulated.... but to simply look like 'a good picture' of her wedding getup :-)
Thanks again!!!
-Bri

[Caitlin]

I agree with Amber - you've done a nice subtle job of slimming your sister, without it being at all artificial. The background etc look good too! That angle is most unfortunate though, (the side angle as well). Looking forward to seeing some other shots that are hopefully a bit better framed by the photographer!?

[BriC]

Do you think there is anything I can do about the angle at which the pic was taken? Maybe with a distortion transformation?
The bouquet is a nice part of the pic, I think, so I wouldn't want to distort it to where the flowers weren't visible... but the original pic that I attatched isn't a crop... it is the picture in it's entirity.
I haven't mastered the transform variations... I could play around with various settings if ya'll think there could be an angle improvement...

[Dreamypix]

Bri-

I agree wholeheartedly on the pose as well, def not a good pose for her body type. We all come in shapes and sizes, but a good photog will know how to make us look good regardless! Honestly I would not attempt to try to alter the angle, it wouldn't look natural. What you have done with the photo looks great and I know your sis will appreciate it. Was there any other photos with a better pose that you could work on? Can you describe some of the techniques that you used to slim down? There is one that I like to use from Scott Kelbys book where you simply Select all, Free Transform and then you take the side of the photo and pull it in just slightly but not too far or it will look retouched.

~Amber~

[Kraellin]

hi BriC and welcome to RetouchPRO.

i'm gonna start here by saying you're taking your life in your hands in 'slimming' this picture. the woman is lovely woman and may not care for what may amount to an 'insult' in your picture. whereas you did a nice job of it, if she detects it and takes exception over you making 'pictorial comments' over her size, you may find yourself in hot water. her size is her size. it may be 'good' or 'bad' in her consideration, but what you are saying in your picture is that in your it's 'bad' because it 'needs' to be 'corrected'. you see what i'm saying here? i wouldnt touch it unless she specifically asked you to.

for the rest, the photographer did a fairly poor job of this picture. the background was a poor choice, being both light and dark and the picture is poorly lit. the face in particular shld have more light.

i did a little work on your picture. i didnt do anything to the background. you seem quite capable of handling that part, so i left it alone. i did alter the lighting. i also doubled the image size and smoothed out the resulting 'jaggies'.

i also noticed you lost some detail in her wedding dress, the stuff around the shoulders. i re-did the lighting so that that got left in. i even sharpened it a bit. i also sharpened her face and head a bit.

i took out a few marks on her face and smoothed things a bit there as well as on her arm and shoulder.

for the lighting, i tried to duplicate the light source and added a bit of peach coloring to her face light. and then added an overall blue shader, very light. i also did a curves adjustment layer to make sure i didnt bleach out the detail of the dress and veil and to give the image a little more contrast.

i also didnt do any 'dreamy', blurry effect. you seem to have that under control also.

i also tend to disagree with the black and white, but that's a personal choice thing.

you might also think about frames and borders and a second shot with a tigher crop on the head and shoulders.

good luck

Craig

[BriC]

Thanks for the imput, Craig!
My sis did say that she thought she looked bigger than she is. I think that is the case also. She doesn't strike you as 'fat' when you see her, but the wedding pic looks pretty husky especially in her arm.
When I pulled the front of the dress flush with her skin, her boobs looked WAY too big. Now, she does have a hefty chest, but they looked vulgar almost. Since photoshop is all about creating illusions anyway, i figured better to have her breasts *smaller* than they really are so that it looks natural... I'm sure that the husband is the only one who should look at the wedding picures and first think: "boobies". Haha
I agree with everyone and thought so myslef before I posted, that the photographer did a piss-poor job. If she labled herself as amateaur, then they would be decent pics. But a PRO would have done many things differently.
Thanks again!

[Kraellin]

My sis did say that she thought she looked bigger than she is. I think that is the case also.

then just disregard everything i said on the subject; she's given you license to alter

Craig

[Cameraken]

Hi BriC

IMHO. I think that slimming her waist is emphasising her breasts. I tried a different way.

Attachment 1. is the Original.
Attachment 2. I moved the veil and blurred the background
Attachment 3. I used the perspective tool to try to bring the camera angle higher.
Attachment 4. This is the same as picture 3 with the arm reduced slightly.

The blue background shows how much the picture was distorted.

Ken

[Sheba]

You know, I read this thread yesterday and it's bothered me ever since.

How did this turn into a *slam the photographer* thread?

First off, if the image was scanned, (which it shouldn't be if it was taken by anyone other than the person who took the picture, read: copyright infringement without written permission by the creator...) it may not represent the true exposure of the image. And secondly, the claims of the posing are subjective. Anyone who knows anything about photography knows the subject should be turned at an angle because if you posed her face forward, the 3-d reality now turns into a 2-d image and adds weight to the individual, so turning her to one side WAS correct if you want to follow photography standards.

Talking trash about the photographer without her here to rebut the conversation is ridiculous.

My rant -over.

[Caitlin]

Ken - nice job! I think that perspective distortion has worked well.

Sheba, I guess I think people are generally really pretty polite on this forum, far more so than many I've visited! But at the end of the day, you've got to call a spade a spade, and when a photo like this is shown it's unrealistic not to pick faults. After all what we are trying to do if fix/repair it. The fact is the overwhelming opinion expressed so far is that it is not a very successful/professional job. As to the rights etc - I personally think in this case as the photographer has not been identified, there is no risk of libel. Beyond that I believe the bride has a certain moral right to make herself look good in her own wedding photo (or sister of same).

Following photography standards only takes you so far - artistic judgement is I think what failed in this case.

[leuallen]

Sheba, as a wedding photgrapher with over 30 years experience, I agree with Caitlin.

The photographer did not do a very good job. Yes the subject should be at an angle, but NOT a side view, which this is.

Also, if the photographer were using off camera lights rather than flash on the camera, I can't really tell, the lighting could be much improved to flatter the bride.

Also, the bride is somewhat at fault. She followed the current fashion in dresses, as most brides do, either because it is the "Fashion" or because that is all that is available. This fashion looks great on professional models but often does not look good on more normal looking people. A dress with sleeves would, in my opinion, be much more flattering. Photgraphers often moan about unflattering and inappropriate styles of dresses; the extra work, headaches, and retouching it costs them. But the client is always right, so we live with it.

Larry

[Kraellin]

sheba,

we're not talking trash about the photographer; we're talking about one photograph the photographer did. quite a difference there. he may well have taken hundreds of others at the wedding that were quite professional. this one was not.

and two, this is obviously not all the fault of a scan. if you look at the lighting of this image it is quite obvious that this was a photographic mistake, not a scan mistake.

Craig