smcaleer Loc: Dearborn Heights, Michigan

People are not my typical subjects. I decided to try and shoot subjects I don't normally work with for the next few months. This is just one of a few I shot yesterday.

Let me have it. :)

Country's Mama Loc: Michigan

I like the expression you have captured here. The composition is pleasing, though I am not a fan of cropping tops of heads off, I seem to be in the minority. Your focus on download appears to be his eyebrows instead of his eyes. The white light on the right especially draws your eye away from him, that on the left does also though to a lesser degree. I would tone it down or get rid of it.
I also see some noise on download. This may or may not be a distraction for you.

Chuck_893 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

Mama is correct that the focus is a hair back—i.e. it's on the front of his hair (actually) so the whole thing is a little soft, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. I don't mind the crop at all. I like that his eyes are looking back toward the center of the frame, and I think it works as a horizontal. The white thingy back there is easily knocked down by most PP apps. There's light in the hair giving good separation. What's mostly bothersome to me is that the light is about 3/4 "back." The left side of his face, neck, and nose are lit, but there is virtually zero light in his eyes, which makes the eyes look "dead." Now, this is a "grab shot" in the living room. It's no formal portrait where you can control everything. It's a candid. But if you have some PP skill you can pick up some wispy brightness (I would not just paint in a crisp round catchlight since there is no source for it) in the eyes to give them some life, and then, for a grab-candid, it is not bad at all. :thumbup:

smcaleer Loc: Dearborn Heights, Michigan

Thank you for looking and commenting, Mama. I'm not a fan of head cropping either. This was unintentional, although it doesn't really bother me. Focus wise, I'm still getting use to using my focus properly on this camera. I think I'm focusing on the eyes and then it turns out the camera is not lol. I think the noise might be from the ISO being bumped up do to the low light situation. The bright light to the right does distract for me and I think I'll try toning it down. I named this Deep Thinker. He just looked lost in thought.

smcaleer Loc: Dearborn Heights, Michigan

Thank you for looking and giving me your thoughts here. I don't usually shoot people because even my candid shots have always come out bad in the past. Since I've been shooting for a couple years now, I figured I'd give something new a try.

I'm not experienced in photographing people and not good with lighting yet. I purposely wanted to try low light and people.

This was taken in the hospital last night in pre-op. The lighting is certainly not made for photography. I took my camera to experiment and learn while I waited. My brother was having surgery. This is his 16 year old son. He looked a bit worried and deep in thought. I liked the pose, but obviously couldn't move the stinkin' lights. It was a learning experience with lighting.

Thanks again.

Chuck_893 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

Ah! Indeed he looks worried. His eyes are even red. I have shot lots in hospital rooms as a volunteer for a non-profit. The light is perfectly dreadful since most comes from directly overhead and is fluorescent, or mixed (mixed in this case I think, but your white balance looks fine).

I've tried one, removing the white thingy (sink?) and brightening his eyes. That's all I did. I think it gives him more sparkle without ruining the somber mood. (And I sincerely hope that your brother, his dad, is doing well!!!)

photoninja1 Loc: Tampa Florida

Nice fix. The white thingy bothered me more than the slight back focus, which softens the face. Going forward, you might try using a smaller aperture to get slightly more DOF. I don't think that wil ruin the bokeh and it will make it easier to nail the focus.

smcaleer Loc: Dearborn Heights, Michigan

Thank you and I do like how you edited the shot. How did you brighten the eyes?

smcaleer Loc: Dearborn Heights, Michigan

Thank you for looking and commenting.

Chuck_893 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

I'm glad you like it! I'm using Photoshop Elements 11, but I started with PSE-2 and used PSE-4 for years. PSE-11 has a nifty cool tool called Smart Brush with an Eye Brightener. Yay! Except it didn't work. He looked like a zombie! :shock: Ack. So I reverted to the Ways of the Ancients. Working on a copied layer (so I could turn it off to see what I was doing) around 125% magnification I used the Selection Brush tool with a fairly soft edge to very carefully select the eyes only, then very carefully raised their brightness (pupil, iris, and whites together) juuust a little. Had to squint a lot and toggle it off and on to be sure I wasn't getting the zombie look again. When I was satisfied with the overall sparkle I still noticed his eyes looked pretty red (poor guy—worried about his dad!), so I used the saturation sponge in desaturate mode to reduce but not remove the redness.

I sure hope your brother is all right! Surgery is scary!

smcaleer Loc: Dearborn Heights, Michigan

He had a routine hernia surgery, but had some difficulty with the anesthesia. He is doing ok. Thank you.

MtnMan Loc: ID

Thank you for your explanation. You did a nice job.

Can I presume you feathered the selection some?

What do you think about sprucing him up by smoothing the skin some? Portrait Professional tends to over-do it but perhaps a little bit of that might help here as well.

I copied the layer and put a mask on it. I then went to the background and applied a bit of Gaussian blur. Then to the top layer mask with a fairly large black brush and painted over the major portions of skin to reveal the blurred layer.

Something like this.

Chuck_893 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

Thanks, MtnMan! Yes, I feathered. I had the hardness on the brush at 33% and I refined the edge but I can't remember how much. I always want it to look like I didn't do anything. I have Portrait Pro but didn't run him through it because it's a candid. It certainly would not hurt. What I don't like about Portrait Pro is that the default changes the shape of the face. The first thing I almost always do is slide it right back. I don't mind what the default skin smoothing does, though. It does pretty much what I used to do on a B&W negative with graphite and dye, and I never thought mine looked overretouched, but it's a judgment call, and a matter of taste to some extent. I would not see anything wrong with smoothing him up (I bet he hates his skin right now—I sure did), but I thought it might be overdone for this candid situation. :-)