Super High Key effect Shiela.

Yes, beautiful high key portrait indeed! I love his expression here! But I think I prefer the original!! It's just a matter of taste of course! ;)

Sheila, If you have the Virtual Photographer plugin you should give it a go! This plugin is a great way to experiment with your images! The cool thing is you can customize all the presets and make your own! Some of my favorites you might want to try: Color (Ambience) (Glamour) (Snap) B&W (Anvil) (HI KEY) (Trend setter) You can also select a preset and use the scroll wheel on your mouse to cycle thru ALL of the presets quickly! it gives a little preview of each result!

I like the expression..... you really captured personality in this image. :~) Kemal is an extremely handsome man! The postworked image is maybe a too bit high-key for me... personally would love to see some skin texture and lines in his face which has been nullified by the postwork. My personal feeling is that this sort of treatment works best with glamour type/feminine beauty shots, (I just realized how sexist that sounds!), but this image just screams masculinity to me, and so I get an odd feeling when viewing it. The original color version works better for me..... although I'm wondering about the -1.3 stops of underexposure. I feel it's a bit too dark. Maybe this was a conscious choice or maybe not.....? I really find it difficult to comment on artistic choices as we each have our own ideas about esthetics. But from a purely technical viewpoint it would have been better to shoot the exposure correctly, and then lighten or darken to tastes in postwork..... Hope you don't mind me giving such long winded replies.... and don't take anything I say as a negative on your work, you've got a lot of talent, it shines through. :~)

i like his expression but feel it's too bright for me, do like the original too but maybe a bit brighter with it :]

Hey Sheila, I also prefer the orignal, and agree with Michelle about the masculinity of this good looking man. I would like to see this image in B&W with all his character lines empahsized. I also prefer the dark backround that his hair seeming to disapear into the backround. This is just what I think would look good. I would really go with what Kemal prefers:}

opps didn't realize i had crossed with chelle... she said it much better, i agree :]

Ah yes!! That's what it is!! Couldn't put my finger on it! He's too masculine for the high key style indeed!! Thx Chelle! ;)

I do agree with the girls ;-) But it is really a question of taste !

Sheila, since my post on bw conversions(still active!) and you personal attempts, at least I have learned one truth: Converting to BW(grayscale) is not so easy as a push of a button. A shift here or there or using too much adjustment in high or low areas will lead to strange digital artifacts. Seems to me, the midrange is the safest bet or perhaps hold other changes to the last steps so misques "unseen" are not multiplied as the image is processed. There is a lot to doing a good job and so much of it is very, very subtle and changes the overall look substantially. This color to bw is something I like and have posted more bw on my gallery lately. Sure, I could now go back and make them better. Some are fine as is..then again, each has a personal idea of what the image should be. We do what we do and go with it. Thanks so much for posting your work here. I do appreciate it. I have not tried high key stuff but plan too. Take care sweet lady. TomDart.

Hi guys & thanks a BUNCH for all your input on this!!! i also like the color version better, but kemal hated how he looked and asked me to try to see what i could do. i made a LOT of different images...and that high key one is the one we both liked the most. michelle, i don't mind long replies :) and i don't take anything you or anyone says as being negative of my work. you don't ever have to worry about that. :) what you said about glam being more for women...well i see what you're saying. i agree with you that how this "screams masculinity" as you say. i felt like something about the high key one wassnt right but wasn't sure what it was. perhaps that's it? yeah...the settings were done intentionally. This one came out exactly the way i wanted it to. i don't like to do much postwork. well, sometimes i do, but mostly i wanna try to nail my picture in the camera. Misha, i do love what you did!!!! i did try some similar to this. Misha, Michelle...are you guys saying that if i intentionally wanna overexpose or underexpose i should do that in postwork and not in cam? can you elaborate? if i have a vision & i can create that in cam, are you saying it's wiser to NOT do that? thanks for explaining! Tom...how right you are! sure isn't as easy as pushing a button. honestly...i had no idea until you posted that thread yesterday. ok guys...i'll show you what i did in just a sec... THANKS everyone!!!

kemal and i both like this one; it much different from all the other b/w images i did

Jim.....i took your advice...well, the hair isn't merging into the background like you said though. hmmmm...maybe i should do that and see.

anyway, so what do you guys think of this one? Thank you!!!

Message edited on: 05/14/2005 01:28

I'm just working on my first cup of coffee here.... so I don't know if what I say will sound coherent. :~) I think your last revision above looks great! My point about the exposure was a couple of things. And you already answered most of what I was wondering. You said you purposely underexposed and you acheived the look you wanted. And that's great... that tells me that you are thinking before you are shooting, and you know how you want your images to look before hand. And you're using the technical skills you have to acheive your goal. I think what really confused me was that you choose to underexpose by such a large amount (yes the original is really dark), and then postwork to a point where it's all beginning to get blown out. I just didn't see the logic in that. The thing about underexposure film/or digital doesn't really matter, is that you are basically not capturing any detail or data..... and it's really hard to recover what isn't there in the first place. On the opposite side with slight over exposure the data's there, there's just too much of it. It's easier to fix. And this is where the concept of shooting towards the right of your histogram comes from. You slightly over expose by maybe 1/3 of a stop, to avoid loss of shadow detail. Theoretically this is supposed to work, but doesn't always. Of course if it's really blown out it's also nearly impossible to fix as well. Hence my suggestion to shoot for proper exposure and then postwork dark or light to your hearts content. You can pretty much do anything you want with an image that's perfect.

That last one is really impressive Sheila!! U did a fantastic job!!! I wish I could try that method but I don't have Photoshop! :( Chelle, thx a bunch for such a "full of info" answer! I just understood a few things better because of u, once again! :)

You explained everything GREAT, Michelle! thanks!! i'm on my 2nd cup of coffee this morning (er...afternoon by everyone else's standards though)! :) i'll try to explain. I chose to underexpose by such a large amount because i took this picture exactly the way i wanted it. I wanted it dark. i'm really pushing myself to make my pictures in the cam the way i want them so i can do minimal postwork. why, in postwork, did i swing to the opposite side? what's the logic? LOL! good question, Michelle!!! :) well, kemal didn't like the original picture. i made like 7 or 8 versions...NONE of which he liked. He always give me final say over the pictures he takes of me, and i do the same for him. He didn't like how he looked a bit "scruffy" here...unshaved, his hair needs cut, i show how tired he is. he just didn't think it was a flattering picture of him. I think he look gorgeous though! anyway, i decided to do something completely different with it & so tried to go for a glam look. i was thinking of some photos i've seen in magazines...male models. anyway, when kemal saw it, he said yeah...THAT one. So, that's how i got there! I look at it and STILL like it, although i know something's off about it. ok...i see what you're saying shooting for the proper exposure and then do what i want in postwork. that makes sense. thanks, Michelle! :) Pascale, i don't have Photoshop either. PSP has the same thing!!!

Sorry for budding in here with a "nit-picky" that doesn't really matter for the image at hand...

The thing about underexposure film/or digital doesn't really matter

Ahm - when you're talking film, it does in the sense wether you use negative or slide.
An underexposed negative gets "thinner" ( less density ) whereas a slide gets "thicker" ( more density ). This since the exposure curve for a slide film is turned "upside-down" to that of the negative.

In practice, an underexposed negative looses detail since less dense ( most loss in shadow parts ) - which is generally bad for negatives, and a slide gains detail since more dense ( most gain in hi-lights ) - which is generally good for slides.
When overexposing the absolute opposite applies.

To make a general rule out of this:
Negative film gains from slight overexposure - slides gain from slight underexposure.

// Sorry... it's the old Photo Teacher in me that pops up here .. ;-) //

As for the image:
Well, call me a sexist too but I agree with Michelle A here.
This is a "hunk" image ( and I'm a normal hetero guy ) and as such the original colour image works. If converted to B&W I'd like to see the qualities in Misha883's first image, where the shadows have been opened up and balanced
Think it picks up Kamal's male facial features in a favourable way as well as it still feels as "warm" as the original colour image.

Bakkti.

webmaster@jiger.org

www.jiger.org

hi Bakkti! budd in anytime, could use more of you here in the forum! :]

Actually I was thinking of the old BW film adage, "expose for the shadows, and print for the highlights"..... But yes, you're absolutely right about neg/ and slide being a bit different, as far as how you want to expose. Just didn't think it was necessary to go into such details since most here, seem to shoot only digital. And basically I was trying to get the general point across, it was far to early in the morning for me to think details. :~) But indeed thanks for clarifying..... So you were a photo teacher? Where did you teach?

LMAO at your "disclaimer"!!! Yeah, i think that first color one is a hunk of an image too!!!! wish i could get kemal to realize that!!!!

i'll show you ONE warm version i did...probably still too dark...kemal is "somewhat" satisified with this one.

i'm trying. keep in mind i just started using that color mixer thing. gonna take me awhile to get it. here's another one. gotta run to work!!!

well, i sure have learned a lot!!!! i just need to keep shooting, keep practicing, and obviously i have much to learn when it comes to doing postwork. well, i enjoy learning! and i so much appreciate all the help!!!!!

i'll keep plugging away!!!! so, here's my attempt at "warm" and trying to pick up his features and keeping the shadows balanced. am i completely off? i like it dark. what you think? :) THANK YOU ALL for being so patient with me and helping me!!!! edit: hmmmm, too dark i think...sigh back to the drawing board (after work, anyway!) :)

Message edited on: 05/14/2005 14:30

Hi ! Thanks cynlee. I don't seem to have that much time to be a general pain-in-the-butt, but I'll sneak in every now and then. I'll try doing it more often tho, since a good bit of the creative process consist of viewing imges and evaluate your own reactions on them. Michelle A: >...the old BW film adage, "expose for the shadows, and print for the highlights"..... An "eternal truth"-knowledge which seem to be more scarse with the growth of digital photography. Alas - digital don't seem as sensitive to it as classic chemical photography... Hope you didn't think I was trying to "set you straight" there, Michelle. It was just a comment I thought someone might find useful. What do you English speaking say ? " No pun intended " .. ? tvernuccio: Yes, I like it darker. Perhaps Kemal likes the hi-key since it "burns out" much of the "ware-and-tare", but you can tell him he looks good when he looks bad :-). Perhaps you could try playing a bit with a Curves Adjustment Layer ( or you didn't have PS .. ? ) to see what it can do to open up shadows a bit ? ... and back to Michelle A: >So you were a photo teacher? Where did you teach? Different education facilities in Sweden ( where I live ). Nothing fancy tho .. The full "title" was Photo- and Image Techer, since I mostly held classes and workshops dealing with composition, image analyzis and communication. A nice line of work until fund cutbacks cut back on the "culture section" - as always ... Nowadays I'm mostly doing photo/imgage editing and retouch work using PS 7.1. And that will probably be as close to a formal presentation as we will get .. ;-) Bakkti. webmaster@jiger.org www.jiger.org

PSP has the same thing???? Why didn't I think of that??? Thx bunch Sheila!!!! ;)

Now, the bugaboo to all conversions in "digital" images: How is it going to print? I mentioned this in a post back to Bakkti on the last thread I posted, "image to play with". Artifacts abound with too much digital manipulation, especially in large similar area like sky. To me, the final print on good paper is the judge on digital postwork. So, can I take the image to Walgreen's( they do use Fugi Crystal Archive papers) or my usual on-line printer and get a good image with a sky or even forehead with uniform texture and color graduations(grayscale in this case) without the little off-color pixels showing? Generally, I will look closely at an image on the monitor with zoom to look for the degradation before going to print. I sometimes forget to do this during the postwork process..and do pay for it. Back up 4 steps for 3 forward! Any comments on how far to go and what to look for in image degradation in color to bw conversion? Sure it happens all the time in color images, too. Thanks for speaking Bakkti. Your voice is appreciated with the others. TomDart.

Pascale, I use both PS and PSP8. The terms may be different but there are enough similarities to make it work. Curves are there, etc., adjustment layers, etc. Sometimes it is an extra step in PSP but that is a good program and will do a lot more than many think. And, in PSP8(maybe 7, not certain) you can record "scripts" to do the work. This is very similar to the "actions" on Photoshop. See ya later. TomDart. outta here for a while.

I have Jasc Paint shop pro 8 Thomas. Record scripts??? O_o What the hell is that??

Very cool Bakkti! ..... yes the art programs always seem to be the ones cut first.... :~( My personal opinion is that a lot of the "eternal truths" still hold true for digital as they did for film..... but they seem to have gotten lost...... with everyone including the family cat in possession of a digicam, the craft of photography is being lost in a way. I'm just generalizing of course, and film will always have a place for those of us who love it.... and I know there are one or two others here who still shoot film besides myself..... And now I'll stop babbling..... didn't mean to change the topic here.

Well, my wife shoots film....simple Pentax but film and she does a good job of it. We often shoot the same stuff and sometimes it is a scan of her pic that gets the digital time on-line(personal photo sites, etc.) I only wish I could remember all the stuff by dad did in that makeshift darkroom with his fairly simple equipment...but being a kid I didn't pay enough attention. Thomas Dart.

anyway, i was just gonna tell ya, yeah, i use Virtual Photographer and like that you can set up your own parameters. (and thanks for the tip about scrolling with your mouse....i didn't know you could do that!)

I decided to take your advice & try it here. Most of them really distorted his face, but i did find one that work...can't remember which though. The pic here is the result.

Bakkti, i don't have PS. i have PSP7, but it does have curves. I've only recently started using curves, and it's not very easy for me. I tried and tried to bring out the shadows, but...guess i don't know what i'm doing too much. I just play with the settings. that's all i know to do. :(
Thanks for sharing a little about yourself! and thanks for your help too! :)

anyway, you guys know you when you're working on an image and then it HAPPENS...you just KNOW you have what you want. Well, this one is it. Kemal even likes it too!

Tell me honestly PLEASE!!!! Thanks guys!

Tom, that's a great question! edit: i gave kemal all the feedback here and also told him all the positive remarks that were said about him. Well, you guys have apparently all made him feel better. Now he says he like the color version!!! LOL! :)

Message edited on: 05/15/2005 00:58

Honestly - it's a good one !
Kemal is happy, you're happy, I'm happy - everybody's happy.
.. me thinks .. ?
The most important part you say yourself:

...you just KNOW you have what you want.

About curves:
You keep playing with those settings. That's a way of learning the tool and what different manipulations do to the image at hand. Play around with it and see how the image responds, what parts of the curve corresponds to which image tones etc.

TomDart:
Learning photography the "hard" way was the only way before digital. Spending lots of hours in the darkroom was an excellent school, but I'll be the first to praise computer based image editing and refinements.
I can easily do 16 hours in the comfort of my normal living environment when deadline is round the corner and I wouldn't set foot again in a "lab" with smelly chemicals and dim, coloured light that makes you tired and weary.
Sure it's good to know what part of labwork an operation in PS ( or PSP ) correspond to from time to time, but trust me, there's nothing - besides developing film - you can do in a lab that you can't in PS ( or PSP ).

Bakkti.

webmaster@jiger.org

www.jiger.org

Sheila it looks beautiful...!

Dick, so nice to have u around! U seem to be a golden source of knowledge about photography and we do need u here indeed!!! Plz, stick around will ya! ;)

tibet2004uk:
I take it you are referring to me, so I'd like to say Thank You, and for the sticking around part - I'll see what I can do.
Inevitably, there will be periods when I vanish from the face of the earth since my line of work can be very intense every now and then. Deadlines, you know ...

Don't know about "golden source"...
Photo tech's are not really my business. I've been mostly into Image Composition, -Analazys and -Communication when active and now it's Editing and Retouch, but some have stuck over the years I guess.
As for Digital Photo - I'm mostly lost ...

Anyone else think this is drifting OT .. ?

tvernuccio - It's still a good image !! :-)

Bakkti.

webmaster@jiger.org

www.jiger.org

THANKS guys!!!!! phew!!! Bakkti...as far as drifting OT...it's cool with me. i mean, in real life if we were meeting face-to-face at a photo club or something, the same thing would happen. it's just a natural to kinda drift, and if there's someone new in our midst, it's natural to want to get to know them a bit. we're all happy to have you here and it's nice to get learn about your background in photography! Thanks again everyone for your help!!!!!! :)