On May 2, 2006, at 9:20 PM, Michael Hamilton wrote:
Technical:
*ist DS, A-50mm/1.7, 1/25s, f/2.0, ISO 400.
Orig:
http://www.michaelhamilton.ca/images/joc.jpg
The shot is a bit dark. A little bit of adjustment to levels,
contrast and color correction brings it right up nicely. If you want
to get fancy, lighten the eyes just a hair more than the rest so that
they pop.
You got the eyes in sharp focus, which is exactly what you ought to
do, but the nose and chin fall out of the focus zone ... f/4 works
better at these distances. The nose and mouth are close enough to
fine that with a little selective area sharpening, it looks great.
B&W:
http://www.michaelhamilton.ca/images/jocb&w.jpg
I de-saturated, then adjusted the lightness of the spectrum. Added
some noise.
Unfortunately, this is pretty murky on my screen. You can do a much
better B&W rendering after you've finished with the above adjustments
to the color rendering. I would use a channel mix of the red and
green or red and blue channels to bring the skin tones up, keep the
lips nicely differentiated, and smooth the skin texture. Then a
little selective contrast adjustment here and there to finish it off.
It's an intimate photograph of a lovely face. Worth the effort.
Godfrey
