Is it very extreme one?

[ruslan]

<p>What do you think of such post production? Do I include this photo into my portfolio to demonstate it to the clients? </p><div></div>

[Matt Laur]

<p>For me, the light on her face doesn't seem (naturally) likely along with the nature of the other shadows. So from that perspective, it seems a little too forced, and is distracting. I like the subject and composition, but yer - too heavy in post.</p>

[Lou_Meluso]

<p>Not Good. The original in your portfolio is nice (try fill flash or a gold reflector on a cloudy day) but the post you did adds nothing good and really ruins the picture. Digital manipulation works best when it enhances the subject and doesn't draw attention to itself.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>The top part of the background looks out of place, like a cardboard backdrop. Her hands look very distorted due to the lighting and whatever alterations you did, kind of demon-like. Nice pose and set up but I don't think the finished result will win over any hearts.</p>

[ruslan]

<p>Thank all of you, this really matters - like a fresh look from aside. So I won't show or include it into the portfolio. </p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>IMHO, one always needs more than one portfolio because different classes of viewers will have different likes and dislikes. For example, potential wedding customers (and their mothers ;-) ) will have very different wishes than my current main customer (mostly in-company publicity brochure work). Both of these groups will be wildly different from some of my "any-thing-goes" photographer and fantasy-photoshopper friends.</p>

<p>For more conservative viewers (including many potential wedding clients), if I want to give them a few post-processing alternatives (which I know are easy for me to produce), I'll always include styles which the clients have likely seen before, e.g., straight B&W, moody B&W, sepia, the (all-too-common, annoying to me) yellow-green cross processed look, something that looks vaguely like Technicolor movies from the 1950's, and maybe some other vintage film look (eg, faded Ektachrome slides). I'll also always include a well done "straight" look for reference. Although I hardly do wedding work any more, my experience is that in spite of what they always say, in the final analysis, most wedding clients rarely want a style that truly is unique -- they will go for a style that they have seen before.</p>

<p>With respect to the image you posted for comments, while it's definitely a "look", and might be of interest to some other Photoshop enthusiasts, I don't think that particular look will convince any potential wedding / commercial clients to give you their business. Note that this business-oriented way of considering what to include in a portfolio is very different from how one might evaluate an image from a more purely aesthetic / fine-art point of view.</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

[cash_chew]

<p>Tom, can you share how you did that in ps? That looks great!</p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>Hi Cash -</p>

<p>Thank you for the kind words. The single most important thing about my version of this image is that I started from a much less processed, much more conventional version of it that the OP posted in his profile, spcifically, http://www.photo.net/photo/16010157. ;-)</p>

<p>I'm not sure if you had already seen that version when you asked about my processing techniques, but if you are still interested, let me know and I'll be happy to describe what I did to go from the version in his profile to the version I posted.</p>

<p>Best regards,</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

[cash_chew]

<p>Tom, Yes, I saw the original, and I am very interested in how you get that color. Thanks.</p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>Hi Cash - OK. Here's how I did it. First, here is the image I started with.</p>

<div></div>

[tom_mann1]

<p>In almost all situations like this is, my first step is to bring the original to what I call "a standard state". </p>

<p>Specifically, I'll try to bring the average brightness, average contrast, average color, sharpness, clarity, fix any unwanted non-uniformity in lighting, take care of possible jpg and other artifacts, fix overly saturated areas, bring any areas with localized color casts under control, try to fix blown highlights, overly dark shadows (in general), and if necessary, reduce any deep shadows around the eyes. I typically can make all of these corrections in either ACR or LR, using the adjustment brush, if the global adjustments aren't sufficient.</p><div></div>

[tom_mann1]

<p>My next step is to make any adjustments that either require the full power of Photoshop, or are more easily done in PS (eg, using layers, blend modes, PS brushes, etc.). In the case of this image, using CS5, I reduced some of the JPG compression artifacts that were bugging me and did a bit of burning of the background to better draw the viewer's eye to the model. I may have also made a few other minor adjustments, but, to be honest, I don't remember if I really did anything else, or, if I did exactly what changes I made.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

[tom_mann1]

<p>While I can reproduce most common "styles" using the basic facilities built into PS, if I'm trying to achieve a specific and consistent look in a large number of images (eg, for a wedding), to save time and achieve the desired consistency, I try to use a "one-click" solution, ie, a preset from a commercial plug-in package, an action, a predefined group of adjustment layers pulled in from another image, etc.</p>

<p>In this case, my one-click solution was to use a preset that I developed for the NIK Color Efx Pro "Colorizer" preset. The result is what you saw earlier.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

[tom_mann1]

<p>The extremely important benefit of the preparatory work to first bring each image to a "standard" state is that (a) I get a very consistent final look within a given set of images, and (b) I can apply other one-click presets and, from experience, be confident of always obtaining the look I have come to expect from that preset. For example, here is a very different look using another NIK Color Efx Pro "one-click" preset - it took me a second or two to generate this variant.</p><div></div>

[tom_mann1]

<p>PS - If you don't own the NIK CEP plug-in package and like that color transformation, before I started using CEP, I used to get pretty much the same look using (mostly) the hue adjustment in a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer in PS. As I recall, a similar look is also available using the Tiffen DFX2 package and the onOne PhotoTools package.</p>

<p>HTH,</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

[cash_chew]

<p>Thanks Tom. I will look into this Nik CEP or OnOne Photo Tools. I like the idea of burning the background to bring out the subject. Will try that out on some of my photos :)</p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>Hi Cash - Unless you *really* need the consistency and the every-second-counts-speed of a one-click adjustment, say, for applying the same effect consistently to a large set of photos, I would strongly recommend saving your money and making the adjustment using the native tools built into Photoshop. For example, attached is a similar look I achieved in a minute or two using Photoshop's hue/saturation adjustment layer + levels adjustment layer. I didn't make any attempt to achieve a closer match between two results, but it could be easily done, if required. </p>

<p>I recommend the DIY approach for several reasons. First, even using commercial plug-ins, you still have to prepare the image for them. Typically, this involves many of tools, adjustments and other facilities built in to Photoshop. If you are not already facile with these tools, you won't get the most out of any commercial plug-in. OTOH, making the complete end-to-end adjustment in PS without using commercial plug-ins or actions will give you good practice in using PS's native tools and get you up to speed quickly.</p>

<p>Second, in most cases, using a commercial plugin or action typically saves one only a few minutes per image. This is negligible if you are dealing with a single image or two, but can add up if you are dealing with dozens or hundreds of images, you need consistency of appearance across the set, and you are working on a deadline.</p>

<p>Cheers,</p>

<p>Tom M</p><div></div>