Star of India Among the Leaves (Accidentally shot at ISO 12,800)

--Lannie

Yes, of course there is some shadow noise at that ISO.  No noise reduction was applied.

--Lannie

The low ratings on this photo are just silly.  This is a very good portrait.  Perhaps some viewers are so jaded by overexposure to overcooked glamour shots they weren't sure what to make of a photo of a real person.  She has the lovely look of a classic movie actress.  So I figured, what the heck, let's try a variation of a 1940s Hollywood glamour photo.  Mostly done in Lightroom 4.4, with final monochrome conversion in DxO Filmpack's Ilford Pan F+ treatment.

And here's a slightly different b&w version with more of the original's light and shadow modeling.  You could do a lot with the original raw file - the high ISO noise isn't bad at all, probably better than my old Nikon D2H at ISO 400.  This style is very reminiscent of the studio b&w portraits of my parents' era.

Lex!  Holy cow!  You mean I took that picture?!  Wow, I must be really good.

Seriously, thank you for bringing out creative possibilities I never knew existed in my own work.  I shall have to buy Lightroom just so I can push that button marked "Fine art."

Thank you, Lex!

--Lannie

I'm glad you liked these b&w versions, Lannie.  Lightroom offers some very versatile retouching tools - this was mostly done with a brush set to minus clarity, around -50 or so.  Too much softening can look unnatural for some types of portraits, but I was hoping to emulate the style of retouching commonly used in the high end studio portraits up until the 1960s.  I used some of my own family portraits from the 1950s as a guide.

Photoshop or other more advanced software would add the advantages of the hand coloring/tinting effect used to retouch b&w portraits decades ago.  I don't think I'd get enough use from Photoshop to justify the cost, but the annual subscription fee makes it much more affordable.