Martina

This is the first time that I deliberately used extensively the following

tecniques: dodge, burning and iris enhancement. Actually I'm happy

with the result, even if it adds incredible drama to the portrait. What do

you think?

thanks for viewing and commenting.

Vincenzo

I like the effect you got here. You say dodging and burning; cool. Have you tried adding on top of that a layer with High pass filter (about 50 pixels), then desaturating this layer and putting into the soft light mode? I'm not sure if it's applicable to your image, but this technique can add more drama and painterly look to the photo. Anyway, I find your photo interesting. Congrats.

regards,

Adrian

Actually I've used Lightroom3 to make my adjustment. I don't know if it has the same feature you're saying, I guess, Photoshop, has. Do you have any example how a photo will look like? I'm interested.

So, i didn't exactly know how/where to show you how it exactly works. As my uploads to PN are limited, I decided to upload 2 photos, before and after, of my brother, taken quickly outside of my place with one speedlight. These are not untouched Raw files, but already retouched jpegs, luckily I didn't use hi-pass there (only skin retouching and a tad of burning/dodging). The other (overdone example) you'll find on PN- julie 10. 
before
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stachowicz/4974655509/in/set-72157624448852567/ 

after 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stachowicz/4974656687/in/set-72157624448852567/

Tell me what you think. 

cheers, 

Adrian

The second photo from Flickr (can we say Flickr?) I found way overdone, resemble me something like an HDR. PN's Julie10 is something less looking HDR but is more pleasant to sea, at least as portrait (nice model, though).

In any case I'm not really a fan of deeply re-touched portrait, this is my first one and I was really astonished by the result and by comparison with the original.

I Like it and probably if I'll make another portrait I'll spend some time working on this kind of re-touching, but it makes me thinking about the power of Photoshopping. Martina's eyes so enhanced actually looks like one of the child living in poverty begging for anything, and of course, and thanks God, she's not. Re-touched has changed her in someone completely different. It should be used wisely! Don't you think?

Yeah, sure it's overdone. I just wanted to show you what it is all about. I used a hi-pass layer in overlay mode to further enhance the effect. Normally I would never go so far. In case of Julie 10 (my gf), the light turned out to 'shape' her face and skin in a strange but intersting way and that's mostly why I went for the really strong processing and posted the final image as you could see it there.

What regards post-processing, do you really think that images you can see on PN are posted exactly as they come out of the camera? Post-processing is an essential part of making a photograph. Why should you leave such an important part of the process to the camera???

Photoshop when use wisely can be treated as a form of art. It's like with the darkroom, but this time you have much more control over what you are doing.  

The original photo of Martina was nice, but was lacking this 'puch'. Now it's got it. 

Of course I'm just a photo enthusiast and this is only my amateur opinion, so treat it please as such. 

best regards,

Adrian

I'm a photo enthusiast too. With great will to learn. Thanks for your advises, they're highly appreciated!