Glasses -- The Dream and the Reality

Glasses - The Dream and The Reality -- the title says it all.

Unmanipulated except for slight contrast/brightness adjustment and

small crop. Your rating and critiques are very welcome. (If you

rate harshly or very negatively, please attach a constructive and

helpful comment/please share your superior photographic knowledge to

help improve my photography). Thanks and Enjoy. ;~)) John.

Why is the lady trying on the glasses lacking contrast? Was this shot through glass?

I like your request for critique with low ratings, it bugs the hell out of me to get some 2s or 3s without an explanation. They must have seen something I did not see, but now I will never know.

This is a 'street' photograph, even though taken indoors at night. Like all such photographs, I as photographer have to take the photograph and the subject as I see them with no adjustments -- just point and pray, and hope for the auto adjustments in the camera. Here, exposure was adjusted for the backlit frames with fluorescents behind them and the photo of the advertising woman, also fluorescent backlit, which left the subject woman trying on frames nearly black, with only a little detail. I tried in PhotoShop to rescue the detail but it looked VERY bad, and I sent it out to a color lab and this is their best. The choices were (1) ditch it; (2) convert to B&W with same contrast problems; (3) display it as is and accept the criticism and hope that some member has a secret PhotoShop formula or other program workup (after all this is not just a "critique" forum), or just don't display it -- and I thought it too good not to share. (And no, not through glass -- I wish. Just my lens and filter. I'll try working with the NEF files in future as my skills develop. Thanks for the apt comment and the spot on ratings.

 

ADDENDUM: NEW UPLOAD OF ADJUSTED IMAGE DEC. 9, 2004, TEMPORARY, USING NEWLY-ACQUIRED PHOTOSHOP TECHNIQUES. MORE WORK WILL BE DONE TO ELIMINATE 'GHOSTING' AROUND THE IMAGE FROM 'SELECTION' AND TO DE-EMPHASIZE SATURATION ON WOMAN CUSTOMER. J.

John

Here you go

1. Select the lady and table in the foreground with magnetic lasso tool;

2. Save selection;

3. Create new adjustment layer, brightness/contrast;

4. Up the contrast to +40%;

5. Load selection, or reselect;

5. Create new adjustment layer, hue/saturation;

6. Decrease the saturation on the red until you like it.

I have PS Elements 2.0, so I am not sure if in your version everything is called the same but it should be close.

Good luck!

The only problem is the woman shopper's image was almost totally black, and this is the result of the "saved" information being brought forth by a professional lab (at some expense), after I tried the magnetic lasso tool and contrast adjustment, etc., as you described. If you can make it look better, I'd be happy, and I'll go for a refund . . . ;~)) and happily so, but there was precious little info in the details of her outfit and her skin/face to go on, and I think it may exceed the parameters of what may be worked with and still keep acceptable facial coloring and not have her face drift into blackness -- which is what happened when I increased contrast on it. Any suggestions or examples to put that lab to shame Photoshoppers? John

If you happen to be browsing.

 

Re: Flatted Fifths -- How about quartered glasses shoppers?

This link is to the unmarked, unworked file. John

Cool a chalenge. I actually did the steps I described above to the image you originally posted and to me that already made it look better. I will see what I can do with the original later today and post it here.

Well sorry for bursting ...

I just followed the advices of Gert but with Gimp 2.0 and I am not expert and lost some sharpness.

So please give more advises on the serious side.

 

But I noticed some hidden expectations ? didn't I Mr Crowley .. Crosley

Gert, the file I attached was from the photofinisher and allegedly was worked on, but the blowup shows VERY inexpertly. I could have done better, and I will complain.

 

Here is a link to the real file, from my computer, reduced in size, but still large.

 

John See link below if it attaches.

Here's the link to the file that was missing from previous comment. It's 300 dpi (ppi), same as the previous, but untouched by the people at the photo lab with their awful editing. John.

 

And a separate comment for you, sly Frederic.

Imagine My Surprise when I opened your worked on file, Frederic and found that the advertising model's name was my last name!!!! I urge anyone who doesn't get this joke to examine Frederic's download, examine the name of the advertiser and compare it to my name, then look at any other file in this exchange.

 

Frederic, you almost got me. I caught myself saying: "I didn't know she had my last name . . . "

 

As for Growley, that is the name the photofinisher misspelled the file. Tant Pis, hunh?

 

John (appreciatively and approvingly)

Hi John, I like this frame. i laughed when I saw Frederic's version :-) . Here is the result of my clicking. Area under her elbow fell apart and requires retouching. i suspect that blending two separate Raw conversions could result a satisfactory image.

Very original shot!

You did a very good job. It's not perfect, but it's better around the edges than my photo lab and i'm going to show it to them. The problem with this image is that I have so many images of such quality I don't post -- I probably have 200 images of equal quality I haven't posted, yet I got a bug that I would post this one for some reason, and damn the expense. I hoped you kind folks could show me something, and you all have shown me your kindness, generosity (and in the case of Frederic Brix) not only that but your outrageous humour ;~)) (Thanks Frederic.)

 

It makes it all worth while.

 

I have a hard time making "pretty photos" because I don't like to bump up the saturation like required for viewing on PN, but images of this sort just seem so easy to produce. . . . just view my folders and portfolio.

 

I am so thankful for the collegiality of the PN viewers who stop by my images. John

Thank you for the comment. I took two frames, actually, but the second was infected because the glasses being held were partly outside the frame and therefore it was unusable. The same almost happened to this one. Frankly, I think the caption 'focuses' on the subject and helps the photo understanding very much -- it felt inspired for some reason. (Nobody ever talks about their captions on PN)

As of 12-09-04 this is a replacement, done by me, using my newly-developed Photo.shop techniques, which (although not particularly good) are improved. I used magnetic lassoo to select the image of the woman, greatly blown up using 'navigator', then used image>adjustment>and contrast and brightness to achieve a 'suitable' image for the woman customer -- a little too bright in this incarnation, and I'll continue to work on it (plus my selection technique), but it' considerably improved. (If someone can show me how to use magnetic lassoo with Navigator and the image so large that only a portion of the subject fills the screen, and how to scroll the screen without turning off the magnetic lassoo, I'd be very appreciative, for then my 'selection' technique would be considerable improved. You can place a comment here, or e-mail me.

 

Do It Yourselfers, there's a full-size image attached to a 'link' above, if you want to play around with this image. It's at 300-dpi and as it came from the camera in JPEG.

 

John