Dance of Joy

Nothing works so well as the "active" type model. Give her the slightest suggestion

and she runs with it.

original.

A beautiful fantasy. The scene, the colours and the model are all wonderfully refreshing.

 

Best wishes, Jonathan

Nice and original!

Jerry,

 

Good title for a great image! (Could be a postcard!)

 

Best,

 

Michael

I'm curious about your processing here. The model, her hair, and the mountain behind her, look sort of plastic. Is there a bunch of noise reduction going on here?

Answer to Barry, No noise reduction but I did alter the curve in Adobe Raw. I have never seen any explanation of it but I discovered it myself, quite by accident. Film and developer used to create an s-shaped response curve with essentially straight middle section, but digital is a pure straight line. Adobe Raw allows one to modify the curve to any shape one desires. You can imitate film or create a new response curve that is your own fancy. Here I opened up the blue shadows at the base of the mountain by re-establishing the curve.

If this had been a transparency film, I would have had to make a black and white mask to get the same effect and probably experiment for a week.

I am interested in your use of the word "plastic." It means moldable in it's usual use and I am not sure what you meant here.

When I look at her skin and her hair, it seems unnaturally smooth; sort of textureless, a look I associate with noise reduction. (That's also why I gave up on noise reduction awhile back; I decided I liked detail better than I liked lack of noise. Coming from a film background, I think you can relate. I mean, grain is a fact of life, no?) Of course, it's always hard to tell about these things, what with the compression PNet puts on these images. The mountain looks kind of textureless, too, but that seems to be a depth of field thing (i.e., you (very properly) focused on the model, not the mountain).

 

Your comments about the curve adjustments are interesting. This image definitely has a nice tonal range, and, in particular, I can see that you kept shadow detail in the forested area on the lower slope of the mountain.

 

As I look more closely at the image, there seems to be a blue halo around her right elbow. An artifact of some sort? In fact, it looks like you may have lightened her right side generally.

Looking back I have the original and the changed copy. I upload the original on the left and the changed curve I applied on the right. There might have been some other minor thing done, but I did not save any intermediate copies. I have no theories to justify the modifications to the curve (from its original straight line) but am just experimenting.

 

Jerry

She looks more natural (which doesn't necessarily mean "better") in the original, particularly with the hair. Also, the original doesn't have the halo around her body. The processed version, though, gets an attractive glow on the skin, and the day looks sunnier.