Changing What’s Real – Creating the Vision
At the beginning of each month Anna Sides from The Other Side of Anna showcases a photograph gallery displaying an original photograph and the subsequent editions that she has made to it. I’m joining in again this month with a photograph of my son, Samuel. This was a candid moment, we were out for dinner and I looked at him and that was it, out came the camera. I know that wherever I go I will always see things and say “that’s a great photo” quite often I haven’t even got my camera with me, I just see an opportunity to capture a photograph everywhere I go, I still have moments of doubt when we leave the house as to whether I’m going to take my camera or not.
Quite often I will take a photograph of a moment that I see and in my mind I have a very specific vision of how this photograph should look. Sometimes it looks exactly as I saw it when I captured it and sometimes I need to make some refinements. So this photograph was perfect for this month’s Changing What’s Real. Here’s the original image:
This was taken in a restaurant, the fluorescent lighting gave a slight red tinge to his skin, so I adjusted the hue and increased the cyan to even his colour tone. I used the healing brush to remove a couple of small blemishes (leaving the large freckle on his chin) and I evened the skin over his cheek area by copying the section of his face I wanted to smooth, into another layer and then applying a slight surface blur to it. I’m always conscious at this point because I don’t want his skin to look like a wax work.
I then sharpened the image and created a dark purple adjustment layer to make those blacks deeper.
I then used the dodge tool to bring out the highlights in his eye. This is just a gentle lift otherwise I could make him look like an alien.
I liked the image in colour but his expression said something more to me so I converted the image to black and white and added a light vintage layer to keep it from looking too cold.
I found the chair distracting and I felt areas across the top of his nose and hair were too bright, so I cropped the photo and I decreased the highlights ever so slightly.
Reducing the highlights can save an image from people having to wear sunglasses around it but it can also make it appear a little flat. That chair was still distracting me, so I cropped a bit further and increased the shadows so that I could detract a bit more from the people in the background.
Sometimes I look at my images and I don’t have to do anything with them barring a little sharpening (because I take them in RAW mode as opposed to JPEG) but for those that I change, I go through quite a process to get them just how I want them.
I finished this one, happy that there was just enough of a background to create an atmosphere against his face and I am quite pleased with the final outcome of this image. I still need to name it though, so any ideas?
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Comments
Love this article, really shows you the benefit of shooting RAW and what can be achieved with a little bit of post production.
Thank you Sean, I had no idea when I first started what the benefits were and now I won’t ever go back
It’s a monthly even hosted by Anna Sides of Other Side of Anna and it’s a lot of fun to do. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
a monthly event even
Loved these photo effects, SJ! And, what a handsome young man!
Blessings!
Thank you Martha, I’m glad you enjoyed them and yes I think so too but then I’m slightly biased
Here, you are in your element my friend. These photos of Samuel are expressive. Can’t discern his mode exactly, but you’ve captured the moment gloriously.
I am Debra, very much so. I have exactly the same problem. I couldn’t quite make our what that look was, which is why I’m having problems naming this photograph. Thank you for stopping by.
So awesome, I just got photo elements on a trial basis, hopefully I can learn a little of this stuff. You do such beautiful work and he is such a handsome boy.
Thank you Jan, I do love taking pictures of Samuel, he’s a cracking model for me. I started with photo elements and it really did help me now I’ve moved onto CS5. I’m working on putting some tutorials up of what the different buttons and things can do, so maybe this can help you too. Thank you for commenting today.
You make it sound so interesting SJ. I learnt photoshop many years ago but I have completely forgotten it. I loved the end result of Michael’s photo. Brilliant!
Thank you Rimly, that’s nice to know as it can be a subject that can be a little dry to talk about. I think it would be like riding a bike, once you hop on it all comes back to you. I’m glad you liked the end result, thank you for your lovely comment.
You’re such a good artist, SJ. The original photograph is a treasure in itself and then you’ve created such a beautiful end result. And the description too makes good reason!
Thank you Corinne, I get lost in my images but I couldn’t think of a better way to get lost.
SJ, loved the end product! I understand what you go through to get to what you envision in your mind. Some photos I edit, delete, edit, delete, leave, come back and start all over again LOL. This one turned out perfect. The first thought that came to my mind when I saw this photo was “Deep In Thought”. He looks as though nothing could distract him from his thoughts. Cool photo SJ. Thanks for participating!
Deep in Thought – sounds perfect to me. You have named this one. Thanks for hosting Anna – was a pleasure to join in.
I love the black and whites the best..I am always amazed how you can change a photo….how you can play with them..of course you have a perfect image here…As always…XOXOXOXO
Thank you Bongo, I love the black and white too. Sometimes it just makes it all come together x
Hello SJ.
Not being a photographer, I’m amazed at the work involved in getting to the finished product.
Your boy is quite the handsome lad & you did an excellent job! There’s something about black & white that just “pops” over color.
Very nice moment.
Thanks for sharing.
Hi Andy, thank you. It is surprising how much effort can go into one photo but it’s not every photo. Sometimes you just need to give it a little bit of TLC to really finish it off
The original image is my favorite — hehe! I am not a digital artist, pretty old-fashioned, I guess! What a handsome boy — can’t imagine having such a fair child
Thank you Linda, I love that everyone has their favourites x He is very fair indeed
Really interesting. I always shoot in large format jpeg and use the iphoto very basic app to do minor editing. maybe I should go back to raw but what I do is very quick!!
I like iphoto, I still use it now when I have very little edits as I do find it a lot quicker. I often like to crop my photo’s about and I find that if I shoot in jpeg format then I lose too many pixels and definition. I just prefer raw because of that