[astonm]

Thanks again for another chance to host

Lately there has been a trend towards landscapes in the challenges. I'd like to mix it up a little bit this time with a bit of "impromptu portraiture."

This is going to be another shot taken with the Leica Summilux 80 on the K-3. Last May when the weather was fantastic we had a little Mother's Day fun with my daughter, and grand-daughter - the incredibly photogenic Lucy. In between bouts of running around the yard and turning cart-wheels like a typical seven year old, she turned her super-model posing game up to 11 for the camera.

I haven't done much in the portrait realm at all, I'd never used this lens for this, nothing was planned, and this was all just fun and games at the time. (meaning: I got lucky LOL)

So... (with her mother's permission, of course) Here's Lucy ! For this round let's see if we can turn this one into a print-worthy version for Lucy's mom. A few hurdles - It's Leica - it's naturally soft. And it's probably a bit out of focus. Being that, I've found these Leica images can take a decent amount of global &/or selective sharpening without "going wonky" like a typical modern lens. Under-exposed in the shade, and "less than ideal background" to deal with. Add red cheeks from all the playing, and possibly some green casts from the lush yard - you've got your work cut out for you. I hope everyone will have a bit of fun trying out a different sort of image for this challenge round.


Good luck to all!
~~Laurie

*******************************************************

Link to DNG download

[IMG][/IMG]

*******************************************************

For the next host:
The mediafire website is: mediafire.com
The login name is: ppchallenge@tmphillips.com
The password is: postprocessing

[Ivan]

[mariwalt]

So easy when you have such a lovely model.

If I could I would like to add a second attempt.

[astonm]

already some entries - awesome!

I realized I forgot to put an end date on this.... a week as usual, lets do last day for entries on Dec 8th.

~Laurie

[Andrej]

[img]https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/attachment.php
I did it on jpg and on phone. It's a sin I know...

[stevejo]

Here is my effort. Tried a warmer skin tone which I don't think is over the top.

[tuggie76]

Here's my 3 versions this time.

---

Last edited by tuggie76; 02-05-2021 at 11:10 AM.

[savoche]

I'm hopeless at taking portraits, so it's nice to get a chance to edit one

I tried a method for smoothing/sharpening in PS that I read about a while ago; one layer for NR (masking the bits that shouldn't be smoothed), and one highpass layer to sharpen the fine details "on top" on the smoothing. I think it can be a good method with a tad more experience

[Ivan]

I'm hopeless at taking portraits, so it's nice to get a chance to edit one

I tried a method for smoothing/sharpening in PS that I read about a while ago; one layer for NR (masking the bits that shouldn't be smoothed), and one highpass layer to sharpen the fine details "on top" on the smoothing. I think it can be a good method with a tad more experience

No need to be overly modest, you have a good approach to color.

[Tas]

Thanks for a great image to work with this is the only portrait image I've worked on all year so I guess I made up for it with creating so many versions.

Anyhoo last weekend I updated On1 PhotoRAW 2020 to the 2021 version. It was on special for Black Friday and the new version has a new thingy called Portrait AI. I usually don't have a need for a tool like that but this challenge gave me an opportunity to see what it does. I'm no expert but it seems to go nicely. There's a plug in version if you want to check it out, I assume they do a free trial thing with it but don't know.

So considering the busy distracting background I aimed at creating an image that does such a lovely young lass justice without letting the background dominate. Not sure whether I got that right but that was my intent. I ended up with four versions in total.

Version 1. This is the base image, I cropped to a 4:5 ratio and whilst I didn't try and squeeze down to have the eyes on the third I aimed to get it closer and better balanced in the frame for what I was trying to do.


Version 2. I like a style of image toning that is a blue/yellow combination. I don't know what it is about that combo that I particularly like but this version is my personal favourite.


Version 3. I felt the background was still a little bright so I decided to add a vignette and it was interesting to see the Portrait AI tool seems to have darkened young Lucy compared with Version 1 which is identical other than for the vignette.


Version 4. And finally I was looking at an antique style and in the end none of them appealed to me so I created a B&W version and then played with the colour channels a bit to prevent the background being too bright. I think Lucy might be a bit too bright though so I re-did that version and after uploading and seeing them side by side on the white background makes me doubt whether she is too bright. I'll leave that up to the host to decide.


So there you go, hopefully Lucy and her mum like some of these too.

Tas

[tmlawes]

I don't do a lot of portraits, so this was an interesting challenge. Thanks for mixing it up.

[todd]

edit: uno mas

[noelcmn]

A tight crop from me and a bit of saturation to bring out those rosy cheeks of this Cutie




The sepia coloration I also though was interesting

[graeme83]

Thanks for providing something a bit different to the landscapes of late, I don't take many portraits so its nice to have a go at processing one and such a lovely model too.
Tried to go for a filmy looking black and white with the aim to keep it natural, softened and darkened down the background to lessen the distractions and a 4x5 portrait crop.

[Ivan]

I don't do a lot of portraits, so this was an interesting challenge. Thanks for mixing it up.

Thank you, beautiful natural face.

---------- Post added 12-06-20 at 12:39 PM ----------

Thanks for a great image to work with this is the only portrait image I've worked on all year so I guess I made up for it with creating so many versions.

Anyhoo last weekend I updated On1 PhotoRAW 2020 to the 2021 version. It was on special for Black Friday and the new version has a new thingy called Portrait AI. I usually don't have a need for a tool like that but this challenge gave me an opportunity to see what it does. I'm no expert but it seems to go nicely. There's a plug in version if you want to check it out, I assume they do a free trial thing with it but don't know.

So considering the busy distracting background I aimed at creating an image that does such a lovely young lass justice without letting the background dominate. Not sure whether I got that right but that was my intent. I ended up with four versions in total.

Version 1. This is the base image, I cropped to a 4:5 ratio and whilst I didn't try and squeeze down to have the eyes on the third I aimed to get it closer and better balanced in the frame for what I was trying to do.


Version 2. I like a style of image toning that is a blue/yellow combination. I don't know what it is about that combo that I particularly like but this version is my personal favourite.


Version 3. I felt the background was still a little bright so I decided to add a vignette and it was interesting to see the Portrait AI tool seems to have darkened young Lucy compared with Version 1 which is identical other than for the vignette.


Version 4. And finally I was looking at an antique style and in the end none of them appealed to me so I created a B&W version and then played with the colour channels a bit to prevent the background being too bright. I think Lucy might be a bit too bright though so I re-did that version and after uploading and seeing them side by side on the white background makes me doubt whether she is too bright. I'll leave that up to the host to decide.


So there you go, hopefully Lucy and her mum like some of these too.

Tas

Thank you, I'm glad someone took this assignment seriously, I love your work too.[COLOR="Silver"]

---------- Post added 12-06-20 at 12:53 PM ----------


For me, for some reason, the question of naturalness is important in a portrait. It seems to me that the girl is still pale-faced.