[skipper954]

While walking around Hanoi, I stopped at a park where as a pastime, the men gather around a board game and play with intense concentration.

I saw this very interesting looking gentleman, and stood about 8 - 10 ft away, waiting for him to notice me so that I could ask if I could take his picture. He did not move.

Then I knelt down and moved around a bit with my camera, hoping that he would turn to me. No luck.

An onlooker motioned that it was ok, I should take the pic, but I was still a bit uneasy. I made a bit of noise, and moved around a lot. Nothing.

Finally, I pointed my camera in the air, clicked the shutter to see if he would move with the shutter sound. Still nothing. So I took his picture and left.

This was either a big money game or his hearing aide didn't work well.

Shot with my d70 at 1/200 f/4.5 and 105mm (in 35mm film) focal length. The only post processing besides BW conversion was some exposure correction and burning of his beard.

[danpen]

That's a great shot, what a character.

[fionaB]

yep this is one of your best IMHO Skip......... u have captured the essense of the man perfectly! superb

[skipper954]

Thank you guys.

Fi, that "guys" is generic

[Gary Bagshawe]

Fa ntastic shot

[Steve]

Great story and a great shot, however I do feel that your processing skills are letting you down currently.



I took your shot and using dodge and burn I reduced the severity of the highlights on his face and his beard in particular and also brought forward the shadow detail in his jacket to make the centre of the image contrast less. I then masked his face and beard and applied a small amount of blur to the rest of the picture to emphasise his face and make this the key focal point. As his actual eyes are not visible I also brought forward key details in his face (wrinkles etc) to further grab your attention.

From there I applied small black gradient to the top of the picture to subdue the harsh white from the sky, with that then controlled I applied three different large feathered lightness masks to gradually blend the brightness out from the centre of the shot to the edges of the frame. I then applied a strong vignette to the outside of the shot with a small amount of noise and finally I felt a slightly warmer sepia colouring would better suite the shot, so this was added as a final colour overlay.

Looking at the final outcome now, I would say that I have lost just a little too much detail from his beard. If it were my shot I would have saved the layers as I went along and it would have been easy to get that back. I cannot stress how important it is to learn how to work with layers as they offer a great deal of flexibility and control over all your different edits and adjustments.

EDIT - I hadn’t closed PS so I rescued some of the original detail in the beard

This may seem like a great deal of work, however all of these steps are fairly easy and combined it probably took me around 10 minutes from start to finish. The original picture I was working on is a low resolution version of yours, the final re-worked original has massive potential and this shot definitely deserves your time. If nothing else you will learn several new skills that you will be able to utilise on many shots.

Hope that helps

[lolyton]

It does benefit greatly from the extra processing! There is a fabulous image there waiting to come out, as demostrated by Steve.
Certainly no faulting the photographer on this picture!

[skipper954]

Steve

This is exactly the kind of input I am looking for in Pixalo. Thank you. I printed out your steps and will play with them.

I have been using PS cs2 for nearly a year, and still just touching the surface of what this program can do. I do work in layers most of the time, and always try to be nondestructive in my processing.

However, I am beginning to feel that even if one knows the many features of PS, it is incredibly important to be able to look at an image and know what to do to improve it. That is an area of real concern for me, and I hope that I can develop the eye to do it.

One question: what is "brought forward key details in his face"? How do you bring forward? I don't understand this.

Thanks again for the work you did on this image and the explanation.

[lolyton]

Originally Posted by skipper954

One question: what is "brought forward key details in his face"? How do you bring forward? I don't understand this.

Steve will be able to answer exactly what he means, but i just think that he highlighted key details in the face thus making them stick out more thus bring forward in your noticing of them!

[Steve]

Originally Posted by lolyton

Steve will be able to answer exactly what he means, but i just think that he highlighted key details in the face thus making them stick out more thus bring forward in your noticing of them!

I used the lasso tool then feathered it according to how big or small the selection was finally sharpening each selection with smart sharpen at various amounts.

There are no hard and fast rules with this kind of processing thought, a little trial and error will give you your desired results then with more practice you’ll begin to do a lot of the work almost instinctively

Photoshop is a massive program and I still regard myself very much as a beginner where it is concerned. Some of the other members here regularly display editing way beyond my skill levels.