Face check

[Lenny Wollitz]

I was sitting and drinking coffee at the plaza and she stopped to check her face in her tablet. Lucky me! I like the background in focus on this one… what do you think? 1/125, f5.0, 50mm, ISO 100 Double click the foto for a bigger foto.

[John Thompson]

It is really a nice shot Lenny @el-dub. The problem is the black street light base. There is a lot of detail missing there.

[Claudia]

I do like the detail in the background – I think it suits the theme of the pic as the lady obviosly prepares to make an entrance. I concur with @nikon-nut though, as this picture has so much detail it is a shame to lose the details in the lower lamp post which might be easily brought out and not take away from the main subject as the contrasts in her dress would always draw the attention to her.

[Michael Lloyd]

I’m not too bothered by the missing detail in the lamp post but her hair is missing detail, that bothers me.

I suppose that it depends on whether this is an image of a lamp post with a pretty woman in it or an image of a pretty woman with a lamp post in it

[Lenny Wollitz]

Thank you all for your responses. @Nikon-nut and @Claudia-betia Hey John and Claudia… I agree about the lamp post. It looked a bit like a black blob so I tried to bring the details out just a bit. Better? @Michael-Lloyd Hopefully not enough to make an image of a lamp post with a woman. Michael, I have tried to bring out some detail in her hair with no luck… could it be just plain ol’ black as in zero? Any suggestions to try to bring it out? I have PS CC and LR5.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/eldub1/15020773552/

[Michael Lloyd]

She takes over the scene 🙂

The best way that I know of to confirm whether there is any information in the blacks or whites is to open the image (hopefully it’s a raw file) with no edits in either ACR or LR5. Mouse over the area of her hair and look at the % numbers for R, G, and, B. If they are very, very low or 0 (for black, very near or100 for white) then there’s not much info there and recovery isn’t likely. However, blacks have more leeway than whites so it’s worth a try to pull up shadow detail in her hair. You can do that in LR with the Adjustment Brush tool. Make sure auto mask is checked.

When converting from color to black and white, it’s best to make sure that the color image is as good as it can be, which includes retaining detail in important areas, and then convert. Sometimes I’ll even push the saturation for some colors beforehand to help with the conversion.

[Lenny Wollitz]

The % numbers are mostly between 1 and 3 so I think I will give up and let it be. Her hair was very thick and beautiful deep black. WOW, It’s easy to become obsessed with a shot and spend waaaaaay too much time on it!

[caimi]

Easier to spend way too little time on it. Nice composition. Nice capture. The picture would only benefit by spending the time to bring out the details.

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