Processing photos - input please

[24Peter]

Original:

http://photos.imageevent.com/24peter/uploads/upload3/large/IMG_9063orig.JPG

Process #1

http://photos.imageevent.com/24peter/uploads/upload3/large/IMG_9063.JPG

Process #2

http://photos.imageevent.com/24peter/uploads/upload3/large/IMG_9063g.JPG

Any thoughts?

[downtrodden]

Hey man! I like #2 the best of the processed images, my only complaint is the door of the truck. In the original, the reflection is just perfect and in the edits it becomes some what of a distraction to me.

#3 is just too much (at least on my un-calibrated screen) it makes her looks sickly and kinda overly pale. Def. go with either the original or #2.

[Rhys]

B&W or Sepia only

[nqjudo]

Ya know Peter, it's tough to say. Processing is so subjective. What I can say for sure is that they look tasteful and not overdone. Very nice to my eye anyway.

[downtrodden]

Ooh! Yeah.. try Black and White!

[Nickcanada]

I like #2 the most!

[toriaj]

I agree that the last one makes her look sickly. Her legs look fine in #1, but her face still looks a little spooky (and she looks fine in the original.) Maybe a lower-contrast edit would work better for her face.

[RebelRat]

In between original and #2.

[cdifoto]

High contrast scenes like this are a good candidate for RAW, in my opinion, because you can do more while keeping the skin natural.

[D Thompson]

Pete - here is my .02 for what it's worth. It depends on the look you're going for. They look well done but here is my opinion on the results.

Process #2 - doesn't work at all for me. Skin tone is complete wash. Looks like she's hasn't seen the sun her entire life. Not really crazy about what it did to the truck color either. Looks like a bit of Lucis applied for some reason.

Process #1 - this is better, but still her skin tone is a little too washed for my taste, IMO needs to be warmed up a bit. I like the truck much better, altho the highlights on the fender and door are a little too blown for my taste. The brown wall looks much better.

I agree with rebelrat, probably somewhere in between the original and process #1. Maybe lower the opacity a little to let some of the original background layer come thru. Could also maybe use a layer mask to fine tune.

[Gopher]

Pete: I've seen some amazing stuff from you but this one's not cutting it for me in more ways than one. The pose, facial expression, tilt, and under exposure corrections just seem to add up to an awkward Vampire for me. Sorry.

[24Peter]

The pose, facial expression, tilt, and under exposure corrections just seem to add up to an awkward Vampire for me. Sorry.

LOL. Cool. Call me Lestat :D
-------------------------------
Thanks all, for the input. #2 was my attempt at the "Dave Hill" look - gritty, desaturated. This may not be the best image to apply that look, or at least I should have masked off the skin tones before applying it.

As was pointed out, it is a subjective thing. I'm leaning towards #1 myself.

Downy - thanks for the suggestion on the reflections on the truck body.

Don - I actually did mask off the sky in the upper right when I did my processing. However, I think I lost track of my layers and it slipped back in on a curves adjustment or something. Not sure RAW is answer, but I should have kept a closer eye on it while I was doing my edit.

Well I only have 399 more shots to process for her shoot, so stay tuned... :D

[cdifoto]

Don - I actually did mask off the sky in the upper right when I did my processing. However, I think I lost track of my layers and it slipped back in on a curves adjustment or something. Not sure RAW is answer, but I should have kept a closer eye on it while I was doing my edit.
I'm not saying RAW is everything (or even trying to convert you) but I've noticed on some of my shots that when I'm futzing (usually curves) with a JPEG in PS I get that highlight burned look on wedding shots. I then go try to do the same thing in LR before converting and then do everything except what caused the burning in PS and it's fine. Probably has something to do with the fact that I'm using the original RAWs in LR vs the 8bit JPEGs in PS. I'm pretty sure RAW has a lot more data in the highs than JPEG does.

The more I notice these little things, the more I try to move my edits over to LR before I make a JPEG out of the file. There are still things I haven't figured out how to do in LR that I do as an action in PS though.

[cdr116]

A compromise between the original and #2 would look good IMO.

[Nickcanada]

I'm surprised you're not shooting more RAW. Is it the file sizes that is scaring you away?

[michaelb]

#2 for me.

[adam75south]

tough call peter, but i think #2

[24Peter]

I'm surprised you're not shooting more RAW. Is it the file sizes that is scaring you away?

I've never been convinced there's a real, significant advantage to shooting RAW for the way most people (including myself) shoot. No one has ever shown me a RAW photo that couldn't have been shot as .jpeg.

When I got my 40D I was all excited to shoot RAW. I got a fast 8GB CF card and did a week of testing. But at the end of the week, I was left with all these huge files and I couldn't see any real difference (without extreme pixel peeping) in my pics.

Everyone raves about how you can save the highlights and adjust WB in RAW photos. But I can do that just as easily with .jpgs in CS3 (you can even use ACR with .jpgs). And if you properly expose a photo to begin with, there's not really much that should need saving.

So for me, shooting RAW is not necessary, and it's not worth the add'l work and disk space (and I have 1.2 TB of space at this point). Canon's (unlike some other manufacturer's) in-camera jpeg engine is fine for what I do.

There are probably a few specialty applications where shooting RAW helpful. For instance, 16 bit files stand up to processing better so for large composites/multi-layers images like you see in the commercial world, shooting RAW is an advantage. HDR work also benefits from the ability to create multiple EV's from one file.

But for the average Joe (or Peter in this case), I remain unconvinced shooting RAW is necessary or even really helpful. I don't begrudge those who think RAW is better. And one day, when I get hired for those big commercial jobs I may even change my mind and decide it's important to me (chances are the art directors will require it.) But for now at least, it's .jpgs all the way baby. :D

[cdifoto]

Chances are if you were doing that curves adjustment or whatever that killed her skin in RAW, she wouldn't look so dead. That's what RAW is good for. You can recover a lot more detail on the high end from a RAW than from a JPEG. What that means is you can overexpose a bit intentionally, and bring back those bits. RAW won't do you much good if you're always working within the D-range of the camera.

In other words, I can overexpose a wedding shot intentionally to keep shadow details in place, knowing that I'll pull down the highlights later...rather than letting the darks block up to save the dress.

[adam75south]

uh oh. sounds like we need to do some raw vs jpeg tests in lightroom.

honestly i don't have any idea how much of an advantage...or if there's really an advantage at all...i don't even know what the difference is with 8bit vs 16bit, but it's supposed to be better. and lightroom is the shizzz, so i shoot raw.

now i will say that there's no way i'd ever use photoshop to edit my batches ever again...so my deal would all be about the benefit of raw vs jpeg in lightroom. maybe at some point i'll do a test to see what's up.

[Idnas71]

The whites of her eyes look a little zombyish. But I know nothing of fashion. :)

[cdifoto]

I did a test awhile back and the difference in highlight recovery/overexposure was something like 2 stops for RAW and 1 for JPEG. That's not the only benefit though. Other benefits of RAW include the ability to remove hot/stuck/dead pixels much more easily in RAW (lots of programs can do it with RAW but not JPEG, and Lightroom does it automatically on RAW and cannot do it on JPEG), no/less banding when you push the global edits, and WB adjustment with zero quality loss regardless of As-Shot WB. With a JPEG you have to be close to the correct WB already in order to get a good dead-on WB....ie you can't shoot in-camera Tungsten and change it to Daylight without problems in JPEG but you can in RAW.

[downtrodden]

Worry not Peter, I too do not shoot RAW- for pretty much the same reasons, However, my work shows it- so i might not be the one to have some solidarity with! :X

[Nickcanada]

I don't think Jamie uses RAW either.

I didn't like working with RAW until I started using Lightroom. The differences are quite obvious when playing around with RAW vs JPEG in lightroom, IMO.

[cdifoto]

Yeah Jamie's still a jay pegger last I heard. I can see some shots where RAW would have helped though.