Portrait Recovery..

[Alpha_7]

Well after a night out shooting I came back and found in general a lot of shitty shots, this was one of them, but I really tried hard to recover it from the RAW which was soft and noisey. So how did I do, would this shot pass for ok, if not is there anything else I can do?

I'd appreciate any advice - thanks.


ISO 800, F2.8, 1.13sec, 125mm (using the 80-200)

[daniel_r]

It's good, particularly so given the exposure time (your model must have held very still).

The only thing I can fault in your exposure / processing is that it's a bit muddy - as in no real white definition to balance the image out. From a quick play around, I tried adding a brightness/contrast bump of +10 on the brightness. Seemed to clean it up a bit and brought back some of the lighter tones.

[rooboy]

1.13sec

I'd say that's your problem. ISO 1600 @ 1/2 sec (or even pushed RAW files @ 1/4 sec) might have been more successful.

It's a good shot, showing a lot of character, but at that size it's quite soft on the lower half of her face.

Maybe try lightening it up a bit to draw attention away from the softer bottom half to the eyes, which seem sharp?

[daniel_r]

Just checked again in PS CS - there's a bit of tonal clipping in the histogram. The +10 moves the bulk of the curve back toward the middle a bit.

[Alpha_7]

It's good, particularly so given the exposure time (your model must have held very still).

The only thing I can fault in your exposure / processing is that it's a bit muddy - as in no real white definition to balance the image out. From a quick play around, I tried adding a brightness/contrast bump of +10 on the brightness. Seemed to clean it up a bit and brought back some of the lighter tones.

She was actually posing for someone else, and I was snapping at a further distance over their shoulder. I'll try playing with the brightness (but I'm on my laptop so its super hard to judge the brightness, but I agree on the muddiness).

Here is the shot straight from raw.

[Steffen]

Wow, 1+ second, seriously? I'm not sure I could hold still with this kind of facial expression for one second.

Cheers
Steffen.

[wendellt]

it's not a shitty shot it just looks candid
sometimes that sort of blur and noise can give an image a nice feel

subject matter is good of D-mo famous sydney fashion photographer

your b+w treatment is probably as far as you can go to recover it

[Alpha_7]

Wow, 1+ second, seriously? I'm not sure I could hold still with this kind of facial expression for one second.

Cheers
Steffen.

1/13s of a second sorry my Sony with the typo, at 125mm and 1.13 seconds I'm sure it would of been rubbish

Thanks for the feedback.