April 2009 Photography Assignment - Portraits (human)

[kat]

Looking good to me nomad!!!! Great photos everyone!

[Marko]

I Like your shot Greg - though it looks like it could benefit from a wee bit more contrast.
Darkness - Cool pose.
Nomad - much better on the hand

[darkness]

I really like your picture nomad. I have a question for you as well. How do you bring out such vibrant eyes? I try to do it but mine seem to turn out dark most of the time.

[nomad358]

Thanks everyone for your kind comments!

Darkness: If you're using a PC, here's one way: There is a trick I often use for bringing out the eyes a little more. It's very subtle, but it makes a great difference to a portrait. If you have Photoshop, zoom in to 100% view by pressing the CTRL and + keys together.
Select the Magic Wand tool and set the Tolerance to between 8-12. Now make the selection to the colour parts of both eyes by holding down the SHIFT key and clicking in the Iris area of the eyes until they are both selected. (You do not need to select the pupil.)(You can also use the lasso tool, but I find the Magic Wand to be faster) Next, goto IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > HUE/SATURATION. Goto to the Saturation slider and boost it to +20 or +25, then underneath that is the Lightness slider, boost that to +3 or +4. I wouldn't go over that amount because the eyes will start to look unnatural. After that, click OK and then click CTRL and D together to release the selection and then zoom out CTRL and - , to check the results. Hope it works for you! :-)

KAT: Your shot is awesome! Just wondering, why Manual Focus?

[Gem]

Yes! Finally managed to do one of these assignments! My friend had a bday dinner yesterday so I took the camera along in hopes of getting some usable shots.

Okay, considering this was taken in a darkened restaurant after sunset with just the pop-up flash on my canon s5, I'm just happy to get SOMETHING that's halfway decent

Birthday girl (lol).

[Mad Aussie]

Gem ... Has she just eaten a lemon???

[Marko]

here's mine - sorry they are so late but my camera is in the shop.
This shot was done with a high grain film (3200).

[kat]

A lemon..lol.

Nice photo marko. I like the outdoor reflection on the glasses but the white background. Great looking black and white.

[nomad358]

Awesome shot Marko! Save the best for last! I love the grain and the detail.

[Marko]

I (quickly) extracted the bkgd from the last shot because of the lack of detail in the sky. (Yes, shame on me for leaving without my polarizer)
here's the original - comments?
thx - Marko