Kind of sepia-ish

[adina]

I'm working on a new sepia, lost my old one. Anyone? I think it might be a little reddish, still playing, but was looking for someone else's view on it.

adina

[adina]

a little bit darker, not sure yet.

adina

[natatbeach]

actually it's nice but I'd boost the contrast and maybe play with the levels a bit (slide the right pointer a smidge towards the left and adjust the midtones a bit) it looks a bit flat...I LOVE the angle and the lighting...just needs a bit more depth... nice to see you post stuff over here

[Liz]

Adina,
You have a gift with your lovely, classic sepia, and b&w images.

My opinion - for what it's worth ;)
Interesting and enjoyable viewing. Good composition. IMO however, they don't look as "lively" as your other sepia photos. I think you may be right about the red. Can you change it to where you're more satisfied?

Liz

[Seb]

I'm working on a new sepia, lost my old one. Anyone? I think it might be a little reddish, still playing, but was looking for someone else's view on it.

adina

Hello Adina,

I cannot directly answer to your question but I just wanted to tell you how much I like them composition wise. The colors/levels may not be perfect but these remain the best kid pictures that I have seen in a long while. These are superbly lively and dramatic.

regards

Seb

[adina]

Nat and Liz (or anyone else) how do these look?

Seb, thanks so much. I've spent so much time working on this sort of thing, it's nice to get a fresh view.

adina

[Elysian]

Adina, it's important that you have a full range of colors, going from deep black to bright white. Your corrections still have the tendancy (even after your latest corrections) to lack contrast and that's exactly caused by the lack of this full range. It's important that when you make this correction that you keep as many details as possible in the dark and bright areas.

Creating more contrast also makes the image look sharper and brings out more details in hair and eyes.

In the second image I've cropped the image a bit smaller to get rid of the shoe on the left and I also removed some distracting elements on the floor and in the background, this way the focus is mainly on the girl and her own little world. I cropped the image in a way that the little girl got more space on the left side and less on the right side. By doing this I've moved her head to a stronger point of the photograph; about 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right.

To increase the impact of the images I've used several photoshop techniques;

- levels to bring the increase the range of colors
- curves, to increase the contrast (slight 'S' curve)
- shadow/highlight to slightly increase the details in the darker areas, but above all the details in the highlights
- dodge tool to increase the white in the eyes and teeth (just slightly)
- I sharpened the image
- removed some noise

I kept the image gray, just a personal preference.

I like both images a lot, very beautiful shots of a very spontaneous girl.
There is nothing really that I have to complain about, both images had a really strong impact on me. They only needed some minor corrections to bring out the details.

Thanks for sharing these great photographs with us

[adina]

While I also usually prefer b&w, I need to get my sepia figured out. I have a friend who is looking at doing sepia, gallery style, across her living room. But I'm going to play with some of the things you mentioned, on the version I like best.

Going to work on it some more tonight


adina