Old General

[llewpics]

Did a bunch of shots at the Civil War Reenactment ...any thoughts?

[n8]

overdone. What was your technique for the sharpening/detail?

[geraldb]

Very nice portrait but yes, overly processed. too many mid-tones, it needs more dark tones in the right places. I'd use darker tones for the background. I'm not keen on the square crop.

[armando_m]

nicely framed

as said above , needs more contrast, light seem to have been very even on the face, just a bit more on the left

nose is sharp, hair is sharp, but eyes are a bit blurry ?

[wfooshee]

Too much fill light? There's a halo against the hat and the coat against the background.

Square crop doesn't bother me, but maybe better just touch taller than square, see some more of the coat?

But it's processed enough that the face looks like it came from a different picture than the hat and coat.

[Lava Lamp]

Great character and portrait. My first shot was that he seemed authentic, but then how would I know from almost 150 years ago. WIth black and white I try to remember that there should be true blacks, true whites and a range in between. Your photo seems to be missing the black.

[Ptax]

Love the subject, the crop doesn't bother me, but I agree with comments about how the processing doesn't quite work on this image. A more traditional b&w might work better.

[llewpics]

Here is another version with the changes you all suggested ...

[Lava Lamp]

How about something in between? I just tried overlaying your first image over the second image as a layer in PS and adjusting its opacity to 10% and like it.

[LeeIs]

2nd version is really good. I agree that 1st one was over done.

I wish the BG had a bit more Bokeh to soften the lines.

[Greg McCary]

I really think a color edit would be better. I think there are too many mid tones. Maybe a color Grundy process.

[draymorton]

I like Greg's suggestion.

And agree that #1 is ridiculously overdone. You are far better than that.

The processing in #2 is just about perfect. But I also might play around with Lava's call for something in-between, just to see what happens.

I also feel that the square crop is confining and think this image might fare better with a portrait crop.

[Don Schaeffer]

The second version is much improved. The first version looks almost solarized.

[rossi46]

I prefer the second one. But I think you need to make a little bit more contrasty in the second one, just little bit more will do (not somewhere in between 1 and 2).

As this is supposed to be a photo with a vintage theme, I find the "overall" look of the image is not classic enough.
I guess you need to do more processing to create an really old film like look, and would suite the image more. Using some photoshop actions or plugins with vintage effects will help you achieve that.

[llewpics]

Here is a link to a gallery on my site with all the images ...and yes, some will be, perhaps, "over-processed" - but these are really more for my own personal exploration in mono conversions than anything else ...link is here.

[GB1]

I like the second posting. Agree that the first looks too processed and is missing some critical densities (which, I am not sure). Not a bad shot. Wish that the curtain was intersecting his head, but this isn't too bad. Good work

G