The Artist

[farnz]

Thanks for taking the time to look and your comments are welcome.

Pete.

The-Artist.jpg

[stnami]

A bit overdone, seems a bit smeared in parts, plus the cloth at the front has gone flat grey..................... could work with a bit more "grit"

[farnz]

Thanks for commenting, Imants. I burned the cloth heavily because it was distractingly bright but I guess I overdid it. I was aiming for a gritty look so could you suggest the best way to bring it out - more grain or larger grain perhaps?

Pete.

[stuny]

Pete -

I bow to Imants' experience in such matters (you can see why by viewing a number of his images), but regardless, I really like this image for its moment, light, content and composition.

[stnami]

It is either leave the cloth in or burn/erase it out completely ....... if you removed some of the noise in the first place leave it and add more grain though not larger

[farnz]

Thanks for your compliment, Stuart, and I also bow to Imants's experience and skill in this area. Imants's images are the inspiration for my treatment of this image and although I'm a novice I'm keen to learn and improve.


Imants,

Many thanks for your advice; I find it tricky to know how far to go in leaving things out to remove distractions or leaving them in to enhance background detail and which side of the line to err on. I didn't remove any noise and added some grain but obviously not enough.

Pete.

[stnami]

There is not much one can do with a blown highlights, in this case the cloth........... make sure that the grain can be seen especially the midtones

[roguewave]

Pete, I like the content. Is there any detail in the backgroud? Did you burn this in or just lighten the area around the man. If there's detail, I'd extract it to give some texture to frame him. All the emotion is in the man. There's plenty of mood there, no need to turn out the lights.

[farnz]

Ben,

Thanks also for your comments and suggestions.

To All,
Here is an adjusted version with more grain and the shadows opened up to show a tad more detail. I added as much grain as I'm comfortable with (more grain resembled a soot blizzard! ) but I'm not certain how it'll look after posting. Again, commments are welcome.

Pete.

The-Artist-grained.jpg

[earleygallery]

2nd version is much better Pete. Neopan 1600 would've worked really well for this one!

[fotografr]

I like the overall darkness in the original version more, with the exception of the grayed out cloth that Imants mentioned, mainly because the eyes are much more emphasized. I think the cloth (towel?) is best taken out entirely.

A great image with lots of impact and emotion.

[jejuneje]

Pete, the look of the 2nd is much better IMO. Either way it's an interesting image. Well done.
J

[farnz]

James,

Thanks for your comment; interestingly I used Alien Skin Exposure 2 to convert to b&w and used ... the Neopan 1600 emulation. A feather in Alien Skin's cap ... ?


Brent,

Thanks for your comment also. If I was skilled enough to remove the towel then I would've - I certainly tried exhaustively with the healing brush and the ground but none of my attempts produced slightly convincing results. After trying a number of other techniques unsuccessfully including painting over it I eventually cloned the texture from the jacket across and messed about with it and managed to convince myself that it only looked odd to me because I was conscious of it. (It's amazing what tricks the mind will play when it's tired of doing something .)

J,

Thanks for your comment too.

Pete.