Daniele's Painter (grunged)

[Jboy]

After a week-long stay in Italy, I'm catching up here at DPS and trying out some new techniques on a few of the shots I took- and this time I wanted to try grunging.

I took a texture on a nearby wall and overlaid it using a desaturated multiply layer, then did a high pass sharpen, soft light vignette, and tweaked the colors a bit. Here's the result:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/23207456@N02/2345523947/" title="Italy '08 - Daniele's Painter by jonathan.khouzam, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2138/2345523947_c713959ffa.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Italy '08 - Daniele's Painter" /></a>

Exif (do we need to post it for this section?):

Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/4000
Av( Aperture Value ) 4.5
ISO Speed 200
Lens EF50mm f/1.8
Focal Length 50.0 mm

(Sorry about the watermark - we have an upcoming photography contest at my school and I'm hoping to submit this picture, after getting some feedback - wouldn't want any classmates 'borrowing' it)

I'm mostly satisfied with the pic, but of course I do have a few questions since this is my first time using the technique.

First, does it look overprocessed? I myself tend to thing not, but the colors are a bit dark to my liking and therefore give the illusion of an overprocessed image, I think- they looked much brighter in the Photoshop workspace so I'm having trouble getting that right balance.

Is the grunge appropriate? I liked it because there were all these textures on the walls next to the place, so, in a way, it give the image a context. Kind of. I think? Maybe I'm overanalyzing this.

Is the crop appropriate? I would've liked to have a tighter horizontal crop (especially on the left), but I don't want to cut out the doorframe or the sign on the bottom, and I need to keep the 3:2 aspect ratio.

Any other criticism is of course appreciated, and probably needed. Comments, criticisms and insults are greatly appreciated!

[Matthew James Norman]

Hi Jboy,

Firstly adding a watermark like that may not stop people borrowing the image as it can easily be cloned or cropped out. If you're worried about people using your image without your consent then all you need to do is keep the original image with EXIF (date image was taken) data intact.

The lighting, colouring and texture I like, but I can't see it being 'grunge' enough. More texture, scratch marks, colour gradients may add to the overall grunging.

What I assume is a streetlamp is quite dominating and draws the eye away from other parts of the image.

[RexK_Cozumel]

Actually it is a very easy process to remove exif data from an image. The only way to 100% guarentee someone not steal your image is to not put it online at all. But then I suppose someone could break into your house and steal the image off your computer. Cant guard against everything. Anyway you can make it so that people cant steal your image for print work by resizing your image to some absurdly small size so that they can only print a 1 inch picture at reasonable quality.

[Murtasma]

I really like the sharpening you did. It makes the building and person really pop out from the background. I think your processing was done well. My question is what is this person doing are they painting? If so it would have been nice to get a longer stroke of his arm so you can see the paint brush.

[Jboy]

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone!

...As you all pointed out watermarking/resizing was a pretty silly thing to do, especially if I wanted feedback that requires a larger pic. So I replaced the image in the original post with a much larger unmarked version- worst case scenario, I still have my raw. (RexK- the thought of someone breaking in to steal it is very flattering :))

Unfortunately the other shots I took were even worse concerning the lamppost and brush. In the larger image you can kind of see the brush (yep, he's painting the balcony, Murtasma) but I probably should've gone in closer. You can see the brush if you squint. But obviously squinting isn't the idea here. As for the lamppost, I had trouble changing my angle since it was taken from a narrow set of stairs. Which comes back to "should've gone closer."

I'll try experimenting with more grunge textures, but for some reason the image come out much darker when I save than in the photoshop workspace, so this makes adding textures without overdarkening tricky. Has anyone had problems like this in CS3?

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

[Nathan deGargoyle]

I love the image but, rather than grunge, your treatment makes it look like a theatre set. I think the painter is saying "Hang on Juliet your balcony will be ready soon!"

Great image and great treatment. well done!

[peeperita]

yeah, i agree i don't see very much of "grunge " to this image.....but, i do think that the post work really "worked" for this shot.....nice hand on ya....

thabnks for sharing

peeper

[Dafyd]

Actually it is a very easy process to remove exif data from an image. The only way to 100% guarentee someone not steal your image is to not put it online at all.

This is true, but I wanted to point out that if you keep the original with exif intact and someone steals the image and removes the exif, your original is proof of ownership. If it really worries you, I would suggest making a copy of the image, removing the exif from the copy yourself, then posting the copy. That way nobody will ever have the exif but you, and your proof of ownership will be pretty much conclusive.