Kassy in Black and White up close!!!

[kimspics]

still practicing my portrait shots yall. This pic I changed to B&W via Nikon D300 w/out doing any post editing. I like the close up. What do yall think?

[miacat63]

I think this is a lovely shot and you have captured her cheeky personality I think. I am very new to this myself, but could you edit the whites of her eyes slightly and perhaps her teeth to brighten them a little? Her freckles are adorable :-)

[kimspics]

thanks for your reply, I don't know how to brighten her eyes or teeth( I do not have software to do that- one more reason to get photoshop uh!!)

[dognutmom]

I think you got her with a great expression, it looks in focus. It is a nice candid shot ... I love to get these of my sons as opposed to formal posed shots.

I think I would crop it so that she is more to the left ... the space to the left is distracting to me. I also would boost the black and white a bit ... this looks a little too flat to me. All of that can be done in Picassa ... I think you said you had Picassa in an earlier post?

Once I cropped, I would probably also clone out the black line to the right ... The Gimp can do that easily with the clone tool (looks like a rubber stamp - google to find a Gimp Clone tutorial)

All of this is just my opinion ... I don't really know a lot, but I know what I like

[jiminyClickit]

kimspics,

Eyes, eyes, eyes. Just can't say enough about them. There are three catchlights in both of Kassy's, but they don't show enough - aren't light enough - to give life and shape sense to them. If you select around the pupils and lighten/contrast, better.

Did you look at it mirrored? Just wondered.

[benjamieson]

Kim,

Do I have you permission to do a quick edit and post it here for you?

Ben

[kimspics]

of course you do.... Please

[benjamieson]

OK, this was done in about 5 minutes while my 3yr old watched curious george, so by no means a finished product, just a quick edit to highlight what others have said.



What I've done is boosted the overall contrast with curves (available in Gimp) by bringing in both the left and right (white and black) points, moved it over to the left a little and extended the right hand side (to give it more balance), knocked back the grey line in the background, then lightened up just the eyes and teeth.

Hopefully the end result doesn't look too processed, and gives you an idea of what can be done in just a few minutes with free software (I did actually use Photoshop, but all the tools are available in Gimp)

Hope it helps.

Ben


PS: She's a beautiful 'model' - your daughter?

[kimspics]

Your'e wonderful and it is absolutley great. Thank you so much !!!! I also have Gimp but do not have a clue what to do with it !! it's very frustrating to me.

[benjamieson]

Don't despair - every bit of software is overwhleming to begin with.

Best way to start is to grab a photo like this and say to yourself - "Its a portrait, I want to touch it up" then head to google and search for just that:

portrait touchup gimp''and you'll find a bunch of tutorials.

Try them - ignore the stuff you don't need in the software until you need it and you'll be less overwhelmed!

Have to run - my daughter wants to play babies... again!

Ben