What'd I do?!?

[roostabunny]

Hey all, made several posts, but this is my first in “Before & After”.

Do we like exif data in this area? Can't hurt...
50mm
1/100
f/2.2
ISO 400

I think this is more of a SYS area, but I do have an issue I want to ask about.

This was processed in the GIMP. Tweaked brightness and contrast overall, adjusted color a bit (the “before” is a JPEG export of the SOOC RAW image) did some sharpening specific to the eyes, smoothed the skin using a high-pass filter and layer mask, took care of hair fuzzies with a clone stamp (super difficult and still not sure I like the end result), did an unsharp mask to the whole image, desaturated a bit, and brightened the eyes a smidge with the dodge tool.

So overall, I like the result and think it’s subtle enough (though I’m open to general comments if you see other problems), but what the Sam Hill did I do to her blouse?

I have not quite gotten the hang of using layers and how to maintain them throughout the process, so I’m kind of stumped about what adjustment I made to take her blouse from being textured and sheer to being blown-out blue.

Any ideas? Fixes?

Side note - Don't think you can't help if you're a PS or Lightroom user, a lot of the terms are the same in both programs. Thanks!

[lotteotte]

nice edit - and thanks a lot for all the specifics, very helpful to me. the only thing i am not too crazy about is that in the edited version her hair looks a bit too yellow. in the original it looks more natural and healthier to me.

[zona5101]

Nice job on the edit. The hair is tough, seeing what you started with you did well. There is a little tuft sticking out under the cheek by the mouth...might as well get that out of there too.
The shirt looks like it is sharpened/oversharpened. Warming up the skin probably pushed up the saturation on the blouse. You can blur the shirt down if you want but I don't find it terribly objectionable.

[Twinpanther]

Yup, well done.

I agree with Zona. The hair under the cheekbone is a little distracting. As far as the shirt, I like it this way. It adds texture to the image without taking my eyes from her face when I first look.

My only suggestion (and it is purely just my opinion) would be a closer crop. Something like:

[JFSanders]

The sharpening edit works by strengthening the contrast along the edges. In your SOOC image the edges are soft and muted. By over-sharpening you created a definite edge to the textures and by extension caused the underlying colors to move closer in values. This results in what you have in the second image. Tone down the unsharp until you get back to what you like. Or you can use the layers tool to just sharpen the eyes which is what most do.

Jim

[roostabunny]

Originally Posted by lotteotte

nice edit - and thanks a lot for all the specifics, very helpful to me. the only thing i am not too crazy about is that in the edited version her hair looks a bit too yellow. in the original it looks more natural and healthier to me.

Thanks for the feedback, Lotteotte! Yeah, I'm trying to pay more attention to what I'm doing, just in case I want to do it again.

I'm not crazy about the yellow hair either, and I think the recently-discovered (by me, anyway) hue/saturation tool might help there. I was trying to desaturate the yellow out, but clearly LESS of yellow (and every other color) still results in yellow. I'll try to fix the yellow and post back if I get it.

[roostabunny]

Originally Posted by zona5101

Nice job on the edit. The hair is tough, seeing what you started with you did well. There is a little tuft sticking out under the cheek by the mouth...might as well get that out of there too.
The shirt looks like it is sharpened/oversharpened. Warming up the skin probably pushed up the saturation on the blouse. You can blur the shirt down if you want but I don't find it terribly objectionable.

Thanks, Bruce! It was downright maddening.

I think I let the tuft go cause I was afraid I'd mess up the even softer edge (like I had so many times up above) but I've recovered enough to give it another go.

And YES! Over sharpened. Agreed. Rereading a skin smoothing tut I saw the author describe the high pass filter as "it'll look over sharpened" and I said "huh?... huh!"

Blurred it down a bit, and I felt much better. I also agree that it wasn't too terrible - I didn't even notice at first - but I missed the subtle sheerness in the texture.

[roostabunny]

[QUOTE=Twinpanther;1323633]Yup, well done.

I agree with Zona. The hair under the cheekbone is a little distracting. As far as the shirt, I like it this way. It adds texture to the image without taking my eyes from her face when I first look.

My only suggestion (and it is purely just my opinion) would be a closer crop.

Thanks, TwinPather! I'm going to take another crack at the remaining fuzzies. I'm a big fan of close crops myself, and on this set I've forced myself a couple of times to pull back further than I usually do. Either way, I like the edit, may try something like that!

Edit: You know, I just figured out what it was that really bugged me about the shirt. It just looked edited to me, and I'm hypersensitive about over editing my niece, who (contrary to my habit) has seen many of the SOOC shots.

[roostabunny]

Originally Posted by JFSanders

The sharpening edit works by strengthening the contrast along the edges. In your SOOC image the edges are soft and muted. By over-sharpening you created a definite edge to the textures and by extension caused the underlying colors to move closer in values. This results in what you have in the second image. Tone down the unsharp until you get back to what you like. Or you can use the layers tool to just sharpen the eyes which is what most do.

Jim

Gracias, Jim! Actually, I had a separate layer of sharpening just the eyes, and then an overall unsharp mask later. I guess that overall was what nuked the blouse. I used the blur brush to soften it up where it bothered me, and got back a lot of the sheerness I was missing. I'll post back once I have a chance to address the over-yellow hair.

[roostabunny]

OK, think I got that hair poof OK.

But the color... not so much. I think I tamed the yellow at the expense of her skin tone. I still don't fully trust my monitors, but do you folks see what I'm seeing?

What I did was to move the "Master" on the hue control to the point where it dulled the yellow a bit. Clearly, I'm a real novice on color correction. I can tell that the controls are powerful, I just don't know how to read what I'm seeing, visualize what I want, and map a slider move to the difference. I'm hungry for tips or suggested reading.