Color tone

[BigFuzzy]

Hi folks.. ok, here's one of those few chance you have to tear me a new one!

I'm posting this because I'm experimenting with subtle color tones (and associated contrast) in some images and I want to know what you think (without me prompting you by telling you exactly what I did).

Secondarily, though I'm not bothered by it, do you think the highlights are too much?
To me I like the feel of 'light' it gives and I like how it shapes her face/neck but I know others won't..but I'm curious to see if others also don't mind it. I'd not change it, but good to know.

I guess any other comments welcomed as well.



Exif:
SS 1/30
F/2
ISO 400
50mm on a 5D
Spot metering on the face
Clearly, with these settings it was pretty low light.

Thanks in advance!

[Hill Country Hack]

Overall I find the subject pleasing to the eye. The composition, crop, pose and overall feel work for me. I don't mind the extra highlight in the hair and neck/shoulder. This is from someone who prefers darker photos too!

What does bother me is the brightness on the camera right edge of the image. My eye keeps wandering over there. I used a piece of paper to make a square crop and get rid of the bright spot. I do like that much more.

[BigFuzzy]

Originally Posted by Hill Country Hack

Overall I find the subject pleasing to the eye. The composition, crop, pose and overall feel work for me. I don't mind the extra highlight in the hair and neck/shoulder. This is from someone who prefers darker photos too!

What does bother me is the brightness on the camera right edge of the image. My eye keeps wandering over there. I used a piece of paper to make a square crop and get rid of the bright spot. I do like that much more.

Thanks for that.. I'd intentionally placed her on the left, but never even thought about a square crop. I've been in a bit of a 'negative space' mood lately (even though this doesn't have much), but I'll revisit at home and see what that does. Good idea, thanks!
Glad you liked the rest!

EDIT: Just saw your photo and combined with what you said above about liking darker images.. and my comments on that.. hehe.

[Rentham]

Nice shot, Al. I like where you're going with the subtle tones, but I see her skin going a bit more yellow/green than I generally prefer.

What I love is the wrapping highlight. I think they work great, especially for ladies. In my beauty shots I generally hit the background with a few stops more than I need to get that wrapping effect. In the context of your shot, I think the muted tones, wrapping highlights, and relatively bright oof background combine for a nice dreamy effect. I dig it.

Edit: I also like the crop. I too have been playing with this sort of framing, especially on headshots. Sort of what you'd see in a close up in a film.

[Hill Country Hack]

I do like the negative space. It is the brightness at the edge that is distracting for me.

[Nicole]

Personally, I like the colour tone and I don't might the bright highlight on the hair, but... I actually think that overall the photo could be a little lighter. As it is, the blue tones seem to make the skin look a little muddy in tone. I think lightening it up a bit would actually clear that up and help out a bit more overall. Otherwise that's about the only thing.

[Niresangwa]

I'd say don't worry about the WB as it relates to skin tones. People can obviously see there's a treatment applied, and it's my belief they naturally adjust what they're seeing to account for it...(hell, I'd say less than half of my colour shots have natural skin tones, and no one has whined about it yet).

I do think that a cooling treatment as you've applied here is way more difficult to do than warming tones, and I think you pulled it off. As Rentham mentioned, it pulls a greenish hue to the skin and a blue hue to everything else which sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. For me, it does.

I like the 'pose' and her expression. It makes me think "I wish he'd done this..oh wait, no that wouldn't work...but I do wish he'd done that...oh wait, then he would have missed the other thing" ...so it left me interested and invested.

The blown highlights..yeah I wish they weren't, but it's still a great shot.

By The way Al...

[graciousness]

Hey Fuzz!

I LOVE IT. This is because it goes to the style that I love and have been using lately. Sometimes it comes out naturally from natural light and depending on the amount of greens/yellows in the background, but most of the time, I use a very muted 'colour filter' (colour monochrome) with the opacity close to 10% or less just to balance green or orange over skin tones to get the effect. As with anything, it's all a balancing act.

It reminds me of techniques used waaaay back centuries ago with oil painting where you use green as an undertone for skin for balance. It's still used today and you'll find that make up artists use green to even out redness on faces.

I also love it as it does give a little bit of vintage summer feel to it. Works very well with children and any photos with light mood to it.

The highlights don't bother me. As a matter of fact, I think it was controlled well and adds to the feel of the image. I think we, as technicians, get too strict with our ideas and process on our images that we are ready to write off any photographs that doesn't play by the 'rules'. As artists, we have to learn to overlook some technicalities such as blown out highlights so long as it serves our creative ideas.

Do my eyes go on the right side of the frame? Yes. Does it feel that it ruins the shot? Absolutely night. The first thing I looked at was her face and how calm it is. Then my eyes noticed the light. It's all done within balance of the mood the image is conveying.

Hope to see more!

Cheers,

Grace

[BigFuzzy]

Originally Posted by Rentham

Nice shot, Al. I like where you're going with the subtle tones, but I see her skin going a bit more yellow/green than I generally prefer.

What I love is the wrapping highlight. I think they work great, especially for ladies.[snip]background combine for a nice dreamy effect. I dig it.

Edit: I also like the crop. I too have been playing with this sort of framing, especially on headshots. Sort of what you'd see in a close up in a film.

Damn dude.. nailed it on several things I was specifically wanting. Glad to see it was subtle.. after staring at it for a while it looked waay over cooked for me.. but I'm picky that way. "Dreamy" was a word I was thinking when I shot this and thought about the processing. And yeah, I've been thinking very much about the look and feel of well shot movies and how to get that look in photos without being too obvious by adding the black bars above/below the frame!
And the wrapping highlights.. ah, what a nice phrase because that's what I saw them as.. almost as if she's physically feeling the light as it wraps it's hands around her face..

Originally Posted by Nicole

I actually think that overall the photo could be a little lighter. As it is, the blue tones seem to make the skin look a little muddy in tone. I think lightening it up a bit would actually clear that up and help out a bit more overall. Otherwise that's about the only thing.

Yeah, that was one of my worries which is why I mentioned contrast in my OP to see if the color toning muted it too much in my search for dreamy.

Originally Posted by Niresangwa

I do think that a cooling treatment as you've applied here is way more difficult to do than warming tones, and I think you pulled it off. As Rentham mentioned, it pulls a greenish hue to the skin and a blue hue to everything else which sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. For me, it does.

I like the 'pose' and her expression. It makes me think "I wish he'd done this..oh wait, no that wouldn't work...but I do wish he'd done that...oh wait, then he would have missed the other thing" ...so it left me interested and invested.

The blown highlights..yeah I wish they weren't, but it's still a great shot.

By The way Al...

Yeah.. the cold treatment still sits funny with me. But in the end, as you often say, it's more about making people think and really look at the image and become invested in it, even if they don't like it (or simply can't figure it out) because at least they're thinking about it. It's one of some small things I'm trying to do lately to subtly tweak things in one way or another to get exactly that.. the 'hmmm' moment in the viewer.. even if they don't like it.
You work, Steve, is in fact one of the inspirations because I always see you applying some sort of tonal vision to your images..so thanks.

Originally Posted by graciousness

I also love it as it does give a little bit of vintage summer feel to it.

The highlights don't bother me. As a matter of fact, I think it was controlled well and adds to the feel of the image. I think we, as technicians, get too strict with our ideas and process on our images that we are ready to write off any photographs that doesn't play by the 'rules'.

Yeah, even though it was a cold dreary day.. the light felt warm to me the way it played with her(and her blond hair which made a big difference!).
Yeah.. I think my mind was indeed thinking "it's technically blow, so that's bad right?" but then immediately thinking "**** it, I like it and wanted it that way".


Thanks everyone, as usual my plea for opinions found some very nice thought out responses. Cheers!

[amungus]

I agree with the others, there is a bit of a greenish and slight yellow hue to her face, but other than that... I have not one negative thing to say about this photo! It's a wonderful shot but then again, I'm new to photography so I don't know too much like the rest of yous