cropping/bw suggestions

[ingulita]

hi guys,what would you suggest as the cropping option for this portrait, maybe converting bw?
Thank you!!

[RoyL]

This is a nice photo, just a pity that it has that distracting red area in the background. It pays to double check before you press the button, just to make sure that there are no distractions in your composition. But nice image, makes for easier fixing.

I have cropped to what I think allows you to view both mother and son while still retaining that really nice pose.........



I also made some slight Curves adjustments and sharpened a little.

The Black and White conversion I used Camera Raw and applied various Film Emulsions to get some classic but nice B&W shots. I will post one here and if you follow the link below it will take you to my Flickr account where you can view the others. The one I have posted is in Daguerreotype ( a process developed in the 1800's by a frenchman) which is one of my favourites....


And the link

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22338756@N03/3417333564/

[ocnsprt]

ok before I start, this is gonna be real critical so please dont take offense because I do really like this shot, But I feel it needs some work. Is this pp yet? there is a distracting blur on her chin and jaw line, not to be nit picky but Id correct that if possible and they both look highly saturated. As far as crop, since we cant tell what that red thing is behind her shoulder, Id crop in tighter and keep the focus on them instead of whats in the bg bc it makes me look at the shot and think "what the heck is that" instead of what a cute picture of a kid and his mom. I like the color version, but it might look nice in banw to, If you dont mind I will post my version of the edits needed, if you do I will remove them. Here you go, hope you like (:

[LoveDSLR]

My cropped version (with chain removed):

[ocnsprt]

If you want to go b and w, this what the best I could come up with, it wasnt really working with mom in there, and I think, if you dont mind removing her, that this makes a great portrait of him. Would love to know what you think though.

[ingulita]

Hi all
thank you very much! I like both and bw in particular I've been trying to convert to bw in photoshp elements but wasn't happy with a result.
Photo has already been processed but not sure why it has so much noise on her face. I converted it from pse dng converter and I'm still learning what are the best presets for raw conversion.

could you please give a quick rundown on how do get the best effect convering to bw or recomended plug-in?

Thank you all

[ingulita]

Originally Posted by ocnsprt

If you want to go b and w, this what the best I could come up with, it wasnt really working with mom in there, and I think, if you dont mind removing her, that this makes a great portrait of him. Would love to know what you think though.

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i love this one and i don't mind removing me at all

it's a bit of a contrast between my smile and his sad face ( too tired from big day out).

So how did you get this conversion? i like the grain and overexposure.... thank you!

[ingulita]

Originally Posted by RoyL

This is a nice photo, just a pity that it has that distracting red area in the background. It pays to double check before you press the button, just to make sure that there are no distractions in your composition. But nice image, makes for easier fixing.

I have cropped to what I think allows you to view both mother and son while still retaining that really nice pose.........

I also made some slight Curves adjustments and sharpened a little.

The Black and White conversion I used Camera Raw and applied various Film Emulsions to get some classic but nice B&W shots. I will post one here and if you follow the link below it will take you to my Flickr account where you can view the others. The one I have posted is in Daguerreotype ( a process developed in the 1800's by a frenchman) which is one of my favourites....

And the link

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22338756@N03/3417333564/

one clever frenchman and thank you so much for putting up different versions.

When you say using camera Raw, does it mean you opened jepg in Camera Raw? (sorry for my ignorance

[ocnsprt]

Originally Posted by ingulita

i love this one and i don't mind removing me at all

it's a bit of a contrast between my smile and his sad face ( too tired from big day out).

So how did you get this conversion? i like the grain and overexposure.... thank you!

I took my original edit, which had alot more done to it after I pulled it off your page to bring out the eyes and make it pop a bit more, I cropped in really tight, created a new background layer (I have pse2 btw) and using the enhancements, removed the color, I then flattened and upped the contrast about 5%, and using the brush tool set to lighten, with the forground and bg colors set to white, I went over the area next to his ear where your hair was behind him. I then used the magnetic lasso tool to select a segment of his hair and created a new layer of it, drug it to behind his ear and played with the brush tool set to clear and made it look natural. Finally, to brighten up the shot I flattened all layers, then selected another background copy layer and set it to screen at 20% opacity, then flattened and saved for the b and w crop (: I am glad you liked it. The grain was already there, it was a very noisy shot when I pulled it off your flickr, Im not sure if this happened in you pp or your conversion or in camera, but I can remove some of it if you like, probly cant get all of it smooth though.

[ingulita]

Originally Posted by ocnsprt

I took my original edit, which had alot more done to it after I pulled it off your page to bring out the eyes and make it pop a bit more, I cropped in really tight, created a new background layer (I have pse2 btw) and using the enhancements, removed the color, I then flattened and upped the contrast about 5%, and using the brush tool set to lighten, with the forground and bg colors set to white, I went over the area next to his ear where your hair was behind him. I then used the magnetic lasso tool to select a segment of his hair and created a new layer of it, drug it to behind his ear and played with the brush tool set to clear and made it look natural. Finally, to brighten up the shot I flattened all layers, then selected another background copy layer and set it to screen at 20% opacity, then flattened and saved for the b and w crop (: I am glad you liked it. The grain was already there, it was a very noisy shot when I pulled it off your flickr, Im not sure if this happened in you pp or your conversion or in camera, but I can remove some of it if you like, probly cant get all of it smooth though.

heyaa, I'm going to start again with this photo and follow your steps, thank you !