Stephanie II

[Chris of Arabia]

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2757/4476407225_53190dc744_o.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris-of-arabia/4476407225/)

This is another shot of Stephanie taken back in February. For this image though I was trying to follow the CBrush (http://www.cbrush.com/) workflow tutorial as much as possible in all its intricate detail (and over the space of 3 days and the best part of 4-5 hours). I be first to say that this was more of a learning exercise for me and the result, whilst acceptable, does have room for improvement in it.

What I have found is that this workflow needs an awful lot of practice to make it second nature, more than that you begin to see how the use of multiple layers can impact each other massively; a seemingly sensible decision early on, can be hard work to unpick later once additional steps have been taken. It has been useful though in introducing me to new parts of Photoshop, and I will take much away that I can use in future pieces of work, particularly some of the many other images I took of Stephanie that day.

[mrdemin]

Nice shot, pretty girl... I just wish she her skin tones didn't match the wall and she stood out more.
-says the noob

[ann]

and i on the other hand like the muted tones, very delicate

[Fox Paw]

I love this. Great expression...well nigh perfect.

[MissMia]

I, also, like the muted tones. I'd just like to see the eye color a tad brighter. Her left eye looks a little dark, IMHO.

[Chris of Arabia]

Thanks for the comments. This was very much a first try with this workflow and I know some things aren't quite right. Her left eye was one area where I was having a little difficulty getting it to look right - it was even darker when I started, but trying to work out exactly how far to brighten it before it began to look weird was a bit of a feat - one I didn't quite succeed with apparently. I'll have to think about the skin tones comment, may be I just need to lift the brightness a little to get it to stand out some more. Plenty of things to practice then.

[Christie Photo]

This was very much a first try with this workflow...

I'm not sure what I'm seeing. At first, it seemed to be a lighting issue and not work flow: the shadows under the brow, nose and lower lip. Not so much the depth of the shadows... that's fine; rather the direction of the shadows. It seems that the light is falling nearly straight down on her. When I squint my eyes it becomes more apparent.

But the catch light.... the one in her right eye.... where is that coming from? That indicates the light source is a bit out in front of her... like butterfly lighting. So why isn't there more light under the brows? And where's the catch light in her left eye? Hmmmm.....

Did you try a crop in from the left? That column, as cool-looking as it is, occupies about have of the composition. Just a thought.

I too like the homogenized look of color and tones. It really brings my attention to her dark eyes and hair.

-Pete

[Chris of Arabia]

To be honest, the way her left eye has ended up lit puzzles me too, as it's entirely natural and outdoors under an overcast sky, no flash, no reflectors. I also made a point of not shooting in a direction facing the sun. The catch light if it's coming from anywhere, was from the cloudy sky. The building is Fleetwood lighthouse (http://www.flickr.com/photos/97171476@N00/2378280276/), which wouldn't appear to account for anything. So all in all, I'm not too sure what account for her left eye being darker. The only thing I can think is that her right eye is slightly more open and/or that her eyelashes on her other eye are covering where the catch-light would be.

As far as the crop goes, I can juggle with that to suit, but that wasn't my main thinking here, more trying to work with the CBrush stuff and see how it worked.