Parenting Magazine is having a contest for the cover of the magazine. the contest ends today. So my wife and I took our newest addition, Vienna over to the park for a nice, quick shot. I was rather tired and forgot to reset the camera settings. The result is, I ended up with iso 800. =(
Processing was as follows:
-opened in CaptureNX,
-Added white and black control points and adjusted WB
-added control point to (her)left side of face to brighten
-added control point to eyes to brighten
-saved as tif
-opened in PS
-slightly adjusted curves (for PS import, it always seems to change the image a bit)
-added control point with nik Viveza to lighten dress
-unsharp mask on layer copy of BG
This is the original shot:
I am still learning pp in PS, however imo, the color (and saturation) I get from Capture NX (with the D300) cannot be matched by ACR in PS without a lot of work. On one hand I feel like I’m cheating with control points (sometimes), while on the other, it is a fantastic tool.
I agree that the white blanket is empty space on the right. You have done a very sweet job of bringing her little face to the front of the image. Maybe the iso actually helped with blurring the absolute sharpness that could have made any little imperfection show up in her complexion. It's a good image now.
Wishing you the best in the effort to make the cover.
Roz: wow, good call on the facial markings. for the first
shots we couldnt keep her away from the grass. she just kept trying to eat it, which would make those marks a cross of dew and grass stains (with some naturally fair skin). lol
Ann: i strongly dislike the UI of CNX. However i think it gets the best color from the nikon dslrs. The only adjustments i usually make in CNX is a dark & light control points (according to histogram, highlights, & shadows) and possibly a control point or two. so not much to know!
I'll give it a crop and repost just for curiosity, your's and mine (i didn't think of it before, thanks for the c&C).
I agree with everything Roz offered. She is a doll!!!!
Your work turned out beautifully. I agree about the crop. I think I would crop it to the aspect ratio of the cover of Parenting Magazine; suggesting, obviously, not only is the child, but the image, is ready for the cover.
Well, with ISO 800 and f/3.5 in the sun, you're not going to get any motion blur with an active kid :P
I've never figured out how to use CaptureNX, but it seems to be working for you. The conversion is lovely (as is the shot). I might consider cropping off some of the white blanket on the right. It doesn't add anything to the final image.
vienna is a beautiful model ..
her pose and expression are just gorgeous ..
love the original and the processed version is spot on ..
good luck in the contest .. this would look wonderful on the cover of a magazine on parenting .. love the suggestion of left over food/dirt/wotever on her cheeks .. :)
i might be tempted to crop out a fair bit of the surrounding background but i havent tried it so i'm not absolutely sure .. its great the way its cropped now, with the background showing her environment, but cropping it might give more emphasis to her .. ??..:)
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