David Coulthard Portrait

[Darryn]

Please help me, Ive got a Portrait photo I took last year that Im very happy with, but I feel it could be improved using some decent processing, I want to get the photo printed A3 and get it signed in 2 weeks.
I know that processing photos is one of my weakest points and I would very much appreciate one of you having a bash at improving the shot.

http://www.dreederuk.com/Gallery/albums/album10/MG_4655.sized.jpg

20D Raw (8mb) (http://www.dreederuk.com/ocukpics/_MG_4655.CR2)

Thanks anyone willing to have a bash, please let me know how you have achieved any results, so I can learn.

[stepheno]

Hi - the link to the RAW file doesn't work for me :(

regards

[Gandhi]

Can't get the origial raw dude. some sort of problemo!

[Darryn]

Cheers guys, ive sorted the link. I hope.

[stepheno]

Had a go with the re-sized image. The levels looked fine, tweaked curves for a bit of contrast and a light sharpen.

http://www.oboyle.plus.com/tpf/coulthard.jpg

regards

[fingerz]

Here's my attempt:

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/2552/coulthard1wm.jpg


By the way, did I mention I like brown?

[Gandhi]

http://www.tpfgallery.com/gallery2/d/14551-1/take1.jpg


Unfortunately the image is very soft Probably as a result of shooting at 1/30 & 100+mm, there is definate camera shake. I think that no matter how you process it, it won't hold up at A3 as the blur will be very noticeable. sorry.

oops. forgot to add processing info!

Exposure is pretty spot on, but possibly could've done with a bit of fill flash and shouting 'OY, DAVID!!!!' so he looked up!

Just raised the fill light in RSE to lighten the midtones a touch.

then into cs2 and.....

copied layer, de-saturated, inverted and overlayed with gaussian blur at 250px to adjust contrast,

resized bicubic sharper and then did a high pass sharpen at 1px.

[Hacker]

I double dare you to ask him to sign this one :naughty:

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f273/HackerUK/MG_4655.jpg

[DJW]

Did I say like Mono ;)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v178/djw_666/TPF/Coulthard-SRGB2.jpg

[fingerz]

You're all losing skin detail on the nose, man. It's killing me here ;)

[DJW]

Is that better oh Eagle Eyes ;)

[fingerz]

Now it looks all HDR.

[DJW]

LOL....can't please em all.....Mr Brown ;)

[Bachs]

David might be more flattered with this one...

http://www.steve-perks.com/gfx/forumposts/david.jpg

[Darryn]

Thanks for the attempts folk, the general feedback is A3 is pushing it too much, ive already got an A4 print so I will not waste money getting it reprinted.

Exposure is pretty spot on, but possibly could've done with a bit of fill flash and shouting 'OY, DAVID!!!!' so he looked up!


Im better equipped for indoor portrait work this year, i will be using a 1dmkII with a 50mm F1.8 and 580ex, instead of 20D with 100-400L and builtin flash. Using the 50mm, I will be much closer and therefore more able to get his attention.

[leoedin]

I like Bachs approach - its quite good at reducing the square head syndrome apparent in many F1 drivers

Michael:http://vne-resource.iol.co.za/30/images/wallpaper/1024_Michael_Schumacher.jpg

see :D

[Bachs]

The good old liquify tool.

It can be very flattering or very cruel :naughty:

[pxl8]

Here's my effort:

http://www.pxl8.co.uk/dc_fix.jpg

Processed the raw file in RSP

EC +0.3
Fill light 15
Shadow Contrast 29
Highlight Contrast -17
Levels min=12, max=255
White balance taken from logo on DC's shirt.
Saturation -31%

In PSPX
Ran Noise Ninja (auto profiled image)
Ran Focus Magic to recover some sharpness (blur radius of 2px)
Duplicated layer, set blend mode to Soft Light, Gaussian Blur of 64px, Reduced layer opacity to 67%

The soft areas are subject movement so there's not really anything that can be done to sort that out. I doubt it would print very well at A3 but A4 should be ok.