Portrait - PP advice etc. requested

[Alison]

My neighbour, Phil, always spends the early evenings reading a newspaper on the bench in his front garden surrounded by his horde of doting hounds. His wife complains that she hasn’t got any “natural” photos of him so I grabbed this one for her yesterday. I liked the way the sunlight shone across his face and shoulders. Not quite candid as he clocked me just before I pressed the shutter but at least he’s not looking uncomfortable or posed (to my eye at least – what do you think? Constructive criticism would be much appreciated and thoroughly taken onboard so please be brutally frank).

I did a 2 pass lab sharpen on the RAW image before cropping, resizing for the forum and converting to Jpeg but not sure whether it might be a bit strong and unflattering. Just to put things into context, he’s 68 years old and his skin is a little sallow and lined due to a recent course of chemotherapy.

Any ideas as to how I might improve the PP on this would be very welcome. It will be for print so ought I to do something in terms of CMYK? :shrug: I have the unedited original if anyone would like to see it – and maybe show me how to do a proper job!

 

[will69]

I think it is a bit over sharpened.

The lighting is very strong (looks like mid day is by the shadows under his nose), difficult to improve this in PP.

CMYK is a print colour space used by professional printers. Unless you are sending to a printer you do not need to worry about CMYK, Inkjet and print labs work in a RGB or sRGB colour space (and you do not really need to worry about the differences between these either).

 

[boabbruce]

He is too much in the centre of the frame for me, I had a play with it in PS,extended the canvas on the right and cloned in some bushes,cropped a little more of the newspaper out and tweaked the contrast a little too.I can send you the edited version to give you an idea of how that would look.Hope you don't mind me editing? I haven't posted it up just incase

 

[Alison]

I think it is a bit over sharpened.

The lighting is very strong (looks like mid day is by the shadows under his nose), difficult to improve this in PP.

CMYK is a print colour space used by professional printers. Unless you are sending to a printer you do not need to worry about CMYK, Inkjet and print labs work in a RGB or sRGB colour space (and you do not really need to worry about the differences between these either).

I printed the above version out this evening Will and you were right – no need to worry about the colour business, it looked fine although it could’ve done with a bit of a saturation boost. Maybe that’s down to the printer or the paper I used :shrug:

I wasn’t sure about the sharpening (hence the reason for posting) so it’s interesting to note that you agree. Funnily enough the harsh sharpening didn’t translate to print and turned out just a nice tad softer.

I hadn’t noticed the nose shadows until you mentioned them but now see the chin ones too! The exif backs up my recollection and the shot was taken at 17:30h. I swear that this village exists in some kind of parallel universe: the sun does mad things (makes it look like noon at early evening) and don’t even get me started on weather and “micro-climates”. In the month of June, whilst places only 2 miles distant are sweltering, it might be snowing in the front garden here yet have bright sunshine just outside the back door. We also get the Northern Lights or something looky-likey throughout the year even though this is the midlands – go figure

I took this shot for Phil’s wife and it was specifically taken to portray the guy in his favourite situation at his favourite time of day, remit = “natural” and unposed (i.e. candid) so a reflector was out of the question. In an ideal world he’d at least have been wearing a white T-shirt.

He is too much in the centre of the frame for me, I had a play with it in PS,extended the canvas on the right and cloned in some bushes,cropped a little more of the newspaper out and tweaked the contrast a little too.I can send you the edited version to give you an idea of how that would look.Hope you don't mind me editing? I haven't posted it up just incase

How subjective these things are! Part of the reason I so love photography and the feedback here on TP The original, whilst not exactly “rule of thirds”, was deliberately composed with more greenery to the right and I cropped it out to make him more central :bonk:

I’d love to see your take boabbruce so please post it here so that I can have a look. I really appreciate the time you must’ve taken to edit the image

Thanks to you both for the crit and advice which has been very constructive, helpful and interesting. In light of your comments I’m going to prime Mrs Phil to dress her hubby in white from the neck down next weekend which will hopefully rid my shots of the unflattering shadows and give this another go.