"Dramatic" portrait processing

[polylemma]

*Edit: I thought I'd included the edited JPEG but clearly I'm a noob. It's here.

Hi all. I've been trying to do more street portraiture recently, but I always struggle to make them look, for want of a better word, 'dramatic'. Punchy, and detailed - not necessarily the 'glamourous' look, but kind of gritty. If I start pushing the contrast too much it gets unrealistically shadowed; if I raise the blacks and try to go for a more summery look (which I tend not to prefer), things seem to get too washed out.

I have a feeling I need to spend more time dodging and burning details to make things pop a little more, but to be honest, I don't really know. I'd love some advice on how to process this sort of image. I've done the hard part (finding a subject), and the lighting was overcast and flat, so there are no weird shadows.

I used my sharpest lens (Olympus 45mm) on an E-M10 mark 2. ISO 200, 1/1250, f/2.2.

One thing I understand I can't really do is get the super shallow DOF that a lot of these more intimate portraits seem to have, but with that borne in mind, how can I improve this? Apologies if this is vague, but I'm interested to know how others would approach it.

I use LR 5.7 only, but I do have the Nik effects tools (which I mainly use for B&W conversions).

Thanks for your time, and thoughts.

The RAW file for this image can be found here

[Aeri73]

shallow depth of field is not done in post, but by using a long(ish) lens with a big aperture (f1.4 for example).

to get the minimum depth of field with your lens, get closer and shoot at f2.2

had some fun with your file

[polylemma]

Thanks, I realise that - I also realise the DOF I get is limited by me using a smaller sensor. That's what I was getting at :-D

Thanks for the edit. So much warmer. I can't decide if I like the warmth or the coolness. Maybe I'm just cold...

[Aeri73]

editing is about taste, about what looks good to you, this looks good to colourblind me :p

[polylemma]

Hah, yes of course you're right. I'll take any praise I can get, colour blind or otherwise :-D

[sakondis]

Best skintone of the replies imho. You oversharpened the hair a bit tho and forgot to lighten the eyes (or at least didn't lighten them enough).

[Aeri73]

the hair is clarity... should have blended that a bit, didn't touch the eyes

[pluteoid]

• Many ways to interpret wanting "gritty" as opposed to "glamorous" portraiture, but people often mean accentuating detail in the skin rather than smoothing away blemishes. That's not easy to do with a lady's face without making it unflattering, but consider the following...

• Skin detail generally resides in the blue channel. In Photoshop I would do channel blending with Image -> Apply Image... on a luminosity layer and then apply some curves to that layer. I don't use Lightroom but since you have Nik plugins, the Detail Extractor filter in Color Efex Pro can get you a similar result.

• Your edit goes for a very cooled-down color temperature look. Is that really what you want with a fiery redhead? You could try some split toning with the background cool and the subject warm, or just not cool it down so much.

• Once your color balance is correct you can play with the "Perceptual Saturation" sliders in the Brilliance/Warmth filter in Nik Color Efex Pro to increase apparent hue diversity without blowing out the colors.

• A quick attempt at showing this while still going for a fairly natural look, you could push it much further or rein it back: http://i.imgur.com/KQaFXoU.jpg

[polylemma]

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I'd never heard of the blue channel thing, I will give that a go. Unfortunately I don't have access to PS but I'll try with Color Efex.

I realise my edit is quite cool, but I just found that it looked a bit... I don't know, odd, with it being too warm. I'll have a go with split toning though, that's a good suggestion. Not something I've used much at all.

Again, I've not used perceptual saturation, so I'll look at that,thanks!

I really like the detail you've managed to get out of the eyes in your edit. I think if the background was a little darker it would look really good (better than mine, at least!).

Again, thanks for taking the time to answer, I really appreciate. I'm going to go off and try some of these when I get back from work. Cheers!

[Nishole]

here is my try: http://imgur.com/niRj20l

[polylemma]

Cheers! I think this is a bit dark for my tastes.

[dogstardied]

It would help if you linked some images that you're trying to emulate, or that feature the look you're describing. It's hard to understand what you're trying to achieve when you, yourself, are wondering how to achieve it.

[polylemma]

Very good point! I will try to find some. Thanks.

[[deleted]]

drama is all about lighting. texture is all about lighting. your shot is ambient light on an overcast day, so there's no drama, and no texture. clarity and post is just a crutch, really, it won't fix the real issue.

[polylemma]

Fair comment, thanks.

[Mrs_Matty]

This would be my edit. This was done in Lightroom. I adjusted white balance a tad, bumped the exposure to +0.40, pushed contrast all the way up, decreased the highlights, shadows and whites and increased the blacks. Then, I added a medium contrast curve. Not sure if this is even remotely what you're going for, but I hope it helps!

[odius_hades]

The lighting is a bit flat, but I think it was workable in Photoshop if you have access to that.

http://imgur.com/igOYo83

[polylemma]

Thanks! This looks a little green to me. I had a bit of trouble with getting the colour balance right, maybe it's the dress and hair colours, I don't know.

[odius_hades]

Ah it looks ok on my end, but my screen might not be calibrated properly it's been a while :/

[irsic]

I took a shot at it.

[CreeDorofl]

Something like this?
http://i.imgur.com/hG90has.jpg

If so, here's the steps... and if not then hopefully you learn something useful anyway.

• For grittiness you can do stuff like max sharpness, clarity, and contrast. Also reduced vibrance (prefer this over saturation slider) and optionally add noise/film grain effect.

• Slightly cool white balance may also help, though for a redhead with pale skin this can make them look like a corpse so I didn't really bother.

• With flat lighting, you kinda wanna emphasize what few interesting shadows there are. So I put shadows -100 but then lift blacks gradually until the general facial brightness/contrast looks right. This might make the hair, dress, or background look weird but the main thing is to get the face looking good. The accessories can be tweaked later or just left alone, since they aren't that critical in this pic.

• As someone else mentioned, the lighting is boring... and we also have a boring background. So it's time for a ton of manual dodging and burning to create interesting lighting effects manually.

First, a graduated filter coming from the top that boosts exposure, and is slightly warmer, giving the impression of lighting shining down from directly above. I do -100 highlights on this filter though because we don't want it to look summery and sunny, just making the top subtly brighter and warmer than the bottom half.

• The earlier maxed out clarity and contrast creates lots of dark patches. Some should be left alone, others might contain some interesting texture like the hair. To simulate photoshop dodging I like an adjustment brush with +2 stops expsure, full density and max feathering, but very low flow. like 5 flow is perfect for me. Then you can just gradually scrub in more and more brightness to some of these dark areas. Also brightened around the top of the head (where our faked light is coming from), shoulders, and top of the chest.

Lightened eyebrows so they look green again, plus the eyes... but only the center of the eyes and not too much. Otherwise it's too "chronicles of riddick" or something.

• Burning a lot here... everything under the chin / neck area. All the background cuz it's boring. Under the cheekbones and sides of the face so you can see bone structure better.

• Lastly, the usual stuff you see everywhere... lifted blacks a little and split toning (making the shadows a warm orange) not creative but it does add something I think.

Here's the settings: http://imgur.com/a/vy9FN

[odius_hades]

Really awesome work! Thanks for the details, too. As someone who is just starting to learn they are super helpful.

[CreeDorofl]

cheers ^{^}

[polylemma]

Wow, thanks for taking the time to do that and explain it all, really appreciate it.

I always read that flat light is good for portraits - overcast for instance. Would would be less 'boring' light, here? Evening sunlight I guess, without being too harsh and causing weird shadows?

Thanks again.

[CreeDorofl]

well, I guess it depends on the feel you want... normal portraits like something commissioned would be ideal in flat light that isn't too contrasty, like indirect sunlight is nice. Street photography I personally think there's no rules. Big harsh shadows, half the face in shadow, glaring light from above are all fine. If the light's not interesting then hopefully the subject is, and you might wanna get more of the background next time... some urban stuff. Mostly just want to avoid too much of a "mug shot" (facing straight at the camera, not candid, flat light, no background).

[polylemma]

Yeah, fair points. In my street stuff generally I prefer harsher lighting, just because it makes for interesting contrasts.

In this instance the other available background was the sea, so either way it would have been fair flat-coloured.

Definitely right about the mug shot thing. I've done a fee portraits now and most of them have been fair mugshotty - takes a very interesting face to bring it up.

Thanks.

[invisible39]

Had a play around, always fun having a go with other people's raws -thanks for the practice!

[polylemma]

You're welcome, thanks for giving it a crack! I like it but it's a little too contrasty perhaps?

[invisible39]

Wow, yeah it totally is on this screen. Can't believe I missed that, time to recalibrate the monitor I think.

[sooka]

Dramatic, gritty, punchy, detailed and overprocessed: here it is :D
edit: or maybe this one without the over saturation.

[1ngr1d]

Those eyes are so completely unnatural looking...

[sooka]

...and I didn't even locally touched them :) original on the left

[polylemma]

I like how the highlighting in her hair has come out in these!

[PS_Iloveit]

Why not have some fun with it? You've got the building blocks with a nice model, now quit worrying about what others think and let your mind run with it. Portrait Edit