Official Photography Thread

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Nice work as always, Swampfrog.

I ran down to the "office" for about 40 minutes yesterday to try and catch a glimpse of this guy. It's a Couch's kingbird. Typically limited to Mexico and South Texas, this is the first record of it in the state of Nevada. It was a crappy, bad light overcast day (we have 2-3 a year here) so getting a good shot was challenging. Can't say that I was very successful.

Couch's Kingbird.jpg

Also caught this Pied-billed grebe out for a swim.

Pied billed grebe.jpg

[wuapinmon]

Not the best shot, but it was almost dark, and the sky's reflection was very pretty.

[swampfrog]

Not the best shot, but it was almost dark, and the sky's reflection was very pretty.

That has a nice mood to it, the blue colors are very nice.

[Katy Lied]

Wow, Swampfrog. Just gorgeous. Especially the redhead. Brings new meaning to "her hair is her crown."


I guess this post belongs here.

I finally found out what app people are using to make themselves seem gorgeous. It's an ios app, so I didn't know about it until after I returned to the iphone universe after many years with android. I've had experience with photoshop and all of the lite photoshop software products, but this one is simply amazing. I used to hate retouching my photos- it was so tedious. Now I just edit them on my ipad while watching TV. The app is called facetune and is a bargain at $4.99. I guess it was made for amateurs to edit their own selfies, but it really helps me do my retouching. It also does real post processing (S-curves etc) but I havent tried that yet.

This model pic comes with the app. It took me about 15 minutes to raise her cheekbones, narrow her chin, straighten her nose, remove her skin flaws, smooth out her skin, whiten her teeth, enhance her eyes, and defocus some of her stray hair. I left two blemishes (one over her eyebrow and one on her cheek, and left some of the stray hair so that she didn't look too magazine-style finished. If I have one complaint with this-- I airbrushed her skin too much. And in raising her cheeks I made her eyes too almond shaped.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I can only see one photo, KL.

[swampfrog]

I can only see one photo, KL.

Better than me, I can't see either one?

[Pelado]

I can only see one photo, KL.

Better than me, I can't see either one?

I used to see one, now I see none. Tricky software you've got there, Katy.

[creekster]

I used to see one, now I see none. Tricky software you've got there, Katy.

I see both on tapatalk.

[Katy Lied]

Let's try again:

[swampfrog]

Looks a bit overprocessed though. PC application PerfectlyClear is pretty good with almost one-click portrait work.
Couple of minutes.

24919978885729c07b8db05e0e343610-Edit.jpg

[mtnbiker]

Looks a bit overprocessed though. PC application PerfectlyClear is pretty good with almost one-click portrait work.
Couple of minutes.

[ATTACH]5611[/ATTACH]

You both forgot to photoshop some clothes on that bare shoulder. What kind of site do you think JL's running here, anyway? Scandalous.

[Walter Sobchak]

Katy's Original // Gimp plugins G'MIC (1.6.0.4) + Tone Enhancer (self-authored):

Untitled.jpg

[Katy Lied]

I see what you guys mean about over processed. If Swampfrog doesn't mind, here is an illustration featuring his lovely daughter. (I added a watermark) Sorry I blew these up so large.

Here is his daughter with a very light skin smoothing. I tried to be as light as possible.


Here is the original photo without any smoothing by me. Her face has so many lovely lines and angles. It makes her face interesting, and more importantly, it makes her face unique. What the smoothing seems to do is deletes all of her facial angles. This means that her wrinkles disappear, but it makes her face go from 3 dimensional to 2 dimensional. I feel like we lose part of her unique look or identity. It's like botox for photographic portraits, and Kim Kardassian uses it all the time.



I also note that the gorgeous shadows cast onto her face by the morning light also become muted, making the portrait less interesting. So I guess that if your client wants you to make them look pinup perfect, you do a lot of retouching, but not so sure there is room for this in fine art photography.

[swampfrog]

I see what you guys mean about over processed. If Swampfrog doesn't mind, here is an illustration featuring his lovely daughter. (I added a watermark) Sorry I blew these up so large.

Here is his daughter with a very light skin smoothing. I tried to be as light as possible.


Here is the original photo without any smoothing by me. Her face has so many lovely lines and angles. It makes her face interesting, and more importantly, it makes her face unique. What the smoothing seems to do is deletes all of her facial angles. This means that her wrinkles disappear, but it makes her face go from 3 dimensional to 2 dimensional. I feel like we lose part of her unique look or identity. It's like botox for photographic portraits, and Kim Kardassian uses it all the time.



I also note that the gorgeous shadows cast onto her face by the morning light also become muted, making the portrait less interesting. So I guess that if your client wants you to make them look pinup perfect, you do a lot of retouching, but not so sure there is room for this in fine art photography.

This same daughter recently discovered FaceTune or something similar and exclaimed that why had she not discovered this before as it makes her look "flawless". I mentioned, yeah flawless like a plastic mannequin is flawless.

[wuapinmon]

That has a nice mood to it, the blue colors are very nice.

Thanks, that photo is unedited, by the way. KatyLied will surely mock my "Nikon colors."