Can I go now Dad?

Uploaded: August 28, 2004 08:03:09

Description

f/8, 250th, 28-135mm, home studio, This is poor suffering Storm, my daughter and the most photographed young lady in South Australia :-) I shot this in the studio (read double garage) as she was heading out for a night out on the town. Filtering done in Photoshop.


Comments

Wendy M. Amdahl level-deluxe August 28, 2004

Beautiful daughter you have there, Graham. Love the soft light and filters you used! #162987

Marie Fields August 28, 2004

Beautiful portrait! Your daughter is a very lovely young lady! #740927

Larry Lawhead level-deluxe August 28, 2004

WOW! Great shot, beautiful daughter. Love the overall colr in this shot!

Larry

#740951

Michelle R. Kovach August 28, 2004

Great shot! Beautiful young lady! You better watch out dad! LOL
I love the softness & lighting done here! Amazing job!
Have a great day!
Michelle #741002

Murry Grigsby August 28, 2004

You don't have a chance Dad :0) Lovely portrait and model Graham! Terrific pose, light and warm colors!! #741132

Graham Jones August 28, 2004

Thank you all for the heartening comments. Michelle and Murry - correct on both accounts. Dad does not have a chance! :-)

I've taken the opportunity to look through all of your galleries and have to say that I'm staggered at the quality of images that I see here at BP.

It is that quality that makes your comments so special. Keep up the great work guys and girls.

Kind regards, Graham #741629

Patricia Marroquin August 28, 2004

Stunning portrait, Graham! She's beautiful and you've captured her so wonderfully! :-) #741783

Jennifer A. Okamoto August 28, 2004

Graham, she is a beautiful young lady and this is a beautiful portrait. May I ask what filters you used to obtain this finished look? #741878

Graham Jones August 28, 2004

Hi Jennifer,
With the above shot the filtering was done in Photoshop. As follows:
- Create a copy of the base layer by dragging the background layer onto the "new layer" icon
- With the new layer selected, apply filters>distort>diffuse glow. You will need to play around with the levels but the following is a good guide. Graininess 1, Glow 3, Clear 17
- Apply filters>blur>gaussian blur. About 15
- Now drop the opacity of the copied layer to about 50 percent.
- To keep the eyes, nostrils and mouth sharp, I then add a mask to the copied layer and "paint" out those areas with a brush set to black. This allows the sharp image behind to show through.
- Now flatten the image and if you like you can desaturate by about 80 percent and add a warming filter to it.
Simple really :-) and very flattering.
By the way, had a look at your work. Terrific stuff. Do you earn much from your stock photography?
kind regards, Graham #741885

Jennifer A. Okamoto August 29, 2004

Graham, I thank you very much for sharing this information with me. I am just starting to get into Photoshop. It has such a steep learning curve. I am constantly amazed as to what one can do with Photoshop. I have a degree in Photography but it is all chemically based, so digital is a new thing to me.

Your portraits in your gallery are wonderful. As for me, I am trying to break into Stock Photography and am taking Bryan Peterson's One Year Course thru BP. My website is set up the way that it is, so that stock agencies see the photographs that have been approve by Bryan. However, I have not been signed with an agency at this time. It is my hope that by the end of the year, that will happen. It is a very competitive market to break into.

Regarding your daughter, how do you convince her to model for you? My 15 thinks I am crazy, while my 10 year old is willing, but not older enough for the photos that I want to create. #743274

Darren Smith August 29, 2004

Blimey Graham, this is awesome. The image is superb, and it shows that your daughter is photographed so much as she is a natural.

Great effects too, nice job! #743446

Jennifer A. Okamoto August 29, 2004

Graham, after trying your techniques, I have realized that not much of this photo was truly created in photoshop. This beautiful lighting on your beautiful daughter was created at the time of making the image. Great job. I am truly mesmerized by the elegance of this photo. Kudos to you and your daughter. #743493

Graham Jones August 30, 2004

Oh dear,
Much as I appreciate the kind comments from all of you I have to set the record straight here. Jennifer I can assure you that yes the basic lighting must be done at the time of the shoot. there is simply no way around that but...
As you will see from the before picture (and Storm will kill me if she sees this posting) Storm was having a bad skin day on this particular occasion. Photoshop can be used to do a great deal of cleaning-up and mood setting with subtle colourations and softening.
I hope this does not disappoint too many of you. At least be heartened if you are starting to learn Photoshop. It is a really cool tool but only a means to an end.

regards, Graham #744098

Dale Ann Cubbage August 31, 2004

Graham, your portrait work is fabulous! Love your lighting, and your tecnique for setting the "mood" in photoshop. I work under not so perfect lighting conditions, and have to create a little magic in photoshop quite often! So I can truly appreciate the work that went into this! Great job!

da #747632

R.M. Fusco September 03, 2004

Wonderful portrait, Graham! I tried your technique on a still image of mine and it turned out very nice; better than the original. I do have a question about the last step you talked about. Where will I find the warming filter you mentioned? Thank you for your help.
Regards, Annie
A.K.A. at BP as R.M. Fusco #753998

Graham Jones September 03, 2004

Hi Annie, thank you for the kind words. That last reference was intended to be a generic one. In Photoshop CS there are specific photo filters design to simulate the effect of real lens filters. Two are warming filters, 81 and 85. In earlier versions of photoshop you would need to use another method to apply a blanket warming to the picture. I just tried one technique as follows:
create a new layer at the top of the stack and fill it with the following colour value (RGB) r=236, g=138, b=0.
You can type the values directly into the colour picker.
Make the layer type 'colour' and reduce the opacity to around 15% depending on what amount of colouration you wish to apply.

If using Photoshop CS ignore all of the above and try those photofilters :-). Good luck, Graham #754359

Donna La Mattino Pagakis September 13, 2004

Congratulations on your finalist photo!! This image is very beautiful and the effects are unreal!! Well done!! #774826

Jennifer A. Okamoto September 13, 2004

Congratulations, Graham. Once again, I want to let you know that I think this is a wonderful photo. I hope that your daughter is proud of it. #774992

Dale Ann Cubbage September 13, 2004

Congrats Graham!!! #775545

Nicole Grimsley September 14, 2004

Congrats, Graham! You deserve it! #778844

Patricia Marroquin September 14, 2004

Congrats, Graham! :-) #779231

Graham Jones September 14, 2004

Thank you all for the congrats and kind comments. Lets all make life difficult for the judges next month
;-) Jonesy #781025

Karen Kulin September 16, 2004

Another incredible photo Graham! I have been absolutely astounded by all of them. I love the lighting effects! You truly have a knack for portrait photography and also for Photo Shop.

Did you take a class or is this all by the "trial and error" method? The program overwhelms me so I've been thinking about a Better Photo class.

I'll be looking for more of your amazing photo's.

Karen #784801

Dale Ann Cubbage September 16, 2004

Congrats on being featured in the newsletter, Graham! #785283

Graham Jones September 16, 2004

Thank you Karen. I think I'm just a bit lucky with all this. Obviously what I like to see in an image also appeals to others. Photoshop has been trial and error for me but I did bite the bullet and purchase a book called WOW for Photoshop 6. I learnt much from that publication :-)

Dale Ann thanks for the heads-up. I didn't know so had to go looking in all the newsletters. How nice :-) Hopefully someone can use the info!

see you all soon, Jonesy #785947

Susana Matos September 26, 2004

Congratulations, great work and I do appreciate to know how you´ve done it! Well deserved finalist!
Cheers from Portugal, Su #805937

February 10, 2005

I LOVE IT!!! nothing else to say but I love it. I tried but didnt get near what you got! #1096496

February 10, 2005

I LOVE IT!!! nothing else to say but I love it. I tried but didnt get near what you got! #1096498

Dean Burke level-classic December 30, 2020

Beautiful portrait, very well done. #11862251

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