In the Mirror

This image is of a young girl, maybe almost a teenager, after she had just had her face painted and was admiring herself in the mirror. I think the uncropped version tells the story better, but the closeup lets you see her eyes a little more clearly, so I couldn't choose.

Camera info: Nikon D200, 70 -200mm 2.8 lens at f4 and 1/50th, ISO 100, cloudy whitebalance

Post processing: duplicated the background layer and cloned out some bright neon string bracelets on her wrist, duplicated that layer in softlight at 70%, selected and attempted (unsuccessfully!) to change the blue lines in the upper right but did manage to darken them, Touch of Light on her face, Levels for global brightening, Creamsickle by Kubota but masked off skin, Bring Out the Eyes, the Edge for global sharpening, the High Pass filter in Overlay for more detail.

the Flowergirl

I thought I remembered Larry taking a wonderful portrait of this girl but for some reason he did not include it in his Body of Work. It has been so long since we went to the Festival that I cannot remember which shots I used my flash on a stick with...possibly on this one but I am not sure, it could be just ambient light. I really need to take a notebook and record such things but that makes another piece of gear to juggle also.
Camera info: Nikon D200, 70 - 200mm 2.8 lens at f3.5 and 1/350th, ISO 400, cloudy whitebalance
Post processing: duplicated the background layer and used the spot healing brush to touch up her face and the clone tool in lighten to lighten her undereye area, Touch of Light on her eyes and teeth and Bring Out the Eyes, Punch Drunk to boost colors but masked off face, the Edge for global sharpening and the High Pass filter for sharpening her face.

The Feathered Hat

Another portrait from the Renaissance Festival. Shirley had just taken this woman's portrait and they were looking at it on the LCD when I noticed her interesting profile and how the sun was filtering through the feathers on her hat. She makes and sells those hats, and I can't remember the price but do recall that they are not inexpensive, to say the least. I also shot her looking straight at me but prefer this perspective more although I wish it was a complete profile and that I had not caught her right eye at all. I like this portrait in both black and white and in color and wondered what others think of the two versions.

Camera info: Nikon D200, 70 -200mm 2.8 lens at f3.7 and 1/80th, ISO 100, cloudy whitebalance

Post processing: cloned out distractions, selected her lime green glove and changed the hue to dark green, merged the layers then duplicated it in softlight at 60% opacity, Colorbalance layer to reduce the orange/gold cast a little, Levels layer to reduce brightness but masked off face to retain it there, Levels to brighten her face a little more, Curves for more contrast, created a new layer and used a brush in softlight mode to darken some bright feathers, sharpened with the Edge. For the black and white version I added an adjustment layer in black and white with the green filter.