Four Square

August 22nd, 2007

Over on Stills, we’ve been discussing how bright skin tones can go. I’m not in disagreement with the general statement that sometimes my skin-tones are too bright, but I wondering what to do about it. Colin, introduced the idea that it isn’t necessarily the absolute tonal value, but where it lands and how much of it there is. That sounds like a promising line of investigation. On that note, what do we think of these? Originals on top, modified versions on bottom.

Delta 100 #1, Hexar RF, 50 Hex, Delta 100 @ 50, Tmax Dev Delta 100 #2, Hexar RF, 50 Hex, Delta 100 @ 50, Tmax Dev

Better now?

Delta 100 #1, Hexar RF, 50 Hex, Delta 100 @ 50, Tmax Dev Delta 100 #2, Hexar RF, 50 Hex, Delta 100 @ 50, Tmax Dev

Thoughts on this appreciated.

Posted by matt Filed in Photos, B&W Technique

4 Responses to “Four Square”

  1. Oren Grad Says:
    August 22nd, 2007

    Matt, I took both versions of the right-hand picture into Photoshop and played with them a bit. I don’t think it’s fixable - there’s only so much you can do with this light.

    A technical point - both of the jpgs are clipping in the highlights, which doesn’t help.

    More generally, tonal scale is very much a matter of taste. Much of the time you seem to like a very harsh, contrasty scale that throws away detail in both shadows and highlights. Colin often likes to make the highlights sparkle while letting the shadows go soft and murky. I tend to prefer a very long, “full information” scale that’s soft but open from top to bottom. Three different approaches, to suit different ways of seeing.

  2. matt Says:
    August 22nd, 2007

    Oren, thanks for the input. I’d not have thought of my taste as running to contrasty, but I guess it could be read that way.

    Unless we read histograms differently, I’m only seeing a very small amount of highlight clipping; just a slight bit on the edge of her glasses, and a little on the edge of her hand.

    When I look at this by eyeball, I still see detail everywhere - except on a macbook screen - but perhaps that is beside the point. As colin pointed out on Stills, the brightness draws the eye away from the face, which trumps all the technical considerations.

    I like this photo enough that I might rescan it to even out the tonal range a bit.

  3. Oren Grad Says:
    August 22nd, 2007

    >>As colin pointed out on Stills, the brightness draws the eye away from the face, which trumps all the technical considerations.

  4. josh Says:
    December 3rd, 2007

    these look pretty much the same on my monitor, the first ones look a bit better. ur skin tones are very white but there’s nothing wrong with that
    -josh

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