I was reviewing some images from a recent shoot while trying to pick one to share on social media when I came across an image of Carly that I really liked. It was nice overall and I really liked the way that Carly was running her hand through her hair. I decided to make this my pick to share online.
I always evaluate images when I begin the retouching process and I had 3 things I wanted to do:
1. I knew when I was working with Carly that the skin tones and the color of the wall were very similar. I decided at the time that it would still make a nice finished image in color, I wanted to convert it to black and white.
2. I needed to avoid the window that was near Carly's feet because I didn't want to overexpose the image and throw off the balance. I had limited space in the corner next to the window, so I posed Carly with her knees pulled in towards her to make good use of the limited space.
3. On the right side of the image area, the wall and door frame were distracting, so I knew I had to fix that.
During my retouching, I was able to shift Carly left just a bit so that it wouldn't look like her dress was cut off on the left edge. I used the window frame on the left side and duplicated it onto the right side of the image area and a balanced out the shadows on the far right so that it would not take focus away from Carly. The two vertical lines act as a frame within the image area to bring focus in.
Finally, I converted the color to black and white and made some local adjustments to brighten up the overall image while retaining some of the overall contrast. Brightening up the skin tones give Carly skin a porcelain look.
Nowadays people like to use filters to make quick adjustments to their photos; but it should be noted that filters apply the same change to every photo regardless of the subject. Your results should be unique and individualized. And isn't that why you hire a professional photographer? You will pay more, but you'll get something unique and have a great experience along the way, too.
As always, feel free to message me if you have any questions.
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